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35 Vand. L. Rev. 321 (1982)
Andragogical Basis of Clinical Legal Education, The

handle is hein.journals/vanlr35 and id is 335 raw text is: The Andragogical Basis of Clinical Legal Education Frank S. Bloch* I. INTRODUCTION The addition of a clinical component to the traditional law school curriculum has been proposed as an educational reform for more than fifty years.1 During the past ten years, a period in which many law schools have established clinical programs in earnest, the debate over the value of such a reform has dominated the litera- ture on legal education.2 This debate often has focused on whether * Associate Professor of Law and Director of Clinical Education, Vanderbilt University School of Law. B.A., 1966, Brandeis University; J.D., 1969, Columbia University; Ph. D., 1978, Brandeis University. 1. Probably the most influential early article on the subject was Frank, Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?, 81 U. PA. L. REV. 907 (1933) [hereinafter cited as Clinical Lawyer- School]; see also Frank, What Constitutes a Good Legal Education?, 19 A.B.A. J. 723 (1933) (speech summarizing University of Pennsylvania Law Review article). For a response to Judge (then Professor) Frank, see Gardner, Why Not a Clinical Lawyer-School?-Some Reflections, 82 U. PA. L. REV. 785 (1934). Some legal clinics already were in operation in the 1920's and 1930's and were both supported and criticized. See, e.g., Bradway, The Begin- ning of the Legal Clinic of the University of Southern California, 2 S. CAL. L. REV. 252 (1929); Bradway, Some Distinctive Features of a Legal Aid Clinic Course, 1 U. CH. L. REV. 469 (1934) [hereinafter cited as Distinctive Features]; David, The Clinical Lawyer-School: The Clinic, 83 U. PA. L. REV. 1 (1934); Fuchs, The Educational Value of a Legal Clinic-Some Doubts and Queries, 8 Am. L. SCH. REv. 857 (1937); Harris, The Educational Value of a Legal Aid Clinic-A Reply, 8 Am. L. SCH. REV. 860 (1937). In addition, the University of Denver operated a Legal Aid Dispensary as early as 1905. See Merson, Den- ver Law Students in Court: The First Sixty-Five Years, in CLINICAL EDUCATION AND THE LAW SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE 138 (U. of Chicago Law School Conference Series No. 20) (E. Kitch ed. 1970) [hereinafter cited as LAW SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE]. 2. The literature on clinical legal education is collected in part in two valuable bibliog- raphies. G. GROSSMAN, CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY (Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility 1974); Snyman, A Proposal for a Na- tional Link-Up of the New Legal Services Corporation Law Offices and Law School Clinical Training Programs, 30 J. LEGAL EDUC. 43, 56-66 (1979) (including some articles relevant only to legal services). A review of recent volumes of the Journal of Legal Educa- tion confirms this observation. See Holmes, Education for Competent Lawyering-Case Method in a Functional Context, 76 COLUM. L. REV. 535, 536 n.3 (1976) (author suggests reading every other article in the Journal of Legal Education for authority that there is no shortage of solutions to the perceived failings of legal education). Two law review symposia devoted largely to clinical legal education have been published in the past year. See Clinical Legal Education and the Legal Profession, 29 CLEV. ST. L. REV. 345, 345-848 (1980); Sym- posium, 40 MD. L. REV. 203, 203-347 (1981).