Book Review: Clinical Legal Education: Active Learning in Your Law School

Published date01 January 2014
Date01 January 2014
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/2321005813505461
Subject MatterBook Review
Military-Madrasa-Mullah Complex 67
India Quarterly, 66, 2 (2010): 133–149
A Global Threat 67
Book Review
Clinical Legal Education: Active Learning in Your Law School. By Hugh Brayne, Nigel Duncan & Richard
Grimes. Blackstone Press Series, 1998. Pp., US$ 96.84, ISBN: 1854318314, 97818543183121
This review discusses the content and style of the publication and reflects on its usefulness several years
on. It contemplates the ambitions of the authors and the driving forces behind the creation of the book,
namely, bringing together the audiences of students and professors in order to facilitate a new method of
learning through clinical education. The book encompasses not only practical advice but also critical
analysis in order to fashion a well-rounded persuasion of the benefits of such a system. I am able to
retrospectively assess any claims with a comparison of the resulting fashions of legal education in the
United Kingdom.
Introduction
There is no doubt that the ability to review a piece of work several years on is a mixed blessing for those
tasked with critiquing. Clinical Legal Education: Active Learning in Your Law School was published
some 14 years ago when clinics were very much the exception to the rule in UK law schools. Clinics and
other pro bono initiatives can now be found in around 75 per cent of law schools in England and
Wales. The encouragement contained in the book to develop models of clinical legal education appears
to have been taken on board—but is the book’s value and impact still relevant today? There is nothing
like hindsight for assessing its true worth. One could ponder whether this book and its authors have
influenced the transformation of legal education. Then again, considering the strong examples set by the
United States and South Africa, developing clinical models could easily be seen more as natural
progression.2 If not, then revolutionary, it might have been as the Law Teacher describes; ‘an excellent
introduction to the theory and practice of Clinical Legal Education.’3
Considering the book in isolation of current contextual legal educational practice initially, the preface
and introduction set out an explanation of the interesting and rather unique style of the publication.
1 HUGH BRAYNE, NIGEL DUNCAN & RICHARD GRIMES, CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: ACTIVE LEARNING IN
YOUR LAW SCHOOL (1998).
2 FRANK S. BLOCH, ed., THE GLOBAL CLINICAL MOVEMENT: EDUCATION LAWYERS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, 69–70
(2010).
3 Paul Maharg, Book Reviews and Notes, 33(1) THE LAW TEACHER 100, 105 (1999).
Asian Journal of Legal Education
1(1) 67–70
© 2014 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
SAGE Publications
Los Angeles, London,
New Delhi, Singapore,
Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/2321005813505461
http://ale.sagepub.com

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