9. Climate clinics as a site of climate wellbeing?

The context of climate is not unique in causing students to reflect on their role and professional identity as (future) lawyers. The experience of encountering clients in clinic who have been treated unfairly by the legal system, or who have been unable to protect or assert their rights, is common across clinical programs. However, the existential threat and hydra-headed nature of the climate crisis brings into focus these issues of professional identity more viscerally and more starkly for students who want to contribute positively to addressing the climate crisis but may not know how to do so.^[1] Aided by reflective practice, students can ask: What kind of lawyer can and should I be? What does it mean to practice law for the environment?

In considering the intersection of climate learning in law and student wellbeing, the recognition that how students learn is at least as important as what they learn is significant.^[2] Clinical methodology — with the emphasis on small, collaborative groups engaging in personally and professionally meaningful work — offers an environment that is well placed to meet the basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness and competence, as well as providing a sense of purpose.^[3] The clinic has been described as a ‘practice community’ where staff and students cultivate a sense of belonging, valuing and promoting empathy and support to others.^[4]

A clinical model for climate-related learning provides students with an opportunity to share these concerns and, critically, to act on them to contribute positively and collectively to a more positive vision of the future. In acquiring the skills to understand and respond to a client’s legal problem, students then connect that individual’s problem or experience with a broader advocacy agenda — such as climate change.