Public Legal Education: The Role of Law Schools in Building a More Legally Literate Society

196 Pages·2021·6.827 MB·English

by  Richard Grimes

Public Legal Education
This book makes the case for a more legally literate society and then addresses
why and how a law school might contribute to achieving that. Moreover
examining what public legal education (PLE) is and the forms it can take, the
book looks specifically at the ways in which a law school can get involved,
including whether that is as part of an academic, credit-bearing, course or as
extra-curricular activity.
Divided into five main chapters, the book first examines the nature of
PLE and why its provision is so central to the functioning of modern society.
Models of PLE are then set out ranging from face-to-face tuition to the use of
hard-copy material, including the growing importance of e-based technology.
One model of PLE that has proven to be very attractive to law schools – Street
Law – is described and analysed in detail. The book then turns to look at the
considerations for a law school wishing to incorporate PLE into its offerings
be that as part of the formal curriculum or not. The subject of evaluation is
then raised – how might we find out if what we do by way of PLE is effective
and how it might be improved upon? The final chapter reaches conclusions,
some penned by the book’s author and others drawn from key figures in the
PLE movement. This book provides a thorough examination of PLE in a law
school context and contains a set of templates that can be implemented and/or
adapted for use as the situation and jurisdiction dictate.
An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to law stu-
dents, legal academics, practising lawyers, community activists and all those
interested in PLE.
Richard Grimes qualified as a solicitor in 1977 and worked initially in a law
centre and later as a full-equity partner for a provisional law firm, handling, prin-
cipally, publicly funded cases. He has since worked in a number of universities in
the United Kingdom and overseas and, for the last 25 years, has devoted his time
to developing experiential means of learning about law and the legal system,
which focus on the application of theory to practice, in both civil and common
law jurisdictions. He is now a visiting professor at Charles University, Prague,
Czech Republic where he leads the LLM in Experiential Learning and Teach-
ing and is an independent legal education consultant. Richard has published
widely on how we may improve how legal education is designed, delivered and
evaluated and remains committed to improving access to justice more generally.
Emerging Legal Education
Series Editors:
Paul Maharg, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, ON, Canada,
Elizabeth Mertz, University of Wisconsin-Madison/American Bar Foundation, USA and
Meera Deo, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, San Diego, CA, USA
Emerging Legal Education is a forum for analysing the discourse of legal edu-
cation and creating innovative ways of learning the law. The series focuses
on research, theory and practice within legal education, drawing attention
to historical, interdisciplinary and international characteristics, and is based
upon imaginative and sophisticated educational thinking. The series takes a
broad view of theory and practice. Series books are written for an interna-
tional audience and are sensitive to the diversity of contexts in which law is
taught, learned and practised.
Other titles in this series:
The Arts and the Legal Academy
Beyond Text in Legal Education
Edited by Zenon Bańkowski, Maksymilian Del Mar and Paul Maharg
Affect and Legal Education
Emotion in Learning and Teaching the Law
Edited by Paul Maharg and Caroline Maughan
Imperatives for Legal Education Research Then,
Now and Tomorrow
Edited by Ben Golder, Marina Nehme, Alex Steel and Prue Vines
Better Law for a Better World
New Approaches to Law Practice and Education
Liz Curran
Public Legal Education
The Role of Law Schools in Building a More Legally Literate Society
Richard Grimes
https://www.routledge.com/Emerging-Legal-Education/book-series/ELE
Public Legal Education
The Role of Law Schools in Building a More
Legally Literate Society
Richard Grimes
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 Richard Grimes
The right of Richard Grimes to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known
or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Grimes, Richard H., author.
Title: Public legal education: the role of law schools in building a more
legally literate society/Richard Grimes.
Description: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Emerging legal education. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Summary: “This book makes the case for a more legally literate society and
then addresses why and how a law school might contribute to achieving that. As
well as examining what public legal education (PLE) is and the forms it can take,
the book looks specifically at the ways in which a law school can get involved
including whether that is as part of an academic, credit-bearing, course or as
extra-curricular activity. Divided into 5 main chapters the book first examines the
nature of PLE and why its provision is so central to the functioning of modern
society. Models of PLE are then set out ranging from face to face tuition to the use
of hard-copy material including the growing importance of e-based technology.
One model of PLE that has proven to be very attractive to law schools - Street
Law - is described and analysed in detail. The book then turns to look at the
considerations for a law school wishing to incorporate PLE into its offerings be
that as part of the formal curriculum or not. The subject of evaluation is then
raised - how might we find out if what we do by way of PLE is effective and how
it might be improved upon? The final chapter reaches conclusions, some penned
by the book’s author and others drawn from key figures in the PLE movement.
This book provides a thorough examination of PLE in a law school context and
contains a set of templates that can be implemented and/or adapted for use as
the situation and jurisdiction dictates. An accessible and compelling read, this book
will be of interest to law students, legal academics, practising lawyers, community
activists and all those interested in public legal education”– Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020050925 | ISBN 9780367610692 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781003103110 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Law–Study and teaching–United States.
Classification: LCC KF272. G75 2021 | DDC 340.071/173–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020050925
ISBN: 978-0-367-61069-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-61072-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10311-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo Std
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
Foreword vi
1 Background and context 1
2 Delivering PLE: Part 1 12
3 Delivering PLE: Part 2 34
4 Incorporating PLE into the law school 79
5 Evaluating PLE 105
6 Conclusions: Don’t just take my word for it! 132
Appendix: PLE case study 156
Index 181
The Human Rights Wall, Durban, South Africa. For a detailed account of the history and
significance of this mural see: D. McQuoid-Mason, Phansi: the birth of the Bill of Rights and
Human Rights Wall, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of KwaZula Natal, 2017.
Photographer: Richard Grimes, 2015.
Foreword
This book, Public Legal Education: The Role of Law Schools in Building a More
Legally Literate Society, is designed to propel the global movement to educate
non-lawyers about the law and to accomplish this through programming
involving law schools. This movement is interwoven with many others:
access to justice, rule of law, clinical legal education, human rights edu-
cation and civic education. While each of these movements is important,
advancing public legal education (PLE) has the distinct advantage of mov-
ing the needle forward on related movements as well. Richard Grimes uses
and examines the generic term – public legal education – as well as looking
at one specific PLE programme, Street Law, that is a widespread and pop-
ular PLE model.
The need for PLE is not new. In fact, it arose immediately upon passage
of the first law – thousands of years ago. The need became more critical
with the development of modern democracy where leaders had to stand for
elections (and justify to the voters the laws they had or had not passed) and
could not rely on the divine right of kings as their source of authority. Still,
it seems likely, as Professor Grimes suggests, that the Street Law programme
at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC (United States) really gave
PLE its definitive push forward in the early 1970s.1
The Georgetown Street Law programme arose out of a specific histori-
cal context that made this innovation possible.2 Clinical legal education was
clearly underway in the United States by the 1970s. Just as importantly, how-
ever, there was something of a revolution in American public law occurring
in the 1960s with the passage of a variety of federal civil rights and voting
rights acts.3 The law was becoming too important for people not to know
it. It no longer made sense to leave knowledge of law to only the lawyers.
Parallel developments were taking place in other western democracies, as
well. And as a matter of basic fairness, one of the traditional precepts of the
legal system – ‘ignorance of the law is no excuse’ – seemed to require instruc-
tion about the law for those whose behaviour had to be lawful.
The Georgetown Law Center Street Law model has expanded to more
than 80 law schools in the United States as of 2020.4 Those programmes
Foreword vii
focus primarily on training upper division (second and third year) law stu-
dents to teach practical law lessons in nearby high schools, although some
programmes work with middle schools and even elementary schools. A
minority of programmes also send law students into justice system or com-
munity settings. While the original Georgetown programme is a credit-
bearing clinical programme with a weekly seminar, teaching obligations
several times a week, and multiple observations each semester of law student
teaching by faculty experts (along with reflection sessions for the law stu-
dents and their professors), the fastest growing segment of US law school–
based PLE programmes does not award academic credit. These programmes
are either led by law students (as a club activity) or are part of pro bono
efforts at the law school.
The term ‘Street Law’ is peculiar. ‘Street’ is used as an adjective in the
phrase Street Law. So it suggests a certain kind of law – although in the
English language when ‘street’ is used as an adjective, it typically has a
negative connotation, as in ‘street crime’ or ‘street walker’ etc. The term
‘Street’ in Street Law really means practical as in practical law – the law
people need to know in their daily lives on the streets where they live. The
name – almost a slang term – was coined by District of Columbia high
school students when they brainstormed the contents of the curriculum with
Georgetown law students during the 1971–1972 academic year. As noted
in this book, the programme has spread globally to countries where you
might expect it to find a receptive home (the United Kingdom, Ireland
and Australia for example) and to countries where the receptivity has been
perhaps more surprising (former Soviet Bloc countries, for example). As is
also noted in the book, PLE in general and Street Law in particular are now,
truly, a global phenomenon.
In the United States, the original Street Law programme at Georgetown
has grown into a global NGO, Street Law, Inc., even as the clinical pro-
gramme remains a solid fixture at the law school. Street Law, Inc. has devel-
oped and implemented numerous law-related education programmes, many
of which (confusingly!) go by the name Street Law.5 Street Law, Inc. has
worked in every state in the United States as well as on-site in 45 countries.
In fact, most of Street Law, Inc.’s training programmes focus on teachers –
primarily high school social studies teachers – as well as lawyers who partner
with teachers in urban classrooms. Law school–based Street Law pro-
grammes in the United States, ironically perhaps, do not get much support
or attention from the Street Law organisation. A major focus of Street Law,
Inc. is also on curriculum development. The centrepiece of this work is the
Street Law textbook, published by McGraw Hill and now in its 10th edition
(2021). The Street Law staff have also developed robust, free online teaching
materials, geared primarily to US law. Many Street Law programmes in the
United States intentionally target schools that serve students of colour and
serve as pipeline programmes that are part of a national effort to make the
viii Foreword
legal profession more diverse in the future. In collaboration with NGO part-
ners in other countries, Street Law, Inc.’s staff have designed and helped to
deliver civic learning materials in many languages. Increasingly technology
has allowed Street Law programmes in the United States to partner with
PLE programmes elsewhere, and it seems likely that this positive trend will
continue.
The global family of Street Law–style programmes, which make up the
majority of the PLE field, functions democratically and collaboratively, shar-
ing information and best practice freely but not requiring adherence to any
pre-existing standards. This is, of course, a two-edged sword. Street Law
programmes around the world have the freedom to innovate as many do and
to determine the content and audiences that are most appropriate for their
PLE efforts. It is also possible that some call themselves Street Law (which
has become something of a generic term itself) but do not subscribe to Street
Law’s student-centred, interactive methodology, although most programmes
appear to embrace that practice. Informal meetings and sessions presented at
the biannual meetings of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE),
and through other experiential and clinical learning networks, have been
instrumental in the development of new programmes and the strengthening
of existing efforts.
This book introduces its readers to PLE as a generic concept and then to
the Street Law model in detail while also providing some concrete assistance
with integrating these programmes into the existing law school curriculum.
A chapter is also devoted to the impact of these programmes, which is an
area where more work globally is needed. Specific chapters include syllabi
and other materials which should be helpful to current and future practition-
ers, be they academics, lawyers or students. In addition to being a thorough
examination of PLE in a law school context, this is a practical book about
practical law programmes.
Whilst readers will learn about the substantial growth of PLE and Street
Law around the world, they should also know that in some places law faculty
may still regard Street Law as an oddity. They will think that law students
should be learning law not teaching it. But of course, they should know,
more than anyone else, how much teaching the law helps one learn the law.
And Street Law programmes along with other PLE provision can provide law
students with exactly this professional learning opportunity while at the same
time offering an important public service.
Lee Arbetman
Executive Director
Street Law, Inc.
Silver Spring Maryland, USA
September 2020
Foreword ix
Notes
1. The International Journal of Public Legal Education, published at the University of
Northumbria and available free online, has numerous articles about various dimen-
sions of law school–based Street Law programmes.
2. For more information on the original Street Law programme, contact Streetlaw@
georgetown.edu or visit the Georgetown Law Center website – www.law.george-
town.edu.
3. This historical context is developed at greater length in Arbetman, Lee, Street Law, Inc.:
Context, History and Future, International Journal of Public Legal Education, volume 2,
no. 1 (2018)
4. The Association of American Law Schools reports having 176 members as of 2020,
so there are Street Law programmes in more than 40% of accredited American law
schools.
5. For further details, go to www.streetlaw.org, accessed 2 September 2020.