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Abstract:
Framed by an analysis of two particular ethical rules and their application to specific situations, this piece uses the metaphor of storytelling to explore the lawyer's role as an effective and ethical client representative. Drawing from the experiences of two sets of clients and their lawyers, the piece proposes an approach to ethical regulation (as one component of the lawyer-client relationship) that requires the lawyer to engage in a deeply contextual analysis of the specific and particular ethical conflicts presented to him in any particular case; and work with his client to determine how to resolve those conflicts.

The first part of the article introduces the stories of these clients as the lawyers came to know them and as the ethical dilemmas unfolded. This section sets the stage for further analysis both of the Rules of Professional Conduct and of the process lawyers undertake to understand and apply those rules. The second part of the paper shifts the focus to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct themselves and tells the stories again, this time in the context of those rules. This second telling reveals that the rules that make up the system of ethical regulation are interpreted to apply to generic, abstract clients in generic, abstract situations.

Drawing on critical lawyering and narrative theory, the third part of the paper proposes an alternative approach to interpreting and resolving ethical conflicts. The article suggests that the system of regulation should be interpreted to allow room for the attorney to consider and incorporate the client's narrative context. Such an approach places the client in the center of the inquiry and requires the lawyer and client to engage actively in dialogue and problem-solving. It allows the lawyer and client together to arrive at solutions that both respond to the particular client's needs, and attend to the moral and ethical concerns the lawyer and society might have. By using a critically reflective, intentional process of inquiry around ethical (and other) concerns, the lawyer must focus on this particular client in the context of his life and his legal/non-legal needs in this particular situation. Such an inquiry results in a widening of the frame of the client's case such that what appear to be intractable and prominent ethical (and other) issues at the outset actually fade into the background as the lawyer and client together either resolve or preempt them completely.

story, narrative, lawyer, client, ethics

Abstract:
In this article I explore the representation of transgender clients to see what lawyering theory we can export to representation of other clients. In the first section, I describe the "problem of representation," - the challenge of seeing and hearing clients' stories, particularly when those stories do not fit in to our understanding of how the world works. In the second part of the article, I describe first the "official stories" that govern how the legal system treats transgender people and second how the official legal stories are themselves porous, based as they are on assumptions that don't adequately address the particular issues confronting the particular client who has come into contact with the legal system. In the third part, I describe how, with critical reflection, lawyers and students are able to see and hear, and thus represent, their transgender clients.

Throughout the piece, I situate myself as a learner, along with my students. This location is implicit in the idea of reflective lawyering, which is ultimately what the piece is about: the role (and necessity) of critical reflection in representation. By critical reflection, I mean the process by which we locate ourselves within the system in which we are operating and in relation to the other players in that system. Through this process, we are able to identify what assumptions are at work and the effect they are having on us, on the other players, and on the system itself. Having identified those assumptions and how they are operating, we find ourselves with more room to make intentional choices about how to proceed with the representation of our clients, and we end up being more effective advocates for them. As such, critical reflection is a skill that makes us better lawyers.

transgender, representation, reflection, critical, stories, lawyering

Abstract:
Narrative theory and storytelling have emerged as threads in legal scholarship steadily over the past 20 years. Beginning in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, the 'Legal Storytelling' movement sought to acknowledge and include the voices of 'outsiders' in legal scholarship and dialogue. More recently, the 'Applied Legal Storytelling' movement has emerged as scholars encourage each other to use storytelling to enhance their understanding of particular skills lawyers practice, and how to improve those skills. Scholars in the 'Law and Literature' movement explore the uses of literature to help lawyers stay connected to their imaginations, to their creativity, and to their humanity. Each of these scholarly movements has led to, or grown out of, professors’ experiments with using particular kinds of narrative theory and storytelling as part of their pedagogy.

In clinical teaching and scholarship, storytelling has always assumed pride of place for all of these reasons: to help students hear and incorporate the voices of 'outsiders' as they engage in and practice various lawyering skills, and to challenge them to think creatively and compassionately about their case strategy and practice. Lucie White’s 'Sunday Shoes' piece and Binny Miller’s 'Give Them Back Their Lives' are just two examples of narrative theory and storytelling practice that many clinical teachers use either explicitly or behind the scenes in their supervision or seminar teaching.

I believe narrative theory and storytelling can be used even more fundamentally, cutting across types of courses and types of lawyering. I teach skills, doctrinal and clinical courses, and I use narrative theory and storytelling in all three, all with the same goal: to help students recognize that as lawyers, they are not only hearers and tellers of stories, but also, and perhaps most important, constructors of stories. And that, simply put, is what I mean by narrative theory. The practice of storytelling is the craft of constructing stories, based on choices made with intention and reflection by the lawyer and her client. A pedagogy that relies on this theory and practice leads students to realize that The Law itself is a set of stories that have been adopted by decisionmakers, and that those stories have been constructed by none other than lawyers, just like themselves.

My particular pedagogy relies on an exploration of both narrative theory and the practice of storytelling. Most, if not all, of my classes - regardless of their official content - involve discussions about what stories are and what makes them 'good' (persuasive, compelling), both substantively (the 'what' of the story) and technically (the 'how' of the story). That’s the narrative theory. In addition, my students spend a lot of time constructing and deconstructing stories, focusing on their elements - both the 'what' and the 'how' - and on the choices that resulted in the story’s substance and structure. That’s the storytelling practice.

In this piece, I develop the idea of using storytelling across the curriculum to teach students this kind of critical thinking and reflection about their role as lawyers. In Part One, I describe the importance of storytelling and stories in the craft of lawyering. Part Two reviews briefly how clinical and non-clinical teachers use storytelling in their teaching. The bulk of the piece - Part Three - is a description and analysis of my own teaching and how it achieves the goal of developing students’ critical thinking skills and reflective practice. I provide concrete examples of my teaching, as well as critique and analysis based on narrative and lawyering theory scholarship.

The piece concludes with the suggestion that narrative theory and storytelling as a pedagogy used systematically across individual courses and the curriculum has the potential to transform a student’s experience of law school, resulting in her development as an empowered, reflective, and socially responsible member of the legal profession, regardless of the kind of law she practices or the kinds of clients she represents.

narrative, storytelling, teaching, skills, clinic

Abstract:
The subprime mortgage crisis has exposed a system of predatory and irresponsible lending on a scale we are only beginning to comprehend. Those initially harmed in this crisis - the canaries in the coal mine - were largely low-income people of color. As the crisis has unfolded, the potential solutions available to such borrowers seem to privilege one kind of legal story over all others: the story of the poor person as a victim in need of rescuing.

In order to win, therefore, lawyers who represent these clients often fall back on a default narrative about their clients as unwitting or irresponsible victims in high-stakes, crisis-driven stories that take place in the winner-take-all context of litigation. These narratives begin at the moment of crisis, and not at any time before. In addition, these narratives do not take the long view of this crisis or its effects. As such, these stories reinforce the status quo, by focusing attention on the victims' bad choices and unscrupulous lenders, cabining the particular crisis as an unfortunate confluence of events rather than a part of the larger picture of a system that reinforces poverty.

But it does not have to be that way. Looking through the lens of narrative theory, my paper constructs counter-stories about those who find themselves faced with home foreclosure: stories that envision the individual clients' broader context, and their agency within that context; stories that imagine the clients' ability to look and plan ahead. I perform this analysis by suggesting that these situations present lawyers with the opportunity to tell many different - competing, alternative, serial - but equally good stories. The choices about which of those stories to tell and how to tell them are complex and nuanced, and dependent on multiple variables that need to be weighed by both the lawyer and the client.

The piece concludes by suggesting that a lawyering theory that is open to this multiplicity of stories - and does not privilege one among them - contributes to constructing lawyering models that empower all kinds of client narratives. This approach thus allows those who would otherwise assume victim roles in adversarial narratives to contribute in constructing narratives that do not necessarily involve them having to be rescued. And it helps lawyers see their power and responsibility to construct these stories collaboratively with their clients, and thus to move the law in a direction that recognizes the clients as something other than victims.

mortgage, predatory lending, subprime, narrative, storytelling, stories, lawyer-client, poverty law, consumer

Abstract:
This article uses the question of whether or not supervisors attend client interviews with their students as a lens through which to explore other questions about supervision theory, clinical pedagogy and professional responsibility. This examination and analysis appears to set up dichotomies about how students learn best and how clients are served best. The article attempts to deconstruct these dichotomies by proposing a different way to think about these issues. Grounded in theories about adult learning, critical reflection, and role assumption and modeling, the article concludes that the decision about whether to attend client interviews can be one that the supervisor makes on a case-by-case, student-by-student basis, and that the decision might be made in collaboration with the student. Engaging in this kind of inquiry would require supervisors to revisit often and critically their roles as teachers and lawyers, and the needs of their individual students and clients. Moreover, by involving their students in this process, the clinicians model that reflection for them, hopefully teaching not only the skill of client-centered interviewing, but also the skill of self-evaluation and critical reflection. The article is based on empirical and theoretical research that reveals and describes complex spectra of supervision style and professional role. Discussion about these spectra and how they inform our pedagogy provides a rich forum to challenge ourselves as critically reflective clinical teachers.

interview, critical reflection, supervision, clinical pedagogy, modeling, teaching