Effective Collaboration to Enhance Justice Education:

Sharing Lessons Learned and Future Ideas

Lisa Bliss, Georgia State University College of Law, Atlanta, GA USANancy Maurer, Albany Law School, Albany, NY USA

Leah Wortham, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. USA

Introductions•Who we are•Who you are• Your interest in this session

Why are we talking about collaboration?• Facilitators just completed two large scale collaborative projects• The projects

• Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World• Grew out of Best Practices for Legal Education: A Vision and a Road Map

• Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Guide for Legal Externs (3rd edition)

• These collaborations contribute to our community and networkGoals: Improving legal education and providing resources for law teachers

• Our experiences gave us insights that we want to share with others and explore how other collaborations might enhance justice education• Collaboration is fun!

The Best Practices Project(s)• Best Practices for Legal Education: A Vision and a Roadmap (“BP1”)

The Best Practices Project(s)•Best Practices for Legal Education: A Vision and a

Roadmap (“BP1”)•Developed as a project of Clinical Legal Education

Association (“CLEA”)•Many contributors, one editor: book is by Roy

Stuckey and others• Full text available online in English and Russian at

http://www.cleaweb.org/best-practices•Developed a statement of best practices, as of

publication in 2007

The Best Practices Project(s)• Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a

Changing World (“BBP”)

The Best Practices Project(s)•Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal

Education in a Changing World (“BBP”)• Developed as a project by four editors, with support from

CLEA• 59 authors, 42 articles, 92 readers, 3 copy editors,

librarians, student assistants, and more!• Designed to update and capture changes in legal

education since 2007

Building on Best Practices• 4 editors (red), 59 authors, 42 articles, 92 readers, 3 copy editors

Evolution of BBP Project• Began as an “update”• Editors lived in 4 corners of the country• 42 different sections of book• Range of topics •Working process• Email• In person – 2x per year• Weekly phone/skype calls for 2 years• Drafts discussed at a workshop/conference• Editors held an editing retreat

Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs • LFP 1st edition (1998)

Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs • LFP 1st edition (1998)• Started with teachers at one school (CUA) • 15 chapters & 8 authors• “Menu” for classroom/reflective component• Teacher’s Manual (TM) • Book release with first US national externship conference hosted at CUA

(8th in Cleveland, Ohio in 2016)• LEXTERN website <http://lexternweb.law.edu/> (managed by J.P.

Ogilvy: “Sandy”)• LEXTERN listserv: Also managed by Sandy Ogilvy. URL above says how

to subscribe

Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs • LFP 2nd edition (2007)

Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs •LFP 2nd edition (2007)• Same CUA editors, added 8 new authors outside

CUA•20 chapters & 15 authors (new chapters & old

revised)• TM also revised

Learning From Practice (3rd edition)• 4 editors (red), 35 authors (blue), 29 chapters

Learning From Practice: A Professional Development Text for Legal Externs • LFP 3rd edition (forthcoming 2015)• One continuing CUA editor + three new• 29 chapters & 35 authors • Teacher’s Manual prepared alongside• Adding Multimedia Resources: goal of publicly available

BLOG • Goal to make book even more applicable to U.S. law

school students doing externships abroad, experiential education more generally, & for law schools outside the U.S.

LFP 3rd collaboration• 1 continuing editors—other 2 had other projects• Editors in 4 states (but at least in the same time zone!)• Authors from 10 additional states•Working process over about 2 years so far—finish Dec 2015• Invited new authors• Timeline for abstracts, outline, drafts, final, & TM• Each chapter has liaison editor• Face-to-face with most authors at conferences (or calls) • Weekly phone/skype calls for years• Two 2.5 day “retreats” in Washington

Opportunities Common to BBP & LFP•“Moment” in legal education•Publisher enthusiasm•Shared vision among editors•Editor willingness to work through decisions and address conflict positively and respectfully•Editor & author commitment to enterprise, to better legal education

Challenges Common to BBP & LFP• Legal education changing during the project• Decide topics • Decide on perspective• BBP: How to define “best practices” vs. “emerging practices vs. “good

practice”?• LFP: Useful for US externship classes but also relevant to experiential

education generally, outside the U.S.• Geographical distance means most communication by email, phone,

skype, & Dropbox• Competing demands on editor & author time• Sheer volume of demands of coordinating so many people and nitty-

gritty tasks like copyediting, copyright permissions, and so on

Some Differences in BBP & LFP•BBP began as a call for proposals for an update. Then

moved in a new direction asking people to join & soliciting new.• LFP editors decided on topics & asked authors to join•BBP being published free: strict page limits from

publisher• LFP publisher’s profit-making venture: editor freedom to

decide re length•BBP a book for legal educators• LFP a book for students; TM for teachers

Helpful in Both BBP & LFP

•Sense of humor•Some face-to-face meetings & “retreats”•Good snacks especially chocolate

Why Collaborate? • Improves our work with students• Helps us gain learn new perspectives and gain new insights• Team members bring differing strengths, interests, and experiences so

the sum is stronger than its parts—i.e better outcomes• Produces more efficient results• Need not always be in person

• Essential to today’s law practice• Multidisciplinary teams• Employers looking for this skill

• Provides new energy • Greater career satisfaction and success

What makes collaboration/teamwork effective? • Communication• Shared commitment to goals• Clearly defined roles of team members•Mutual trust• Self-awareness• Honesty, Curiosity, Creativity• Understanding & using teamwork process: forming, norming,

storming, reforming, performing

Collaboration & teamwork education for students• Collaboration can be taught and learned!• Collaboration should be taught pervasively in law school• It should be taught explicitly: Incorporate teamwork theory, skills, and

practice into legal education• Allow students to apply collaborative concepts through activities and

assignments• Teachers can model teamwork• Students can learn skills such as peer feedback, leadership,

communication…• Teamwork in law school contrasts with traditional law school values

Exploring Collaboration: Quick Write ExerciseWorking individually, reflect on a collaborative project or experience you have had. Write down what you learned from this experience – what helped the project or experience be successful or unsuccessful? Which behaviors or strategies worked well? Which did not? Why?

Exploring Collaboration: Small Group Exercise

Share the reflections from your individual quick write in the small group. Choose a reporter to share what you discussed with the full group.

Debrief

Collaborating to Enhance Resources for Justice Education: Quick Write ExerciseWorking individually, write down answers to the following question:In your own country or region, what kind of resources do you need to do your work more effectively? What is a project that you would like to see? (e.g., do you need teaching materials, a network of people who are doing similar work that can develop protocols, how-to manuals for community teaching, clinics, etc.)

Collaborating to Enhance Resources: Small Group ExercisePresent your ideas about resource needs and development to your small group. Choose one idea and develop it. Determine what steps could be taken to make this idea a reality.

Debrief