Introduction

For more than fifty years, law school clinics in the United States have faced interference in their representation of clients from elected officials, business groups, alumni and, at times, even their own school administrators. Such interference has targeted clinics for providing legal representation to individuals and nongovernmental organizations on important matters, including racial and gender discrimination, environmental issues, prisoner rights litigation, death penalty cases, immigration and refugee representation, and numerous of other issues. In each instance, the interference has sought to subvert the legal process by preventing clinics from representing their clients rather than addressing the legal merits of their clinic clients’ claims.  Interference with law clinic client representation also appears to be part of the broader pattern of attacks on public interest lawyers and other lawyers representing clients in disputes with governmental entities, business interest, or other powerful adversaries.

An analysis and understanding of interference are important to legal educators generally and essential to law school faculty teaching in clinical programs for at least three reasons. First, understanding the types of interference and strategies for framing effective responses will help law faculty experiencing similar interference in their clinic’s operation. Second, it is important to recognize interference in law clinic representation for what it really is – a strategy designed to circumvent adjudicating legal disputes on the merits by denying legal representation and access to the legal system for those with limited economic and political power. Finally, understanding interference in law clinics affords useful insights for fostering critical thinking about the relationship between the role of lawyers in providing access to the courts and the role of clinical legal education in acculturating law students to the legal profession and shaping their professional identity.

This book is organized into five chapters. Chapter I provides a typology and history of interference in law clinic operations, highlighting patterns from the past that are essential to understanding present and future attacks on clinics. Chapter II discusses the norms for lawyering in the academy and the dual roles of clinic faculty as lawyers with client duties and as members of the legal academy with certain academic freedom rights. Chapter III addresses the professional responsibilities of law clinic faculty when faced with attempts to interfere with the representation of clients, the professional responsibilities of lawyers seeking to interfere with clinic clients’ representation, and the professional responsibilities of law deans and faculty when faced with interference at their schools. Chapter IV proceeds to discuss the First Amendment protections for law clinic faculty and their students’ representation of clients. In Chapter V, we share lessons learned from the long history of interference and discuss strategies to address interference in law clinic client representation. At the end of each chapter are a series of notes that provide additional information and resources. There is also a Law Clinic Interference Resources website associated with the book at https://sites.wustl.edu/clinicinterferenceresources.

Together, the chapters in this book represent a compilation of excerpts and some new material written by us and others and is designed to serve as a reference and resource.