Student in the Seats, Teacher in the Streets: Evaluating the Impacts of Law Students Becoming “Street Law” Teachers

Abstract

The need for public legal education is at an all-time high. From constitutional law issues raised by the recent presidential election to increased media coverage of police brutality, there are numerous examples of why it is crucial to teach practical law to non-lawyers. Street Law programs, administered by law students to teenagers, are a prominent type of public legal education. Despite the urgent importance of Street Law programs, there is limited research on their pedagogical effectiveness, or how they affect those who administer them. This project helps to close that gap through its multimethod research on the course instructors. In addition to completing this program evaluation, the project also (1) develops a theoretical framework that will enable law school administrators and scholars from a variety of disciplines to understand how law students are impacted by Street Law programs, and (2) lays the foundation for future assessments of Street Law and other public law education programs. The importance of understanding the impacts of these programs, which the results of this study show to be overwhelmingly positive, cannot be overstated because they have broad potential to affect law students’ transition to practice and society at large.