This paper plunges into the issue of the origins of legal clinics in U.S. legal education by employing the comparative methodology. The author sets forth the following propositions. First, that the legal clinics’ birth must be traced back to 1893, with the appearance of the first legal dispensary at the University of Pennsylvania, rather than during the New Deal, or later in the ’60s, as the mainstream literature on the topic argues. Second, that clinical legal education, in its very nature, had no political significance in terms of social values. Indeed, from the very beginning, legal clinics have been deemed to be almost exclusively an educational tool, rather than an instrument for political battles, as maintained, for instance, by Duncan Kennedy. In this respect, this paper takes the argument that the sole relevant social role legal clinics played was, in connection with legal aid societies, a nativist one: i.e., combatting immigration and subversive movements during the first two decades of 20th century.

Alle origini delle cliniche legali nella formazione del giurista statunitense: tra nativismo e New Deal / Serafinelli, Lorenzo. - In: DPCE ONLINE. - ISSN 2037-6677. - 4(2021), pp. 3629-3656.

Alle origini delle cliniche legali nella formazione del giurista statunitense: tra nativismo e New Deal

Lorenzo Serafinelli
2021

Abstract

This paper plunges into the issue of the origins of legal clinics in U.S. legal education by employing the comparative methodology. The author sets forth the following propositions. First, that the legal clinics’ birth must be traced back to 1893, with the appearance of the first legal dispensary at the University of Pennsylvania, rather than during the New Deal, or later in the ’60s, as the mainstream literature on the topic argues. Second, that clinical legal education, in its very nature, had no political significance in terms of social values. Indeed, from the very beginning, legal clinics have been deemed to be almost exclusively an educational tool, rather than an instrument for political battles, as maintained, for instance, by Duncan Kennedy. In this respect, this paper takes the argument that the sole relevant social role legal clinics played was, in connection with legal aid societies, a nativist one: i.e., combatting immigration and subversive movements during the first two decades of 20th century.
2021
Legal Clinics; U.S. Legal Education; Clinical Legal Education; U.S. Legal System; Comparative Law
01 Pubblicazione su rivista::01a Articolo in rivista
Alle origini delle cliniche legali nella formazione del giurista statunitense: tra nativismo e New Deal / Serafinelli, Lorenzo. - In: DPCE ONLINE. - ISSN 2037-6677. - 4(2021), pp. 3629-3656.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11573/1615186
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