Description
Delivered online to the Connecting Legal Education network, an international network of legal educators and practitioners.This talk examined whether clinical legal education can help develop “a human first, and a lawyer second” by fostering empathy in law students. Drawing on the study by Lawton, Saban and Whittam, it explored how participation in law clinic and tax clinic modules influences students’ self reported empathy, measured using the Basic Empathy Scale. The research found that most students experienced a significant increase in both cognitive and affective empathy after working with real clients, highlighting the value of authentic client interaction in legal education. However, a minority reported decreased empathy, raising important questions about emotional strain, student readiness, and the challenges of encountering difficult client situations. As well as providing a toolkit for future research in this field, the talk reflected on how clinical programmes can support students’ emotional development and argued that if the profession values emotionally intelligent practitioners, legal education must provide structured, supported opportunities for students to develop empathy.
| Period | 26/05/2026 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Connecting Legal Education |