Community Education and Access to Justice in a Time of Scarcity: Notes from the West Grove Trolley Garage Case
24 Pages Posted: 19 Mar 2013
Abstract
This Essay is part of an ongoing series of case studies on the progress of law school-affiliated public service projects conducted in partnership with faith based, nonprofit groups for the purposes of educating and training law students in community lawyering. Housed in the Historic Black Church Program at the University of Miami School of Law’s Center for Ethics and Public Service, the projects seek to build a pedagogy of civic professionalism and community engagement within a hybrid classical and clinical model of legal education. Still inchoate, the curricular model draws on multiple university disciplines, diverse law school pedagogies, and varied legal-political reform practices to fashion innovative advocacy, organizing, and policy approaches to alleviating concentrated inner-city poverty. Briefly sketched, the Essay outlines this evolving model in terms of its core components (community education, community research, and historic preservation) and its street-level application (the West Grove Trolley Garage case), noting its broader relevance to faith-based community outreach and interfaith coalition building in a time of public and private resource scarcity.
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