Co-Presidents’ Message: Spring 2026

As we approach the end of another academic year, we find ourselves reflecting on the remarkable work of our clinical community and the meaningful connections that have sustained us through a difficult year. We are deeply grateful to the committee chairs and members who have helped move the work of CLEA forward in this past year.

Highlights From 2025–26

We continue to engage with clinicians, the ABA Council, and other stakeholders to defend the Academic Freedom of clinic and field placement teachers. Together with the AALS Section on Clinical Education, on January 23, 2026, we issued a joint statement condemning the rescission of the Deanship of Professor Emily Suski based on support of trans athletes. This clear violation of Professor Suski’s first amendment rights and ethical obligations to be a zealous advocate, mirror a disturbing trend in legal education, the silencing of anyone whose views are seen to run counter to the current administration.

We will soon be launching a National Survey on Academic Freedom Protections for Law Clinic and Field Placement Programs. The survey will allow clinicians to privately share the ways in which their work may be coming under threat and how their law schools are responding. We hope to gain a better understanding of how law schools are protecting the academic freedom of clinicians, where they are falling short, and how security of position concerns intersects with the choices clinicians make. Please look out for this survey, which will be sent to all CLEA members.

CLEA is proud to welcome a new standing Clinic Administration Committee. The administrators who run our programs do the behind-the-scenes work that keeps our programs moving. We are proud to support their important work.

The updated Best Practices in Clinical Legal Education volume is moving forward with Carolina Academic Press. This new edition will explore emerging topics including generative artificial intelligence’s impact on clinical teaching, the changing landscape of academic freedom, the NextGen Bar Exam, and the faculty status of clinicians. We received a robust response to our call for submissions, and our Best Practices in Pedagogy committee which is now reviewing the submissions.

Our expanded CLEA Newsletter now regularly highlights new scholarship in the Clinical Law Review. We have also featured short-form articles by several clinicians, including Gautam Hans, Anna Crowe & Rebecca Greening, Nakia Davis & Tameka Lester, and regular contributor, Robert Kuehn. Please consider writing a piece next year. This is a great way to share your voice with our community.

We are re-calibrating our Communications Strategy in a few important ways. We are coordinating our website, social media, and newsletters under a larger communications committee, which Amanda Cole will co-chair along with Davida Finger. We are also in the process of hiring a part-time Social Media & Digital Marketing Strategist to support CLEA’s communications efforts.

Our first virtual Town Hall Meeting in March was a success. We were pleased to share what CLEA is doing with our membership. We hope to make this a regular event and invite you to share your suggestions of how CLEA can better support you. We will have suggestion boxes at the Clinical Conference in Portland, or you can email clea@cleaweb.org.

We engaged with the student attorneys at the Entrepreneurship Legal Clinic at Penn Carey Law School to do a general review of CLEA’s organizational practices to ensure that we are complying with all our responsibilities and keeping the organization healthy from fiscal and legal perspectives.

Special thanks to our amazing treasurer, Nickole Miller (Drake) and secretary, Tanya Cooper (Pepperdine), for working diligently to do the tireless behind-the-scenes work that keeps CLEA running.

Clinical Conference

As we gather in Portland for the 2026 Clinical Conference, we look forward to celebrating our colleagues’ achievements, honoring the recipients of the 2025 CLEA Awards for Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Teachers and Excellence in a Public Interest Case or Project, and sustaining hope for the work ahead.

Please join us for our Candidate Meet & Greet Breakfast and Board meeting on Sunday, May 3 at 7:30 am. We will also be having a CLEA Community Gathering, open to all clinicians, at Treebeerd’s Taphouse on Sunday, May 3 from 6–8 pm. And do not forget to vote in the CLEA Board election!

Please Engage With Us!

We need your help elevating the visibility of our community’s work. If you have not already, follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook, and like and re-share our posts! We especially invite new clinicians, externship teachers, and clinic administrators to consider joining a committee or writing for our communications platforms.

We are grateful for this opportunity to serve as your co-Presidents, and we look forward to passing the reins to Jennifer Fernandez (CUNY) and Sarah Wolking (Florida), who will take over as co-Presidents in July!

In Solidarity,
Kathryn Banks & Neha Lall
CLEA Co-Presidents