Immigration Law Clinic: Putting Theory into Practice and Practice into Theory

As the twentieth century comes to a close, clinical legal education is deeply entrenched in law school curricula across the country. The American Bar Association's MacCrate Report, which chastised the law schools for failing to teach practical lawyering skills, suggests that demand for clinical legal education will remain. The emphasis on clinical education, however, raises questions going to the core of the law school mission. What is the purpose of legal education? What skills can law schools teach economically and efficiently? What can law schools do to prepare attorneys for practice in the twenty-first century? This Article examines clinical legal education and its implications for subordinated communities. Critics contend that the prospects for achieving meaningful social change through law are deeply limited. Some go so far as to contend that resort to the law reinforces the very subordination under attack. This argument suggests that only misery and frustration will result in the political action necessary for social change. Advocates defend providing legal assistance to the underprivileged, through clinical legal education or other means. They argue that it promotes incremental change that in the long run will improve society. Such representation also serves humanitarian functions by providing legal aid to people in need. This Article examines the relatively modest question whether clinical legal education, often implemented in programs providing legal assistance to subordinated communities, does any good for those communities. This Article examines the relatively modest question whether clinical legal education, often implemented in programs providing legal assistance to subordinated communities,does any good for those communities. To consider the potential of clinical programs to promote social change, we scrutinize how, besides providing for the representation of individual clients, clinical legal education may inspire students to pursue public interest careers. Some tout clinical programs as a way to maintain and promote student commitment to public interest careers. Importantly, clinicals may expose law students to the stark inequalities in this country and how law interacts with those inequalities. People of color are disproportionately represented among those who suffer from a myriad of social problems. Poor minority women are over-represented on the welfare rolls. African American and Latino men constitute a disproportionate percentage of the prison population. The U.S. immigration laws disparately impact noncitizens of color. Through a clinical experience, a student may see how our justice system directly, and often adversely affects racial minorities in the United States. One would hope that, at a minimum, clinical legal education raises consciousness among the students about the devastating influence of race and class on modern U.S. social life. We focus on the experiences of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California at Davis School of Law. The authors approach the question from different vantage points, one a supervising attorney in the Clinic and the other a tenured professor who serves as an informal clinic advisor. Established in 1981, the Immigration Law Clinic was one of the very first immigration law clinics at a law school in the United States. The creation of an immigration clinic in the early 1980s was no small feat. Until recent years, few law schools offered a course in immigration law and legal scholarship in the field simply did not exist. Since 1981, the clinic has served over 300 client cases and been the home-away-from-home for nearly 400 students. The Immigration Law Clinic unquestionably has made a difference in the lives of clients, students, supervising attorneys, and, to a lesser extent, the community at large. However, as it processes cases with an impressive win-loss ratio, many new cases continue to come in the door. Making the clinic's job all the more difficult, the troubles facing immigrants in this country have worsened over time, particularly in the 1990s, which saw the worst outburst of nativism and restrictionist legislation since early in the twentieth century. Part I of the article focuses on the experience of the Immigration Law Clinic. Part II analyzes how the Clinic fits into theories of lawyering to achieve social change.