Does Clinical Legal Education Need Theory?

DOI10.1177/2322005820916891
Date01 July 2020
Published date01 July 2020
Subject MatterArticles
Article
Does Clinical Legal Education
Need Theory?
Hugh McFaul1
Abstract
Clinical legal education (CLE) is an increasingly common feature of legal education programmes in
higher education around the world. The growth in this area has led to a developing academic literature
facilitated by specialist journals and conferences, which have produced a largely pragmatic and practice-
orientated discourse, with relatively little discussion of wider theoretical issues and their relevance
to this area of academic practice. This conceptual study contextualizes the growth of CLE in the UK
by considering the influence of two neoliberal policy drivers: marketization and the decline in publicly
funded legal advice and representation. It proceeds to consider how these policies have helped to shape
the practice-oriented focus of the literature on this area before making an argument that giving more
explicit focus to theoretical issues has the potential to enrich the growing body of CLE literature.
Introduction
An outline of a theory of education is a noble ideal, and it does no harm if we are not immediately in a position
to realize it. One must be careful not to consider the idea to be chimerical and disparage it as a beautiful dream,
simply because in its execution hindrances occur.2
The fear of speculation, the ostensible rush from the theoretical to the practical, brings about the same
shallowness in action that it does in knowledge. It is by studying a strictly theoretical philosophy that we become
most immediately acquainted with Ideas, and only Ideas provide action with energy and ethical signi cance.3
Recent decades have seen considerable expansion in the number of clinical legal education (CLE)
programmes in UK law schools.4 While this growth can be seen as part of a global clinical movement,
the extent and shape of this growth within the UK has been in uenced by two streams of neoliberal
1 Hugh McFaul, The Open University, UK.
2 immanuel Kant, Frontmatter. in r. louDen & G. ZÖller (eDs.), Anthropology, History, and Education (the camBriDGe eDition
oF the worKs oF immanuel Kant, PP. 1–6). camBriDGe: camBriDGe university Press (2007).
3 Friedrich Schelling quoted in J. haBermas, KnowleDGe anD human interests (1971).
4 Damian carney et al., lawworKs law schools Pro Bono anD clinic rePort 2014 (2014) lawworKs, https://www.lawworks.org.
uk/solicitors-and-volunteers/resources/lawworks-law-school-pro-bono-and-clinics-report-2014.
Asian Journal of Legal Education
7(2) 152–163, 2020
© 2020 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
Reprints and permissions:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/2322005820916891
journals.sagepub.com/home/ale
Corresponding author:
Hugh McFaul, The Open University Law School, Michael Young Building, Walton Hall, MK76 AA, UK.
E-mail: h.j.mcfaul@open.ac.uk

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