The history of contemporary clinical legal education has had four phases. These phases can be distinguished both chronologically and by the predominant concerns.

Phase one began in 1968 and was characterized by a concern for service and lawyering. The goal was to meet the needs of low-income clients for previously unmet legal services, while at the same time teaching students practice competency. Confronted with these demands, the traditional relationship between student and teacher began to change, as both found themselves “on the line,” and “at risk.” The sweeping claims of clinical teachers about their ability to teach practice competency proved illusory for they had developed neither the descriptive nor the conceptual tools necessary. They did not anticipate the limited impact of clinical activities in the context of a student’s total law school experience. Most importantly, they failed to understand the power of the practice environment which confronted students after law school.

Clinical teachers were unable to deliver quickly on their competency claims and as a result found themselves vulnerable. Their more traditional colleagues, out of continuing desires for academic dominance, identified themselves as theoreticians. Clinical teachers thought of themselves and were thought of as practitioners – which was appropriate since many had come directly from active practice. But this identification relegated clinical education to the margins of legal education. As this first phase concluded, clinical education came under attack by mainstream law faculties. Clinical opponents urged the abandonment of actual client representation by students in favor of case simulation which would be less expensive, more easily administrable, and more educationally predictable.