ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of a clinical course in law school on the motivation of law students to practice public interest law. The legal profession in the United States is facing the most daunting spectre of its relatively short life. The resulting lack of confidence in the legal system has provoked the profession to re-examine the delivery of legal services from every perspective, beginning with the orientation and education of law students. Members of the Legal Profession in America have long recognized their ethical aspiration to make the services of competent lawyers available to the public. During the 1980s, a perception that legal services programs were merely satisfying a political agenda, combined with growing concern over the national debt, provoked a series of cutbacks in funding for the Legal Services Corporation. Both law schools have student organizations whose primary focus is the provision of legal representation in the public interest, created and operated by law students.
