Clinical legal education and Indigenous legal education: what’s the connection?

In this article we will examine some of the steps that UNSW law school has taken to address Indigenous disadvantage in, and exclusion from, legal education. The article focuses on the role of clinical legal education within Indigenous legal education. Two concrete examples will be discussed: a clinical subject specifically designed for 1st year Indigenous students and a class given by an Indigenous academic for later year law students within the general clinical legal education courses. The first is discussed to demonstrate how clinical legal education can improve the experience of Indigenous students within law schools. The second example highlights the challenges of attempting to “Aboriginalise” the curriculum of law courses