Introduction

Clinical Legal Education needs to be reflective and transformative, forming a basis for faculty and students to collaborate with local communities by centering their identities, needs, unique systemic experiences, and challenges in the work that is carried out. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach for legal empowerment or access to justice for communities that invariably experience intersectional discrimination based on various aspects of their identities. There is a need to reimagine clinical legal education beyond the ‘sensitization’ of students, to make it reflective for students and therefore, sustainable for communities. This systemic change-making in conversation with communities is the primary goal for clinical legal initiatives at JGLS.

The Office of Vice Dean of Clinical Legal Education at Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) was established in August 2020 to institutionalize this vision for Clinical Legal Education (CLE).