Using the Maccrate Report to Strengthen Live-Client Clinics

Abstract

Clinical teachers can use the "MacCrate Report" - the Report of the ABA Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap and its Statement of Skills and Values - in a variety of ways to help live-client clinics. This paper assumes that the reader has basic background knowledge of the MacCrate Report. It also makes a fundamental judgment about the value and role of live-client clinics: it assumes that strengthening live-client clinics is important for the future of legal education. Strategies for negotiation for educational change, of course, must be tailored to each negotiation's context. Each law school has its own history, mix of faculty and other teachers, places where its graduates tend to practice, and geographic location. This essay is not intended as a blueprint, but only as a sketch for clinicians and proponents of skills training who are negotiating for changes along the lines suggested by the MacCrate Report.

Keywords: Pedagogy, Legal Education, MacCrate Report, Legal Training