Legal Education and Clinical Teaching Methods

Author: Yang Xinxin, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features:
1. The Background of the Book's Publication
There are still very few monographs or translated works on legal education in China, and the clinical teaching method is a completely new exploration in the field of Chinese legal education. In September 2000, the Ford Foundation funded Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Peking University, Wuhan University, Central South University of Economics and Law, Fudan University, and East China University of Political Science and Law to establish clinical courses; in September 2001, three more schools joined, namely Sun Yat-sen University, Northwest University of Political Science and Law, and Sichuan University; at the same time, schools that spontaneously explored this new teaching method also gradually emerged. As the number of schools offering clinical courses increased and more teachers participated in teaching, clinical education gradually formed its own network: clinical teachers held regular teaching method seminars of different scales and visited clinics in various institutions for on-site observations. All these explorations in teaching content and communication forms brought a fresh breeze to the development of Chinese legal education, and clinical education is gradually becoming a part of it. The teaching practice of clinical education has attracted attention to its academic theory. As a teaching method originating in the United States and now becoming an important component of legal education in many countries around the world, clinical education has drawn its theory and value from various disciplines such as law, education, and adult learning theory. This book is an academic translation on clinical teaching methods.
2. The Structure of the Book
The book is divided into five parts, containing fifteen articles, with the basic design as follows:
(1) Legal Education and the Legal Profession
Any legal teaching method is born around certain legal systems and the cultivation goals of legal talents. Similarly, the interest and introduction of the clinic teaching method by Chinese legal educators are inseparable from the broader context of China's judicial reform and legal profession integration. Therefore, the articles selected in this part mainly examine the clinical legal education method in the context of the relationship between legal education and the legal profession, the professionalization reform of legal education, and the way law schools cultivate talents. In 1989, the American Bar Association's Legal Education Department established a special working group to examine the relationship between law schools and the legal profession, aiming to improve the teaching of basic skills and professional ethics required for law students to become competent lawyers after graduation. In 1992, the working group issued a report titled "Legal Education and Professional Development: A Continuum of Learning," known as the "McCrate Report." As the opening article, we selected the section titled "Declaration on Professional Basic Skills and Value Standards" from this report. The other two articles in this section explore the status of clinical education in legal education from the perspectives of the development history of clinical education and legal education reform.
(2) Clinical Methodology and Pedagogy
This part contains five articles, forming one of the core components of the book. "Why Not Open a Clinical Law School?" and "Legal Education in a Service Context" are two classic articles from the United States that discuss the value of clinical teaching. The study of history allows us to revisit the early proponents' earnest expectations for this teaching method and also creates a background for comparative research; we will be surprised to find that the basic factors that initially pushed clinical education to take root in the United States were to provide legal services for the poor, to train law students in skills and professional ethics, which are also the original intentions of discussing clinical teaching methods in the context of Chinese legal education today. At the same time, the various challenges faced during the development of clinical education also indicate the difficulties of this endeavor. As a teaching method, the charm of the clinic method lies in its primary focus on learners and the learning process, prompting teachers to pay attention to educational psychology and evaluate different teaching methods. It can be said without exaggeration that clinical teaching is an art of teaching, with every step conveying the interaction between teachers and students. Some scholars even succinctly call it "student-centered teaching" or "learning by doing." The remaining three articles in this part attempt to provide a detailed analysis of this teaching method through discussions on skill training, professional ethics, guidance, and evaluation.
(3) Building Clinics and Integrating Clinics into Law School Curricula
Although each clinical teacher faces specific problems and difficulties in their respective schools, regardless of how many advantages and values the clinic teaching method has, legal educators are most concerned with how to benefit students through clinical education. Clinical courses are highly practical courses, and in addition to theoretical discussions on teaching methods, this book also hopes to serve as a practical guide for designing clinical courses. Real-client clinics, off-campus internship clinics, and simulation clinics are three typical types of clinics in traditional classification. This part selects three articles that introduce how to build clinics and how to integrate clinic courses into the overall teaching plan of law schools, providing practical guidance for systematically designing clinic courses.
(4) The Development of Clinical Teaching Methods Outside the United States
Clinical education originated in the United States, and as a model of relatively mature clinical education, the richness of literature on clinical teaching methods in the United States is understandable. However, relying too heavily on the discussions and reflections of American scholars on clinics may lead to doubts about the applicability of clinical education as a teaching method in other regions and legal systems. After all, as a civil law system country that starts legal professional courses at the undergraduate level (at least mainstream opinion holds this view), the scope for clinical education to operate within the framework of Chinese legal education is a matter of concern. In this part of the book, we will introduce clinical projects outside the United States. "The American Style of Clinical Legal Education" is an article by a British scholar that discusses the feasibility of clinical education in the United Kingdom from a comparative perspective; "The Feasibility of Clinical Legal Education in Central and Eastern Europe" explores how the clinic teaching method can function at the undergraduate level in civil law countries (or even former socialist law countries).
(5) The Future of Clinical Legal Education
The book will conclude with a fair and hopeful review of the future of clinical legal education. Many of the issues in the translation are also bottlenecks that need to be overcome for the greater development of clinical legal education in China.
3. Some Points to Note
(1) In the process of translation and editing, this book has tried to retain the original style as much as possible, especially without excessive of footnotes. The purpose is twofold: 1. The editors hope that this book, in addition to being a professional book introducing clinical theory, can also serve as a reference for readers interested in foreign legal education and legal systems, thus adding to its value; 2. The theory of clinical education itself is largely refined from practical work in legal education, and many of the background content in the footnotes supplements and explains the main text. Retaining the footnotes helps readers accurately grasp the writing context of the original authors; it is also hoped that this straightforward style will inspire domestic academic creation.
(2) Interpretation of Clinical Education in the Chinese Context
After working on clinical education for two years, the most frequently discussed question has been "how to make the advantages of the clinical education method effective in China's legal and educational environment"—that is, the so-called "localization" issue. It is true that the differences between Chinese and foreign legal education, due to various reasons such as systems, culture, and ways of thinking, are objectively existing, but this cannot become a reason to simply deny the applicability of an imported teaching method in China. Some aspects of these differences do indeed pose more challenges when introducing the clinic method, such as the relatively weak awareness of public-interest law and related academic research in Chinese legal education, which means that it will take a longer time to recognize, evaluate, and accept the role of clinical education in teaching justice in law schools. On the other hand, these differences also create better opportunities for the integration of clinical methods into Chinese legal education. Our exploration of clinical education is based on fully absorbing the experience and lessons of others, and we can consciously avoid the detours that others have gone through, such as issues related to the recognition of teachers' work, students' credits, and teachers' treatment. "A stone from a distant mountain can polish jade." We hope that the articles selected in this book on clinical education will benefit the reform of Chinese legal education. We believe that through this comprehensive introduction, clinical teaching will present itself to readers in a complete and clear manner. Chinese legal educators' exploration of clinical teaching methods will also become increasingly in-depth, ultimately achieving the goal of "taking the strengths of others and using them for ourselves," completing the process of localizing clinical teaching.