Values-Ambiguous Clinics

Authors

• Willow Tracy, University of Georgia School of LawFollow

Previously posted to NYU Law.

Abstract

As law school clinical programs have grown in recent decades, many of the newer offerings focus on business law, entrepreneurship, intellectualproperty, and technology. It is commonly presumed that social justice values, such as the amelioration ofpoverty or theprotection offundamental rights, are notfoundational goals of these non-traditional clinics. This Article calls these clinics "values-ambiguous" to highlight the frequent uncertainty and skepticism about their relationship to traditional clinical social justice values. Importantly, "values-ambiguous"does not describe a quality of the clinic itself it describes a quality ofperception of the clinic. In other words, "values-ambiguous clinics" are clinics that are typically not perceived as having a social justice mission, whether or not they in fact do. As values-ambiguous clinics have grown in number and in importance, the broader clinical community has struggled to come to terms with their presence. While it is generally accepted that these clinics provide important student opportunities and contribute to the overall rise of the status of clinics within the legal academy, they have also been seen as replicating hierarchy, undermining the established goals of clinical pedagogy, and neglecting the foundational social justice imperative of clinics. This Article sidesteps the usual arguments about how non-traditional clinics can and should be reconciled with traditional clinical social justice imperatives. It instead focuses the conversation on the ways in which the rise of values-ambiguous clinics presents opportunities for all clinicians to critically (re)consider their own preconceptions about the nature, role, and relationship of values, skill, and theory in clinical legal education. Using quantitative and qualitative analysis and storytelling, this Article surfaces and describes tensions and themes in current scholarship, and suggests avenues for further conversation about the future of clinical legal education.

Repository Citation

Willow Tracy, Values-Ambiguous Clinics , 31 Clinical L. Rev. 379 (2025),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1769