Reflection, Self-Awareness, and Cultural Competency as a Foundational Pedagogy for Clinical Legal Education

Reflective practice has long been considered an essential component of the experiential learning cycle in the context of clinical legal education. Clinical legal education that involves the exposure of law students to the "live client" experience often necessitates intercultural competency as part of a client-centred approach. This chapter will explore a pedagogical approach to developing self-awareness in clinic students, recognising the meaning of "culture" and facilitating the development of understanding how "culture" affects the lawyer-client relationship. It will investigate the ways in which cultural competency is an element of empathy and how increasing intercultural fluency can accelerate the development of emotional intelligence in law students. The chapter will explain how reflective practice provides an additional dimension to the "learning by doing" pedagogy and will suggest a methodology for introducing the concept of self-awareness to students. It will also provide suggestions for ways in which the concept of "culture" can be introduced in the classroom and ultimately be adopted within the more intimate clinic student/clinic supervisor relationship. The aim of the chapter is to provide both a theoretical and a practical base for clinical teachers who are interested in developing student self-awareness, which, in turn, will be of benefit to clients who participate in clinical legal education services.