Teaching Reflective Lawyering in a Small Case Litigation Clinic: A Love Letter to My Clinic Papers Presented at the UCLA/IALS Conference on Enriching Clinical Education

This article describes a live client, small case, teaching and learning centered, criminal defense clinic set in a high volume urban court. It offers concrete suggestions about how clinical educators can help students develop analytic and technical skills. The clinic model is conceived in three phases: giving students the opportunity to develop a contextualized understanding of the client; guiding students through strategic analysis and planning; and focusing students' litigation strategies on executing their tactical vision for their client. The article argues that this clinical setting structures the students' experiences so that they develop a complex and deeply moral lawyerly problem solving model.