Issue Home Volume 11: Issue 4

Compassionate Advocacy
Patricia Harrison, J.D.
Assistant Clinical Professor
Supervisor, Youth Advocacy Clinic
School of Law

To teach clinical legal service, I must model compassionate advocacy for the poor and disadvantaged to my law students. Clinical legal education must provide opportunities for students to experience what case law and statutes cannot teach. To go into the juvenile detention center, be locked in a cell with a 14 year old boy who is mentally challenged, poor, of a different race and background will challenge any student to look beyond the books, beyond the theories. Students learn the importance of being agents of change by arguing for justice for the accused, by empowering poor mothers to fight for special education services for their disabled children and by collaborating with other agencies to provide holistic representation for families. What better way to learn cultural competence than having a Spanish speaking or Bosnian client and helping them through the complicated legal system. What better way to stand up for what is right than to experience clear due process violations that most accept as a part of the system, but you learn to challenge as the “voice” for the forgotten, the exploited.

Clinical education requires active engagement in the learning process. You cannot teach compassion without witnessing tears and distress. You cannot teach how to advocate without providing a client to advocate for. You cannot teach how to think for yourself without providing conflict to challenge beliefs and values. You cannot learn commitment to justice unless you see unjust acts and then fight for fairness. And, to work as a team by collaborating as a class to reflect on the real world lessons that can’t be understood through reading a law review article is the Jesuit pedagogy.

Every student should have the opportunity to learn from those who have done the work, who live the work and who are called to work in service of others.

Last updated 04.28.09