ABSTRACT
Through supervision of students in a law clinic environment, supervisors are able to provide students with an ethical and professional framework which can provide invaluable role modelling and a foundation for their future legal selves. The formative experiences of students in a clinical environment can provide rich ground for developing reflective skills, as well as supporting professional identity formation. Such experiences enable students to face challenging situations in a controlled environment. Structuring this self-directed form of learning is a delicate balance, requiring supervisors to adopt a variety of situation-specific roles.
This chapter examines the complex role of clinical supervisors and reviews the value of this form of teaching for students, for example in greater feelings of relatedness and connectedness. The supervisor role can affect student motivation and capacity, and how far students feel able to assume more responsibility for their own learning as well as service delivery. It may also support students in dealing with uncertainty, as they discover that the practice of lawyering involves operating in an environment where there is rarely certainty, and the value of a lawyer lies in their ability to make a judgement. This work provides a comparative perspective, drawing common and divergent approaches from opposite sides of the globe using the experience of the writers.
We conclude that it is valuable for supervisors to identify and understand the different roles they play with reference to associated professional expectations to ensure that they adopt a mindful and balanced approach to supervision.
Reflections on the role of the supervisor together with a mapping of some of the existing work in this area will provide meaningful reference points to those involved in this form of experiential learning.
