Abstract

In early March of 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Perhaps not surprisingly, “the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare not only the social and racial inequities in society, but also the pedagogical and access to justice inequities embedded in the traditional legal curriculum.” The pandemic highlighted the need to re-envision legal education, requiring innovation and perseverance from clinicians and dispute resolution faculty around the world to address both the societal and law school impacts of the pandemic with vision, fearlessness, and fortitude. The authors in this volume document and explore innovative responses to the pandemic in domestic and international dispute resolution and clinical education; re-envision the tradition of community lawyering; and, hopefully, portend increased social justice awareness and transformation in legal education and practice in the future. These authors are at the forefront of innovative teaching, practice, and scholarship in these realms.

Keywords

Coronavirus, WHO, COVID-19, Pandemic, Legal Education, Inequity, Legal Curriculum