Joint Statement from CLEA and AALS Clinical Section on Congressional Attack on Academic Freedom 

In the weeks since Donald Trump took office for his second term, we have seen the considerable erosion of democracy and the rule of law in the United States. The latest evidence is the unprecedented request for disclosure by the House Committee on Education and Workforce issued on March 27, 2025, seeking extensive information about Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, including its policies, procedures, sources of funding, and budget. This request specifically targets Clinical Professor of Law Sheila Bedi, Director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic, and her constitutionally protected representation of clients.

This overreaching exercise of governmental power is an attempt to intimidate and interfere with academic freedom and Professor Bedi’s First Amendment rights. Academic freedom ensures that universities can fulfill their fundamental mission of teaching and disseminating knowledge for the public good by protecting the intellectual choices of faculty members. For clinical faculty members, such choices include the freedom to select cases and clients, develop their clinic curriculum, and make pedagogical decisions about how they structure their clinic. The government’s request is a blatant effort to interfere with academic freedom by seeking expansive information about the operation of and curricular choices by a law school clinical program, potentially including privileged work-product and constitutionally protected client selection. Northwestern and any other university receiving such a request should use appropriate legal processes to resist providing those records in order to preserve core academic freedom protections.

As experiential faculty members teaching and practicing law, we have duties beyond those as faculty members with academic freedom — we are representatives for our clients, officers of the court, and public citizens. Seeking to punish a lawyer for their ethical and zealous representation and advocacy compromises these core responsibilities. This, in turn, threatens the viability of our legal system — a system critical to the preservation of our democracy.

In the face of these challenges to the fundamental principles our country is founded on, we reaffirm our commitment to uphold the rule of law. We stand in solidarity with Professor Bedi, Northwestern University’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, and law students across the United States advocating on behalf of their clients, and we condemn this attack on higher education, academic freedom, and freedom of expression. At this moment, the collective strength of law schools and clinics is not merely our best defense — it is our obligation to the profession, our students, and our democracy.

[*] The following is a statement of the Executive Committee of the Clinical Section of the Association of American Law Schools only. It does not necessarily represent the position of the Association.

The CLEA Awards Committee is currently soliciting nominations. For more information about the nomination timeline and awards, please see https://cleaweb.org/awards/. 

Register here for the New Clinicians Conference at the University of Baltimore School of Law on Saturday, April 26th: https://www.cleaweb.org/event-6097985.

Thank you. We look forward to seeing many of you in April.

Best,

Nickole Miller and Paul Radvany

Conference Co-Chairs

Registration for the Applied Legal Storytelling Conference is now live!

Please register here: https://www.eventzilla.net/e/10th-applied-legal-storytelling-conference-2138650345. 

The Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) invites new (and not so new!) clinicians to save the date for the New Clinicians Conference to be held on Saturday, April 26, 2025 at the University of Baltimore School of Law in Baltimore, MD. The all-day conference will take place prior to the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education. Please keep this in mind as you begin to make travel plans for the AALS Clinical Conference. Additional details and registration information will be sent out soon. Registration questions can be directed to Nickole Miller at nickole.miller@drake.edu.

Sincerely,

Nickole Miller & Paul Radvany 

CLEA New Clinicians Committee Co-Chairs

Dear Colleagues,

It is time to inaugurate a new class of Bellow Scholars! Please help us spread the word about this exciting program by forwarding the below information to your colleagues and contacts. The Bellow Scholars Program has supported several innovative empirical projects over the years, and we welcome proposals from across our community of clinical scholars.

2025-26 Bellow Scholars Request for Proposals

Find information at the Request for Project Proposals for the 2025-2026 Bellow Scholar cohort. We also encourage anyone interested in applying to attend our Prospective Bellow Scholars Workshop on January 31, 2025, to learn about the application process, gain empirical research tips and get direct feedback on their project proposals. Please register for the workshop here. 

Applications with project proposals are due by Friday, February 7, 2025.

More about the Bellow Scholars Program:

Every two years the AALS Committee on Lawyering in the Public Interest (the “Bellow Scholars Committee”) seeks innovative proposals from clinical legal educators designed to improve the quality of justice in communities, enhance the delivery of legal services, and promote economic and social justice.

In particular, the selection committee is interested in recognizing and supporting projects that employ empirical analysis as an advocacy tool and involve substantial collaboration between law and other academic disciplines. Selected projects become the focus of information sharing, discussion, and critique at the annual AALS Clinical Conference and at annual workshops organized by the committee. Selected Bellow Scholars are appointed for a two-year term.

You can read more about the Program, the 2023-2024 Bellow Scholars, other past projects, and even view sample project proposals on our website. The new cohort of Bellow Scholars will be announced in March 2025.

Prospective Bellow Scholars Workshop: January 31, 2025

The Prospective Bellow Scholars Workshop, scheduled for Jan 31, is an opportunity to learn about the two-year program, hear from clinicians engaged in empirical research projects, and obtain feedback on project ideas and draft applications.  Attendance is not required for prospective applicants. However, we design the workshop to address common pitfalls and answer questions, which is why we strongly encourage applicant attendance. Please register for the workshop here by January 30, 2025.

Please contact us at bellowscholarprogram@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Thank you for your interest,

Lisa Martin & Alina Ball

Bellow Committee 2025-2026 Co-Chairs

From the CLEA Board of Directors and Executive Committee: 

The Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) continues to oppose the ranking system used by U.S. News and World Reports (USNWR). CLEA exists to advocate for clinical legal education as fundamental to the education of lawyers, and one of our core points of advocacy is to pursue and promote justice and diversity as core values of the legal profession.

With regard to clinical rankings, the current USNWR ranking system places us in competition with each other, when we as a group see ourselves in a shared struggle for social justice and equity in legal education. There are no articulated factors for ranking clinical programs, including whether to recognize the work of externship programs, so the voting can be arbitrary and inconsistent. Moreover, some schools may unfairly suffer because they do not have the budget or the support of their administration to market their program or send their clinical faculty to annual conferences.

For clinic faculty who are in a position to take action against the use of USNWR rankings, possible alternatives to participating in the ranking of clinical programs could include: (1) declining to submit a ballot at all and sending a letter to USNWR explaining why; (2) requesting that USNWR remove the school from the clinical ranking survey; (3) submitting a ballot in which the response for every school is "no answer;” and/or (4) making a public statement against the use of USNWR rankings requesting that others do not rank the school in the survey.

We understand that each law school has a unique set of needs and priorities. Some clinical programs outside the top-tier rankings have achieved recognition of their respective programs through the USNWR; and this, in turn, has allowed them to further advance the goals of their clinical education programs. Individual faculty may choose to continue to participate, or may not be in a position to refuse to submit a rankings ballot or ask that their program not be ranked. If faculty do vote, CLEA urges those ranking clinical programs to focus on factors that promote the principles for which CLEA advocates, namely the increased presence of clinical education (law clinics and externships) in law school curricula, security of position for clinical faculty, and diversity and equity. In evaluating clinical programs, CLEA urges voters to consider: 1) the number of law clinic and externship slots available relative to the student population at a school; 2) the breadth and quality of clinical curricular offerings available to students; 3) the school's security of position, academic freedom, and governance rights for faculty who teach clinics or externships; and 4) the extent to which the school has committed to pursuing racial justice in its clinical program through its course offerings, impact on the community, and demonstrated commitment to diversity and equity in hiring and promotion of clinical faculty.

CLEA urges voters to score only those programs for which they have sufficient information to make informed decisions. It urges voters to choose the “No Answer” option when they have insufficient information to assess a particular clinical program. Last, CLEA also urges those who receive ballots to consult their clinical colleagues for their views to increase the range of informed opinions reflected in the balloting.

A national survey of law schools confirms a significant shift towards allowing students to earn academic credit in paid externship positions. Most surveyed schools reported that they allow pay in at least some of their externship placements. Externship courses allow law students to gain required experiential learning through on-site legal work with a field placement supervisor coupled with an academic component taught at the law school.

In 2016, the American Bar Association (ABA) lifted restrictions on payment of students in credit-bearing externships at accredited law schools.The decision was controversial at the time and was opposed by many legal educators, including CLEA. At that time, schools feared that pay would diminish the educational value of the placements and reduce student interest in public service placements. This survey finds that these fears have not been borne out. Schools with paid externships report positive learning outcomes and no negative impact on their public service programs.

“Today’s law students shoulder significant financial burdens and often do not have family support to fall back on. Law schools and field placements are shifting towards pay to ensure that students who would not be able to work for free have access to these valuable learning experiences,” says Neha Lall, who serves on CLEA’s Board of Directors and co-authored the report.

Key findings:

• According to CLEA’s survey data, the number of schools allowing compensation has increased from 60 (in 2020) to 81 schools, representing 57% of the 143 schools who responded to the survey. Of the 62 schools that still did not permit compensation at the time of the survey, 19 schools (over 31%) reported that they are considering changing their policy on pay.

• The disparity in pay policies between higher and lower-ranked schools (under the U.S. News & World Report scale) have narrowed and all but disappeared. Over 56% of law schools in the first, second, and third tiers allow compensation. Schools in tier four are now the least likely to allow pay, with just 52% of responding schools allowing compensation. This is a significant reversal of trends from CLEA’s 2018 survey, when 44% of tier four schools allowed compensation compared to just 13% of their tier one counterparts. 

• Regional differences in pay policies have grown over the years. Upwards of 71% of law schools on the Pacific West and Northwest coasts allow pay, and upwards of 86% of Southwest and Upper Plains law schools permit compensation. In contrast, 40% or less of schools in the Deep South and South Central regions have adopted pay policies, reflecting little change from 2020. Though the Mid-Atlantic region had the lowest rates of paid externship programs in prior surveys, the number of programs that allow paid externship placements has more than doubled since 2020.

• Schools are least likely to allow payment from for-profit law firms and for-profit corporations. The growth of paid private sector externships was smaller than for public sector positions. Private sector placements, however, remain the most likely to offer paid positions. Only six schools reported that more than 50% of their externs receive pay, and all of these schools allowed private sector placements. 

About the Survey:  The CLEA Externship Committee completed two prior national surveys on paid externships in 2018 and 2020. In 2023, 143 schools responded to the survey, compared to 148 schools in 2020 and 151 schools in 2018. The 2023 survey was sent to 195 schools, representing a 73% return rate.

The full report is available here.

The CLEA Awards Committee is once again soliciting nominations for its student awards.   

Schools have two student award nomination opportunities through CLEA. First, schools have the option to decide between the CLEA Outstanding Clinic Student or Outstanding Clinic Team Award. Second, schools can honor a student with the CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award. The externship-focused award recognizes the valuable work for justice that law students do through externships and provides schools the opportunity to nominate an outstanding and self-reflective externship student for CLEA’s recognition. 

Criteria for the CLEA Outstanding Clinical Student or Team Award (One Award Per School) and the CLEA Outstanding Externship Student Award (One Award Per School):  

For the clinic award, each school must select one student OR one team enrolled in a law school clinic course. A team may be recognized if students work together as a team, and it would be impossible or unfair to single out one team member for recognition. Schools may select one student or one team, but may not submit more than one nomination for the clinic award. For the externship award, each school may select one student enrolled in an externship course.  

The criteria for the Clinic Student/Team and Externship Awards are: 

1. Excellence in the field work component of the clinical/externship course determined by the quality of the student’s or team’s performance in assisting or representing individual or organizational clients or in undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects; 
2. Excellence in the seminar component of the clinic course or externship determined by the quality of the student’s or team’s thoughtfulness and self-reflection in exploring the legal, ethical, strategic, and other pertinent issues raised in the particular clinic or externship; 
3. For the team award, the ability of the students to engage in effective collaboration; and 
4. The nature and extent of the student’s or team’s contribution to the clinical community at the law school, legal community, or broader community, if relevant. 
   
   Nomination & Selection Process:
    
   Each law school may nominate one clinic award recipient and one externship award recipient. The full-time clinical faculty at each law school with faculty who are members of CLEA are asked to nominate a single student or a team of students from their law school for the clinic award and a single student for the externship award. Recipient students must graduate during or after the academic year in which the award is given. Each school then submits the nominations to the CLEA Awards Committee.  
   
   The nomination deadline is April 28, 2023. Please send nominations to the CLEA Awards Committee via the Google form located at https://forms.gle/KVjGuae3xiTQqaFu5. 
   
   In the form, the clinical faculty of each school will be asked to:  

• Indicate whether you are completing the form for the clinic student award or the clinic team award or for the externship student award.  

• For the clinic student award and the externship student award, indicate the name of the student as you would like it to appear on the certificate. For the clinic team award, indicate the names of the students as you would like them to appear on the certificate (separated by commas) or indicate the name of the team as you would like it to appear on the certificate. We appreciate formatting your response to this question in a manner that can easily be copied and pasted into the certificate.  

• Indicate the name of the law school as you would like it to appear on the certificate.    

• Provide a brief statement (no more than 250 words) of the reasons why each student or team meets the criteria for the award.  

The CLEA Awards Committee will issue an electronic certificate, and the clinical faculty can print and present the award at the law school’s graduation ceremony or at some other appropriate time, including remotely, as determined by the clinical faculty. Note that, even for the clinic team award, each school will receive one electronic certificate (of which multiple copies can be printed for presentation to the students). Certificates will be issued on a rolling basis (please allow up to one week to receive the electronic certificate).
 
If you have photographs of the award recipients receiving the certificates, you can send pictures for posting to social media or the CLEA website to the CLEA Communications Committee at events@cleaweb.org.

Sincerely, 

The CLEA Awards Committee  

Check out the full story on Clinical Law Prof Blog.

The CLEA Awards Committee is once again soliciting nominations for two awards that are given annually. This year’s awards will be presented during the AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education in San Francisco, and we look forward to this opportunity to recognize and celebrate our clinical community’s valuable and inspiring work. Please read this email carefully, as the CLEA Board recently adopted new criteria for the Award for Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers.

The awards are:

1. Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers; and
2. Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project.

Nominations should be in the form of a letter of no more than three single-spaced pages. Each nomination should be endorsed by at least three individuals. At least one of those individuals must be a full-time clinical faculty member at a law school and a member of CLEA. The other two individuals need not be CLEA members, nor clinical law professors. The nominating letter should clearly indicate which of the nominators are CLEA members. Letters of support in addition to the nomination letter are also welcome, and the letters of support may come from CLEA members or non-members. The letters of support must be submitted in the same email and pdf as the nominating letter (but need not fit within the three-page limit). Please find below the criteria for each award.

The nomination deadline for both awards is Friday, March 31. Please send nominations via email to awards@cleaweb.org with the subject line: CLEA Awards. All materials should be submitted as a single PDF.