Searching for Justice: Incorporating Critical Legal Research into Clinic Seminar

Abstract

This article provides educators with a roadmap for incorporating Critical Legal Research into Clinical Pedagogy. Critical Legal Research is a social justice-oriented critical intervention that provides a theoretical framework and practical application. Critical Legal Research provides lawyers with tools to deconstruct but also reconstruct legal research and analysis modes to engender more just, client-focused outcomes that fall outside dominant legal narratives. The problematic advent of ChatGPT and the broader incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within the legal research regime has made the Critical Legal Research project more urgent than ever. Ultimately, introducing Critical Legal Research in the clinic is both a necessity and an opportunity: It liberates the minds of our students and challenges them to think creatively in the greater fight against injustice.

Keywords: Critical Legal Research, Critical Legal Information Literacy, ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence and Law, Legal Research Pedagogy, Critical Legal Theory, Law and Society

JEL Classification: K00