Rand, S --- "Teaching Law Students to Practice Social Justice: An Interdisciplinary Search for Help through Social Work's Empowerment Approach" [2007] LegEdDig 3; (2007) 15(1) Legal Education Digest 8

Teaching Law Students to Practice Social Justice: An Interdisciplinary Search for Help Through Social Work’s Empowerment Approach

S Rand

[2007] LegEdDig 3; (2007) 15(1) Legal Education Digest 8

13 Clinical L Rev 459, 2006, pp 459–504

We must make clear to our students that our clinics exist to help our clients attain social justice and that social justice means more than just giving the poor access to counsel. We must teach them a model by which they can practice in a way that brings social justice into their practice.

This paper is based on two premises. First, if we want our graduates to do legal work toward social justice, we must ingrain in them a concept of social justice that is both strongly held and operational.

The second premise of this paper is that we have much to learn from the pedagogies of other disciplines about how to teach this to our students through their work in our clinics. This paper focuses on one effective way that social work does so when teaching practice methods defined by the ‘empowerment approach’.

[Model Rules of Professional Conduct] do virtually nothing to describe problems in society that we might address, even problems that should not be controversial like abuse or human rights violations. There is nothing to help us evaluate whether the work we are doing is in the public or community interest. There is nothing about problems that affect those most often unrepresented by attorneys. Interpreting our rules, we cannot decide whether we are working toward social justice.

One way to begin to have the discussion with students of why and how to practice toward social justice is to discuss other professional codes with them.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code is explicit that working toward social justice is part of what it means to be an ethical social worker.

The NASW Code actually defines some things need to be addressed: poverty, unemployment, and discrimination are wrong and unjust. Further, equality of opportunity is a value for which we should strive.

Because social work is founded in part on establishing social justice, some students assume that what social workers say about social justice is not mainstream among professions.

To help counteract these reactions, I have also brought the American Nurses Association (ANA) code of ethics to class. The ANA code has proven an interesting example because like lawyers, nurses do not define their work as solely helping the poor and disenfranchised and serving a more expanded client base.

As in social work, the description of social justice in the nursing code is strong, even if different terms are used.

That nurses have a code that truly addresses social justice shows that we are making excuses if we continue not to have such a definition for ourselves.

Learning about the empowerment approach developed in social work teaching and practice will help us to think about social justice and how theoretical ideas of social justice can be merged with a professional’s practice. The empowerment approach fleshes out the definition of social justice in the NASW Code by providing a practical approach through which social workers can examine why oppression occurs. No matter what practice methods they use, social workers are required to address oppression.

[The empowerment approach] asks social workers to evaluate their work in the larger context of social justice in a way that lawyers can also apply to their work. It demands that we define social justice through the eyes of our clients and other community members. It addresses which clients we should take on, how we should include them, how we should design our practices, and what political responsibilities we have to further our client’s interests. It compels us to think about power and how it affects our clients.

A law student looking at the ABA Model Rules can only believe that maybe someone should give access to the legal system to poor people. A social work student can look at the NASW Code and know that their profession wants them to work toward a well-defined social justice mission. Moreover, there is a large enough group of people concerned about social work education to require courses on social justice issues be included as a standard for accrediting social work degree programs. This educational requirement has encouraged social work educators to develop approaches and methodologies that demand that social workers strive toward social justice in their personal and professional life.

The general emphasis on the empowerment approach is to require social workers to develop a sense of social justice and then to analyse their social work interventions based on whether they push social justice on behalf of the client and the community.

In the Empowerment Approach to Social Work Practice, Judith A. B. Lee describes 8 principles upon which the empowerment approach is based, which are paraphrased below: (1) All oppression is bad. All oppressed groups and all people should unite to work on all oppression; (2) To understand a client’s problem a social worker must take a holistic view. A social worker must work with the client to see the problem in context of the community, both to see whether it is a problem that is permeating the community and affecting others and to see if the solution to the problem can be found in the community; (3) People empower themselves and our job is to assist them. Social workers do not swoop in to save the day. A social worker is meant to work with people and communities to help them define their own problems and potential solutions; (4) People with similar problems need to work together. There is strength in working as a community to resolve problems. Many or most problems can be resolved through working with or within the community; (5) Social workers need mutual reciprocal relationships with clients. It must be recognised that both social workers and clients come to the relationship with ideas and with skills. Clients stand with each other and with social workers to fight against oppression; (6) A social worker is to help clients ‘find their own word’. Following Freire’s ideas, a social worker is to help a client frame the client’s world in her own language and not allow herself to be defined by those that have power over her. Using different language can give power to the oppressed; (7) People do not choose to be oppressed. A social worker should help clients understand that they need not be victims but should work on being victors in battling oppression. This promotes individual growth and allows for people to become more proactive; (8) Social workers are to maintain a social change focus, working with clients to connect to wider issues and working together on them.

The approach does not prescribe particular social work interventions that are appropriate.

Instead of prescribing methods, the empowerment approach demands that social workers familiarise themselves with the community, that they evaluate along with their clients what outcomes comport with social justice, and that they work toward those outcomes.

Adding social work’s empowerment approach to clinical legal teaching allows us a way to help our students to think about whether social justice is implicated in the cases we handle. By stressing power imbalances as a potential cause of legal problems and by teaching that addressing those imbalances might resolve those problems, we can help our students view our clients more positively as people who have abilities. We can help them learn to harness those abilities to help clients achieve power over themselves and their lives. The empowerment approach has implications for both individual client work and for legislative advocacy and community work. For individual client work, it suggests that we should look at power imbalances that impact a client’s situation and use legal and non-legal means to resolve the situation. For legislative advocacy and community work, it suggests looking at the law as having been created by those with more power and trying to change the law to address the power imbalances that the law perpetuates.

Three key tenets of the empowerment approach can help structure how we help our students evaluate and approach legal cases: (1) Respect for the client as someone who can have power: Students should learn respect for clients including personal respect for a client as a conscious individual who has the potential for personal empowerment. This respect allows the student to reject the concept of the client as a helpless victim and yet recognises the extent to which the client is subject to powerful forces beyond individual control; (2) Identification of the problem in terms of power imbalance: The student must learn to identify the specific individual problem prompting the initial interview and also to evaluate the problem as a potential systemic societal wrong. This should include identification of the root cause of the problem wherever possible; (3) Assessment of solutions in terms of empowerment strategies: The student should learn to evaluate potential avenues of legal and non-legal recourse including individual solutions but also community actions and responses, political action and the like. From neighbourhood centres to social service centres to informal issue orientated groups, students must know what is going on in the community and be ready to take advantage of it to help clients.

Students will not be able to work toward addressing power imbalances unless they both (1) respect their clients and (2) think that their clients can handle power.

Respect is implicit in the decision-making role that our clients retain to direct their legal action. Even the most directive attorneys recognise the client’s right to make key decisions in their cases.

When evaluating cases to determine if a student is addressing a social justice issue, the empowerment approach suggests beginning by determining if the client is a member of an ‘out-group’. Determining that a potential client is a member of an out-group includes determining if the client is part of a group that suffers from some of the wrongs that many professionals would define as violations of social justice.

If a client is a member of an out-group, the approach asks students to evaluate if the client is being oppressed by a member or members of another group or if their situation is exacerbated because of it.

It can mean looking at our unemployment and welfare system as an intricate system of rules designed, not on how poor people see themselves, but on ways that people who have money decide to deliver needed income and services to the poor.

Not only should students be looking for power imbalances in the law, they should be looking at power imbalances in the legal system. They should look for ways that people in power, who are likely to be on one side of an issue, have worked to structure the legal system. In many cases, the system itself is particularly designed to disfavour the out-group.

As such, a major tenet of the empowerment approach is that the ends of legal representation — addressing power imbalances — are more important than the means.

In order to have students think about which types of cases have social justice implications, I have asked students to assist in setting case priorities for our office by doing client needs assessments. Students have designed written needs assessments surveys that they have given clients in group presentations. They have then analysed the assessments to determine what sorts of problems our clients describe that we may not be handling. We also do oral needs assessments when we have given presentations by asking people in the group to share with us the types of problems they see in the community. We have used this information to discuss office priorities and to involve students in issues of importance to the community.

I have talked with interns about sharing their beliefs about social justice with others.

Many of our interns will not have the opportunity to direct their entire practice toward social justice but may be able to take pro bono cases. We have discussed the type of pro bono work that people do and evaluated whether taking such cases would be how they would spend their limited pro bono hours if they were asked to help.

Not having practiced law, many of our students need help learning how to apply their legal skills with social justice in mind. With our help, our students can listen to their clients and allow them to define their problems while helping our students learn about problems in their community.

They can set aside some or their entire legal career toward working toward social justice. They can learn what social justice is and operationalise it so that the work they are doing is not amoral. They can become attorneys that make a difference.