TEACHING AND LEARNING PORTFOLIO: LAW STUDENT FIELD PROJECTS IN COMMUNITY LAW (Ansley, University of Tennessee School of Law)
For a number of years here at the University of Tennessee College of Law I have been teaching classes in which law students carry out community-based fieldwork with local organizations and agencies. The projects are law-related, but they seldom involve the traditional provision of legal services, tending more often to fall into the category of community legal education. In most of these projects, the education about law ends up flowing both ways: my students and I learn from community partners how law and the legal system actually operate in their complicated lives, and in return we work to find and communicate back to them what “law on the books” currently has to say about their rights and vulnerabilities.