professional responsibility, student practice, and the clinical

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pedagogical and ethical concerns not encountered in other law school settings.
The clinical teacher will face role confusion and professional conflict when
his or her assessment of what is educationally productive for the student
collides with the teacher's assessment of professional obligations owed to the
client. This conflict may turn generally on the teacher's sense that the client's
interests are not being zealously served and protected by the student advocate.
It might stem from a perception that the student is committing violations of
more specific ethical rules (e.g., making a false statement of material fact to
a tribunal) or committing errors or omissions which would constitute
professional negligence. The clinical teacher may also have a particular
moral sensibility about the specific case, or about conflict resolution in
general, which differs from that of the student and which suggests
responsibilities or constraints beyond those dictated by the applicable ethical
code. 3 Such conflict raises the prospect of the clinical teacher's intervening
directly between the student and client to safeguard the client's interests or to
promote some other moral objective. But the very act of direct intervention
disturbs the student-teacher and student-client relationships in ways that can
produce undesired and unintended consequences. The student may feel his
or her judgment has been unnecessarily impugned. Intervention may cause
the student to feel demoralized and inadequate and to become overly
dependent on the clinical teacher. The student-client relationship is at risk of
being undermined. The client may infer that he or she is receiving inept or
second-rate legal services and may be more circumspect in further dealings
with the student. The resulting mix of emotions and uncertain expectations
injects instability and distrust into the problem-solving process which can
hinder further work on the client's case. Thus the act of clinical intervention,
while motivated by ethical propriety and professional responsibility, can
3. Lawyers and law teachers are increasingly studying ways to integrate personal
morality and professional ethics. See, e.g., R. JACK & D. C. JACK, MORAL VISION AND
PROFESSIONAL DECISIONS (1989); Spiegelman, supra note 1. The American Bar Association
Model Rules of Professional Conduct' require the lawyer to "exercise independent
professional judgment and render candid advice. In rendering advice, a lawyer may refer
not only to law but to other considerations such as moral, economic, social and political
factors that may be relevant to the client's situation .. " MODEL RULES OF PROFESSIONAL
CONDUCT Rule 2.1 (1990). As clinical teachers wrestle with the moral ramifications of
professional choices, their personal moral vision may conflict with that of the student. The
teacher's vision is, of course, not inherently preferable to the student's. The tension
between the two can both enrich and complicate the teacher-student relationship.