Opening Plenary, AALS Clinical Conference – Request for Action Items: What Are You Doing in These Tumultuous Times?

This year's AALS clinical conference happens in early May, 2017 in Denver, Colorado.  Be a part of the opening plenary session by sharing your work!  From the organizers: 

We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education.  We write with regard to the conference’s opening plenary session, entitled Pushing On and Pushing Through in Tumultuous Times.  The conference theme is Serving the Client in Tumultuous Times: Fostering Responsibility to Individuals, Communities, and Society in Clinical Legal Education.  As part of the plenary, we would like to hear from you regarding action steps you have taken or plan to take―in response to today’s tumultuous times—during this academic year or action planning this summer with respect to teaching, lawyering, scholarship and/or service.  How have these times caused/forced/led/inspired you to change what you have done, what you are doing, and/or what do you plan to do?  Please send us a couple of sentences or a paragraph detailing your steps by Friday, March 31, to 17clinical@aals.org, with the subject line: “Faculty Motivation for Opening Plenary.”

 

In addition, please ask your students to create brief videos or take photos that we might show during the opening plenary or perhaps at other times throughout the conference or on the conference website in which they address one of the following questions: 1) What have you been doing this academic year to address injustice?; 2) How have you been making a difference this academic year, inside or outside of law school?; and/or 3) In 2017, what motivates you most to become a lawyer?  Responses can be sent in a short video format (e.g., less than one-minute iPhone video clip) or on a photo with cue card, as shown in this video of Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0, and on the right side of the page here, http://theopedproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=868&Itemid=154.  Other examples could include photos or short videos of students meeting with client communities, providing access to legal assistance in new venues such as airports, or meeting with local legislators.  Each submission must include the student’s name, law school and year in law school.  Submissions may include audio.  Please send high-resolution photos and high-definition cellphone videos.  Submissions are due by Friday, March 31, and should be sent to 17clinical@aals.org, with the subject line: “Student Motivation for Opening Plenary.”

We cannot promise to include all submissions in our opening plenary program.  We know we will gain inspiration from all of them. 

 

Sincerely,

Opening Plenary Presenters: 

Craig B. Futterman, The University of Chicago, The Law School

Bill O. Hing, University of San Francisco School of Law 

Susan R. Jones, The George Washington University Law School 

Moderator: Michael Pinard, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law 

Planning Committee for AALS Conference on Clinical Legal Education:

Luz E. Herrera, Texas A&M University School of Law

Margaret M. Jackson, University of North Dakota School of Law

Lydia Johnson, Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law

Paul Radvany, Fordham University School of Law

Alexander Scherr, University of Georgia School of Law

Robin Walker Sterling, University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Carol Suzuki, University of New Mexico School of Law, Chair

Send questions to:

Carol M. Suzuki

Professor of Law

University of New Mexico School of Law

suzuki@law.unm.edu