I’m at this conference at the invitation of Wilson Chow and the conference committee. It’s one of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of HKU’s Faculty of Law. It’s great to be back in HK and meet colleagues and friends in the Faculty, and talk over projects. More of that later.
After welcomes, the first keynote is from Jeff Giddings, Monash U, on ‘If you build, it will they come? Innovation and Sustainability in Clinical Legal Education’. He spoke via video conference. Jeff is well known for his work on clinic (especially at Griffith U) and his publications on clinical teaching, and this talk focused on his experiences of developing clinical learning at Monash. Monash guarantees all JD students clinical experience. It includes the Monash Law Clinic and Family Law Clinic. The guarantee doesn’t include work integrated learning, nor does it mandate participation, but it does introduce intensity, duration, and responsibility to the classroom component of legal education. The guarantee was originally Peter Joy’s idea, in 2016, and taken up by staff – cautiously, at first. Jeff mentioned business case, external consultants, sequenced approvals by dean & faculty manager, executive, leadership group, alignment with university-level initiatives. Just typing this makes my enthusiasm wilt, but Jeff emphasises the importance of sustaining momentum through all this work. And as he pointed out, the university did provide capital funding for the clinical experiences. He felt it was important to invite all faculty colleagues to participate, met regularly with them, and use the ‘honeymoon’ period, build a core team and start creating key appointments – associate dean, project manager, et .
The clinical placement unit’s new offerings include anti-death penalty, international economic law (TradeLab), Australian Law Reform Commission, law reform, modern slavery, climate defence, and innovation start-ups. In Osgoode we have 19 clinics, formed on a different model, but with the same wide array of clinical experience for JD students. Jeff emphasised that equality of opportunity and balancing workload was important for both students and faculty. To ensure that, Jeff started a ‘Parity Project’. Interesting idea, very practical and important for the growth of clinic. Growth so far has exceeded targets – in 2018, target 200, actual 287. In 2019, target 385, actual 418. Impressive. New collaborations as below.
Jeff emphasises building on strengths & networks, offering diversity of practice settings, developing depth and intensity of experience, integrating classroom knowledge and reflective experiences. He advised consulting early & widely, being mindful of turf sensitivities, encourage ownership, accept uncertainty. All very important points as regards seeding and sustaining innovation. To a question from the floor on the relative percentage of students participating in clinical experiences Jeff replied that the goal was 80% of the student body (he was breaking up at this point, so I may have got that wrong).
Short sessions next, on clinical legal education. First up is Peter Joy, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs Washington U Law, on ‘Current and Future Challenges for Clinical Legal Education’. The challenges include tech innovations – AI, eg Law Geek AI vs lawyers reviewing contracts (in a pilot, reviewing 5 contracts, AI took 26 secs, lawyers 92 mins, with 94% accuracy in AI vs lawyers’ 85% accuracy), or Ross AI (legal research, document and contract review, prediction of legal outcomes). ABA survey revealed 10% of US firms using AI, but 35% of firms of 500+ lawyers & 4% of firms with 2 to 9 lawyers. So disparity there on size of firm and use of AI. Legal services providers on internet is another challenge, eg Rocket Lawyer – 20M users, Legal Zoom, 3.6M subscribers. Off the Record (traffic tickets), DoNotPay (parking tickets), Hello Divorce (California self-help divorce document service).
The next challenge Peter identified was law school enrolment – see chart below. The chart reveals the scale of the problem in the USA.
Declines in enrolments mean a return to enrolment equivalents of around 1975/6. Four law schools have closed, four have teach-out plans, one appealing withdrawal of ABA-accreditation. There is lessening demand in other countries, though not the same extent of the problem. For Peter, law schools should take seriously Susskind’s point about new jobs – legal knowledge engineers – was one answer, through use of technology, hybrids such as legal project managers, process managers, online dispute resolution engineers, legal risk managers, etc.
Clinics need to take this argument and consider these new employment avenues. Document assembly was one example he gave. The creation of apps to assist in answering latent legal need and access to justice was another example. Interesting idea – I wonder how the reality on the ground in clinics supports this.
Next up in this session, Dr Pan Xuaning, Sun Yat-sen University on ‘Experiential Learning in China: A Case Study of Clinical Legal Education’. Pan noted that the national system of legal education served the mission of ‘general’ legal education – only 30% of China’s 450,000 or so law students will engage in private law practice – more than 50% will work in government, the judiciary and other bodies. The curriculum in a law school is designed within the national framework directed by the Chinese HE C’ttee of Law in the Ministry of Education. The MOE prescribes a number of mandatory course and textbooks, eg History, Ethics and Moral Cultivation and socialist theories. Lecturing and doctrinal exposition predominates. The first clinical was established as the Wuhan Centre, 1990s. Seven law schools including Beijing Tsinghua, launched clinical programs in 2000 with funding from the Ford Foundation and Yale-China Association. The C’ttee of Chinese Clinical Educators was formed in 2007. Now, more than 400 law schools are registered as members of the CCCLE. Their clinics differ in their institutional design with special areas of focus including women’s rights, labour rights, rural or farmers’ justice, environmental protection and criminal and juvenile justice. In Pan’s university law school the clinical program was set up in 2001-2, focusing on labour law & civil law cases. About 30% of students take the legal clinic course in their third academic year. SYSU law faculty members are registered as part-time practitioners/lawyers. Pan gave the example of SYSU clinic students successfully represented a migrant worker in a PI case against a Guangzhou restaurant. Pan noted that under Civil Procedure Law of the PRC, article 58, individuals may be appointed as agents ad litem , namely a lawyers, a near relative or a citizen recommended by the community, entity or relevant social organisation to which the litigant/party belongs, ie clinics.
Pan noted the benefits of clinical learning. Students learn to manage client relationships – the ethical resonances, the place of reflective learning, dealing with client affect and expectations, create legal and non-legal solutions for the client. Students appreciate the value of pro bono work; but for some, the experience with what they regard as ‘unreasonable clients’ may discourage their interests in pro bono. Most students are willing to contribute to pro bono. Pan mentioned two problems – ‘out-of-scope’ meetings with clients, how to make meetings more efficient. Second, universities are focusing more on research ranking, and spending less time on teaching. But clinic teachers spend more time on teaching, and don’t get additional credits for this. A systemic solution is needed. Very interesting presentation, learned a lot from it
Next up, Julienne Jen from HKU Faculty of Law, on ‘The CLE Programme at HKU: Any room for an inter-professional approach?’ She outlined the process of legal education in HK (below).
She noted that Legal Aid is present, but the scheme doesn’t meet latent legal need. Unmet legal needs include proceedings where formal legal representation is now allowed, and proceedings outside scope of legal aid. First live client in HKU was established in 2010. The workflow was interesting. Students help interview client, prepare a summary, discussion with duty lawyer, attend the advice session, and prepare summary of advice. The course is taught via apprenticeship between duty lawyers and students. There are consultation sessions led by course co-ordinators and tutors, with weekly workshops and seminars based on skills learning, case discussion and presentations. Students are assessed on a pass-fail basis, on performance with duty lawyer and attendance. She wants assessment of reflective journals. GPA requirements need marks, so some kind of mark is essential.
The types of cases covered in the clinic are predominantly criminal, but include family, contract, tort, consumer, PI, professional negligence, land/property, employment and probate. Julienne advocates an inter-professional approach to clinical education (echoing Pan’s comments, and Peter’s too). Examples she gave include Monash U multi-disciplinary clinic, Portsmouth Law School interdisciplinary clinic (nursing and law). The advantages are set out below. Challenges also set out below.
Interesting points by Julienne on advantages and challenges, that reflect Pan’s points. Peter discussed the issue of continuance or transition, ie a case can last years, but students only are present for a semester. Students are asked to write a ‘transition memo’ – sometimes, he said, a case can have as many as seven transition memos. I liked this idea. It reminded me of Hasok Chang’s ‘inheritance principle’, so helpful to the transition of knowledge between bodies of students. Seems to me to be a useful assessment element, and highly unusual, in that the audience for the memo is not faculty or client, but other, future students.