TaxProf Blog Op-Ed: Who’s Minding the Clinical Legal Education Store?, by Robert Kuehn (Washington University; Google Scholar):
Oversight of law clinic and field placement programs has changed in significant ways in the over five decades since clinical legal education began taking hold in U.S. law schools. These oversight changes can be seen in the surveys conducted triennially since 2007 by the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE)1 and as summarized recently in An Empirical Analysis of Clinical Legal Education at Middle Age.2
In the first CSALE survey in 2007, half of law schools had one person responsible for the oversight of both law clinics and field placement courses, typically referred to as a clinical program director. By 2019, that figure was 58% and in the most recent fall 2022 CSALE survey increased to 62%. Among those with oversight of the entirety of the clinic and field placement courses at their schools, the percentage with “dean” in their title has more than doubled since 2007, increasing from 27% in 2007 to 60% in 2019 and 70% in 2022.
These positions also are increasingly reporting directly to the law school dean, from 77% directly reporting in 2019 to 81% in 2022 (with the remaining reporting to a vice dean or other school official).This rise of the clinical program deanship in number and stature likely reflects the increasing number of law clinic and field placement courses and size of clinical faculties, with a concomitant increase in the complexity of their design and management.
Two thirds of faculty with oversight of all clinic and field placement courses in the 2022 CSALE survey now have the title of “experiential” dean or director, a title no person reported in 2007 and only half reported in 2019. This new nomenclature is due, in part, to the ABA’s use of the term “experiential” when adopting its new professional skills requirement in 2014,3 a signal that the position’s duties often extend beyond just oversight of clinic and field placement courses. In the 2022 CSALE survey, 71% percent of those responsible for oversight of all clinic and field placement courses also had responsibility for other law school skills-training programs. Of those with additional responsibilities, the most common was oversight of simulation/practicum courses (64%), followed by trial advocacy (40%), pro bono programs and moot court program (both 32%) and legal writing/practice courses (27%).
During the same period that schools were creating new positions to oversee the entire clinic and field placement programs, the number of schools with a single person with oversight of only the law clinic program decreased from 56% in the 2007 CSALE survey to 37% in 2022. Many of these positions no doubt migrated to experiential or clinical director or deanships position with oversight of both clinics and externships.
Oversight exclusively of the field placement program, however, increased dramatically during the same period. In 2007, approximately 35% of schools in the CSALE survey had an individual responsible for oversight of all field placement programs. By 2022, this number had risen to 70%. This increase likely reflects both the growth of field placement course offerings and increased awareness by schools of the importance and complexity of field placement programs.
Surveys have not collected profiles of the persons who oversee both law clinic and field placement programs (the clinical program or experiential dean/director). CSALE surveys, however, have examined those who oversee only all law clinics or only all field placement courses, revealing some differences. In the 2022 CSALE survey, those who oversaw the school’s field placement program were disproportionately female, with 77% female compared to 64% for those who oversaw the law clinic program and 67% for all full-time, non-fellow clinic and field placement instructors.4 But of note, the percentage of female law clinic program directors has increased from 50% in the 2016 CSALE survey. The racial/ethnic composition of the two types of program directors also are different. In 2022, 78% of law clinic program directors were white compared to 85% of field placement program directors and 79% for all full-time,non-fellow clinic and field placement instructors.
A striking difference between those who oversee only a school’s law clinic program and those who oversee the field placement program is their employment status. In 2022, 45% of law clinic program directors were tenured or on tenure track (either unitary or clinical/programmatic tenure) compared to only 22% of field placement program directors and 32% of all full-time clinic and field placement course instructors.While only 15% of clinic program directors had short-term contracts that lack security of position, 44% of field placement program directors lacked long-term job stability. More dramatically, 14% of all field placement program directors have primarily non-faculty administrative positions, a surprising increase from less than 7% in the 2016 CSALE survey. In contrast, less than 2% of clinic program directors held an administrative appointment.
Although schools are increasingly recognizing the benefit of experiential/clinical program dean positions and have significantly added field placement program director positions, the disparate treatment of those who oversee field placement programs persists. As the most recent CSALE survey shows, field placement instructors as a whole are less likely to have traditionalor clinical tenure/tenure track when compared to their law clinic peers (15% vs. 34%) and are 14 times more likely to be primarily in an administrative position withonly occasional teaching responsibilities and sometimes little training in externship pedagogy. This same disparity exists between law clinic and field placementprogram directors, although they play comparable roles in the professional skills training of students and schools report that more of their students now graduate with a field placement than a law clinic experience.5
As clinical education has grown in importance in thepreparation of students for the practice of law, schoolshave increasing recognized the need for a designatedperson to oversee their law clinic and field placementprograms. Yet, given the important role that fieldplacement courses now play in a school’s experientialcurriculum, the continuing low faculty status of fieldplacement program directors is inexplicable, if notindefensible.
(1) Survey Results, Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education, https://www.csale.org/#results.
(2) Robert R. Kuehn & David A. Santacroce, An Empirical Analysis of Clinical Legal Education at Middle Age, 70 J. Legal Educ. (forthcoming 2023), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4369708.
(3) Am. Bar Ass’n, Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools, Std. 303(a)(3) (2023–2024), http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/standards/2023-2024/23-24-standards-ch3.pdf.
(4) Robert R. Kuehn, David A Santacroce, Margaret Reuter, June T. Tai & G.S. Hans, 2022-23 Survey ofApplied Legal Education (2023) (“2022 CSALE Survey), https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5d8cde48c96867b8ea8c6720/64fb7bd82fdee48e57e8ef04_Report%20on%202022-23%20CSALE%20Survey.rev.9.8.23.pdf.
(5) 2022 CSALE Survey, id. 4 at 13-14.
