“ Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools ” 1 : A Chinese / U . S . Program in Experiential Legal Education

Dong Jingbo, a young faculty member at the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, used to teach using only the traditional lecture technique which she had experienced in her own legal education in China and Korea. Until, that is, Professor Dong attended summer workshops given by Pacific McGeorge, in partnership with American University’s Washington College of Law, and also earned an LL.M. at Pacific McGeorge, in the Teaching of Advocacy. Her classes no longer are limited to lecture. She has developed a simulation to use in Chinese criminal law classes, has demonstrated it to other Chinese law professors and has written a law review article about it.2 The simulation is based on a news story about a man who used his wife’s ATM card to make two successive withdrawals of 10,000 RMB, while the receipts reflected a total withdrawal of only 2 RMB, and even though his wife had only 10,000 RMB in her account. The man was charged with theft. Professor Dong assigns students to play the role of the prosecutor, defense counsel and judge. They are given the definition of theft, and must argue and decide the case. She then provides a series of additional facts, requiring deeper analysis. Introduction of this role play into the class builds on learning theory to provide deeper


1
A report in March 2010 from Southwest University of Science and Technology Law School, regarding a workshop our US AID program conducted in Wuhan, China in December 2009 informed us: "After much discussion, our teachers adopted 'walking on two legs' guiding principle for the practical teaching reform; it means legal clinic teaching and traditional teaching develop in a twopronged way to promote the experiential teaching."Translated by Wang Yongmei, e-mail to Brian Landsberg, April 2, 2010.
States Agency for International Development (US AID) based on two premises.First, the rule of law depends upon the existence of lawyers, judges, and prosecutors with professional skills and a professional identity based on values. 6Second, experiential legal education is an essential method for inculcating skills and professional values.These premises were validated by the publication the following year of the Carnegie Foundation report 7 and Best Practices in Legal Education. 8An unstated premise of our proposal was that U.S. assistance in promoting the rule of law in China would have to come primarily through indirect means.In the words of one western scholar of Chinese law: "Foreign actors lack the local knowledge and the influence to significantly shape the outcome." 9We recognized from the beginning that cross-cultural and cross-system legal training ultimately depends upon the Chinese trainees to design appropriate curricula and adopt appropriate teaching methods, by combining their understanding of local culture and legal system with their learning from the training.We aspired thus to empower Chinese law professors.
These premises seem to be consistent with Chinese government and academic thinking.Hu Jintao expressed commitment to "comprehensively implement the rule of law as a fundamental principle and speed up the building of a socialist country under the rule of law."He noted the need to "strengthen the enforcement of the Constitution and laws, ensure that all citizens are equal before the law, and safeguard social equity and justice and the consistency, sanctity and authority of the socialist legal system." 10 Achievement of these goals requires a well-trained, ethical professional 40

International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Summer 2011
6 Professionalism is a necessary, but not a sufficient prerequisite to the rule of law.Rule of law also depends upon the structure and content of the legal system.But a well designed structure and just laws are unlikely to bring about the rule of law if the lawyers and judges lack professional skills and values.For example, "an independent and authoritative judiciary assumes a competent and clean corps of judges."First, the promise of rule of law gave people hope, inspired them, and the law supplied the ammunition.The list of core and elective courses taught in China consists almost entirely of doctrinal courses rather than skills courses.It is unclear from the list how many of those courses also have an analytical component, such as the U.S. case discussion method.Professor Wang Weiguo has written that "the Socrates method, or in Chinese usage 'elicitation method (Qi-fa-shi)', is always encouraged."However, he also refers to mock court as a student-organized activity, with some faculty guidance. 13Professor Huang Jin has noted that in China some "consider legal education as quality education, some as academic education, some as professional education."The planning session was an essential first step in creating relationships and in educating one another on our respective legal and educational systems.We emphasized from the outset that our program was to be a Sino-US collaboration, not a top down program from the U.S. to China. 22The bulk of the meeting was devoted to presentations by Chinese legal educators and judges on the current state of Chinese legal education and on the Chinese legal system, followed by questions from the U.S. participants.When the U.S. participants stressed that we were not there to tell Chinese educators what to do, Chinese legal scholars responded that the U.S. professors were the experts on experiential education and that Chinese law schools wanted us to tell them how to provide it.
Our meeting also exposed disagreements among the Chinese about the relevance of teaching trial skills such as cross examination and opening statements and closing arguments.Some welcomed that emphasis, arguing that the judge-centered civil law system that governed Chinese trials was gradually giving way to a more adversarial system; others saw no evidence that that was happening.
All agreed, however, on the basic proposition that Chinese legal education needed to include clinical and professional skills courses -learning by doing, and abandon its pervasive reliance on the lecture system.At the same time, however, there was general agreement with the sentiment subsequently expressed by a leading Chinese scholar: "[W]e should not take a model deeply embedded in the historical, institutional, theoretical, and discursive contexts of the West, decontextualize it, and accept it uncritically as the standard of reference for China's experience." 23 continued dialogue with our Chinese partner schools during week-long visits to each.On-site visits not only enhanced the building of relationships, but enabled further exchange about the objectives and methods of the program and provided greater understanding of the existing curriculum and of possibilities for change.We were also able during these visits to interview applicants for the LL.M. programs described below.During this trip we also learned about other important players, such as the CCCLE, the Ford Foundation, Yale-China, the American Bar Association Rule of Law project, International Bridges to Justice, the Asia Foundation, and the Temple Law School program.Each of them has provided us with insights into the needs of Chinese legal education.Finally, we had the benefit of a Board of Advisors, half of them nominated by our Chinese partner schools; we were able to meet with most of our advisors during this trip.They include scholars, judges, practitioners, and a consultant and have provided helpful suggestions and insights, as well as lending legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese educators. 24

II.
Our program emerged from this crucible by creating three distinct platforms for educating the educators.
1 a thesis requirement; enrollees also take lawyering skills courses and will shadow clinical law teachers.The theses typically discuss the applicability of experiential techniques to a Chinese law school course, including concrete plans or case simulations.We also have sent three Chinese law teachers to receive an LL.M. from American University's Washington College of Law (WCL).These students worked extensively with WCL's clinical faculty and wrote theses on clinical education.
2. Workshops in China for Chinese law school faculty members.We have held two three-week summer workshops, a two-day workshop, and a one-week winter workshop in which numerous Chinese faculty have interactively learned how to teach clinics and lawyering skills such as persuasion, interview, examination, negotiation.In the first two workshops half the participants studied clinical education and half studied professional skills education.In subsequent workshops we have merged the teaching of these two forms of experiential education.
3. Two scholarly conferences of Chinese and U.S. faculty, focused on experiential education in China.The papers from the first conference have been published and the papers from both are available on-line, in both Chinese and English.
Within these platforms our primary method of educating the educators is learning by doing.After initial discussion of the objectives of clinical and lawyering skills legal education, the teaching proceeds through three stages: First, the trainees participate in simulations -role plays and demonstrations -taking the role of law students.The simulations themselves use a tripartite method: students describe objectives, engage in the simulation, and then reflect on both what worked and what didn't work to achieve the objectives. 25Second, they learn to teach students experientially, through meta-simulations involving other participants playing the role of students, in which they evaluate and critique and elicit reflection, with feedback from the trainers. 26After progressing from what we teach to how we teach it, the third step is to enlist the Chinese trainees as trainers, who teach the "what" and the "how" to other Chinese law faculty.These skills are taught in various contexts, including clinical seminar discussion, case rounds, one-on-one supervision, client counseling, negotiation, arbitration, legal writing.Throughout this process we encourage discussion of the objectives of experiential education and of which techniques best serve those objectives in the context of Chinese law schools.
The U.S. faculty began with expertise in clinical and lawyering skills education, but not in Chinese law or language.Similarly, the written materials with which we were familiar were U.S.-centric.For our first advocacy training we got permission from the National Institute of Trial Advocacy to adapt one of its case files into the context of an arbitration governed by the rules of the Chinese.We used an arbitration rather than a court case because of our lack of expertise in Chinese judicial procedure.The rules of the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (CIETAC), a Chinese arbitral body, are similar to other international western arbitration rules.

"Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools"
Both our clinical and advocacy trainees, however, became involved in creating experiential exercises within the Chinese context.For example, in our first clinical workshop, the Chinese trainees created a simulation in which the "clients" brought the "student practitioners" fruit and a red envelope containing cash.The trainees playing the role of supervising "professors" of the clinic then guided the "students" through reflections on what to do with the fruit [a gift to them] and the envelope [intended as a gift to the judge]. 27In the second clinical workshop, students interviewed a real client in front of the trainees and then faculty guided them through reflections on the goals and techniques of the interview.In the second advocacy workshop, trainees created simulation case files suitable for use in Chinese law schools, and those five case files were subsequently published. 28 ended each day by asking participants to fill out a "two-minute wrap-up," and we reviewed the completed forms each evening.The form asked for a rating of the day's work, an explanation of the rating, and what questions remain unanswered regarding the day's topic.This enabled us to adjust the following day's session to address unanswered questions.Finally, the addition of Chinese trainers after the first year enhanced our ability to provide training that would be optimal for Chinese trainees.

III.
We have faced two types of challenges: challenges based on difference and challenges that flowed from the type of experiential education we are teaching.The differences are many: the legal systems, the educational systems, the languages, the cultures.

A.1.
The legal systems differ in several ways.China mainly follows the civil law system, while the U.S. is a common law system.Case law, thus, assumes a much less important role in China than in the U.S. China, like most civil law jurisdictions, uses an inquisitorial procedure while the U.S. uses the adversary system.China lacks compulsory process of witnesses, so usually the record in a case is primarily paper rather than oral testimony.As a practical matter, a Chinese clinical student facing possible litigation will need to focus on how to muster facts in a paper record and will give less emphasis to live witness development.We decided, though, that the job of the lawyer in both systems is one of problem solving and persuasion and that if we taught about basic advocacy techniques with which we were most familiar, such as direct and cross examination and opening statements and closing argument, the Chinese professors would be able to adapt those techniques to the Chinese system. 29They generally began learning these techniques with some skepticism, but eventually came to find them very valuable and transferable.China's legal system is also, at least nominally, a Communist legal system.The legal system must act in harmony with the Communist Party, while the United States' legal system reflects capitalist and democratic values.This leads to different conceptions of the rule of law.China officially embraces the rule of law. 31What that means is not at all clear and may differ from one person to the next.Jerome Cohen has pointed out that this means a "political-legal" system in which "to an unusual extent, 'politics takes command,' as the slogan puts it, at least in the many types of cases the state regards as 'politically sensitive.' 32Moreover, even though China's legal history is millennia longer than that of the United States, China had to reinvent its legal system after the Cultural Revolution.As Jianfu Chen has pointed out, "rule of law" is largely a Western notion, and modern China has used the term "Yifa Zhiguo, Jianshe Shehuizhuyi Fazhi Guojia", or "ruling the country according to law and building a socialist country governed by law." 33 Jiang Ping, noting that the story of rule of law in China has been two steps forward and one step backward, also tells us that "more and more people are genuinely interested in the fate of China's rule of law."He adds that "lawyers definitely don't only want to make money; many lawyers have come to understand and think about our country's destiny, the future of the rule of law, and the protection of human rights." 34China's courts do not have the history of independence that U.S. courts have achieved, and they continue to suffer from a large number of poorly qualified judges 35 and from corruption 36 .Concepts such as the lawyer's duties of zealous advocacy and confidentiality may not apply in China. 37In our program we have taken the position that exposure to the Western legal systems' values of due process and transparency and lawyer-client relations are central to the rule of law.Accordingly, their adoption would help the Chinese law professors educate future lawyers and judges to respect the rule of law.Participants read materials about the lawyer-client relationship and discussed how to supervise clinical students in their representation of clients.Our stress on the concept of client centered lawyering met initial resistance, partly because it seems inconsistent with a hierarchy that places the lawyer above the client 38 and partly because the Chinese professors thought it "meant that American lawyers did whatever their clients wanted them to do."However, after hearing that the concept stands for assisting "clients in making decisions in which competing values of the client are at stake," the Chinese professors are reevaluating whether client centered lawyering is consistent with Chinese values. 39For our August 2009 training, Professor Xu Shenjian of the China University of Political Science and Law created a power point presentation on client centered lawyering, an indication that the concept is taking hold in China.Discussion of theory of the case underscored that the attorney must be able to tell the client's story in a sympathetic and convincing way.

A.2.
We also had to recognize important differences between the educational systems.One set of differences is in the students.As in much of the world, law is an undergraduate degree in China, though an increasing number of Chinese law graduates go on to study for an LLM or JM degree. 40f course, in the United States it is a graduate program.The Chinese government describes the legal education system as one that "combines the education of law majors and vocational education in law." 41Many undergraduate law students will never practice law or serve as judges or procurators.Most U.S. law students become lawyers.These differences suggest the need for adjustment of the U.S. methods in China.Indeed, this is a key area of global adaptation and recognition of differences. 42It has been suggested that undergraduates are "too young to think for themselves and need first to accumulate a corpus of knowledge." 43The opposing view is that learning theory places both upper division undergraduates and J.D. students "squarely within the 'adult' cohort for mature learning purposes." 44The experience of our Chinese partners reflects that properly supervised undergraduates can successfully represent clients in legal matters.
Because Chinese law students are in a four year program, there is more opportunity to sequence experiential courses; for example, lawyering skills courses in client interviewing, negotiation, mediation, and arbitration or trial could be made prerequisites to clinical courses.Such sequencing would reserve clinical courses for upper division students, who will be more mature and therefore more likely to be able to interact appropriately with clients.The more difficult question is whether the need for experiential legal education is affected by the existence of a sizable enrollment of students who will never serve in law-related jobs. 45One answer is that the problem solving skills acquired in experiential courses have broad application.Another is that there is student demand for lawyering skills and clinical courses.Many students do enter law-related jobs.They want professional skills education, and potential employers want them to have professional skills. 46A third is that taking a clinical course may well motivate a student to become a lawyer, because of the satisfaction that can come from representing a client and because the clinical work exposes students to societal problems and reveals the need for legal representation.In addition, of course, the students have enrolled in a law school, and it seems appropriate for a law school to train lawyers.Finally, these objections to lawyering skills education at the undergraduate level have no application to LL.M. and J.M. education.
Any program in China must confront the daunting scale of the country, so unlike the United States.With over 550 law schools, 47 many of which are quite new to legal education, how can a relatively small initiative make a substantial impact?We decided that it would be impossible to quickly bring change to a large number of law schools.Instead, we opted to try to have a large impact on a few schools, by limiting our initial program to three partner schools and training ten faculty members from each school.We believe this strategy has paid off.Practitioners of experiential legal education are embedded in those three schools and the future of practical lawyering education seems secure there.All three have expanded their clinical offerings.An extension of our grant enabled us to increase to five additional schools participating in the program, with each school sending six faculty members.Chinese professors from the first phase of the program are now trainers in this Phase II.As more Chinese faculty become proficient in training other faculty in experiential education techniques, we hope the methods will spread further.
There are also curricular and teaching method differences.Law schools tend to adopt the required courses listed by the Ministry of Education, so they are pretty much in curricular lock step with one another.No experiential courses are required, 48 but the Ministry of Education has approved legal clinics as elective courses and is considering whether to encourage practical education in law schools more actively. 49Students are expected to acquire lawyering skills during their fourth year of law school, through three or four month externships with lawyers, courts, or procurators.These assignments have often been of minimal value, however. 50 Chinese law classes, while the Socratic method dominates in the United States. 51Chinese law students have come to believe that the professor's job is to answer questions, not to ask questions.Thus, they initially resist the more demanding methods that would require advance preparation and critical thinking. 52Clinical legal education's real-world, client-centered focus on facts and practice stands in stark contrast to the rest of the curriculum, with its virtually exclusive emphasis on rules, law, and theory. 53inical education is in its infancy in China, having begun at a few schools in the 1990's. 54  "Training on basic knowledge, theories and skills will be further emphasized.In the field of HE, the service profile for disciplines will be expanded and the teaching and training for application and internship will also be strengthened, so that teaching, research and social application can be integrated and the students' capacity in analyzing and solving problems will be improved."education, Chinese are very interested in adapting the U.S. methods to Chinese circumstances. 58his has become obvious to us as we view the enthusiasm with which Chinese law schools have sought to become part of our program.
It has been suggested that some legal educators in the two systems may pursue different goals for clinical legal education: championing equal access and redressing inequality [United States] versus improving legal skills [China]. 59This both oversimplifies the two educational systems and creates a false dichotomy.Clinics in both countries promote the rights of the powerless and less privileged among us.Clinical students in both countries acquire both lawyering skills and an understanding of the legal needs of the poor.Of course, it might be possible to pursue one objective without the other.For example, a professor might agree for the clinic to take on a high impact case even though it has little pedagogical value.However, in both countries a properly run clinic will find cases that advance both objectives.As Michael Dowdle points out, law school clinics "often provide a legal aid function by providing legal services to persons who would not otherwise have access to them," although "one of their principal foci is on pedagogy, and not simply on maximizing the reach and impact of their public service." 60Language differences have presented some challenges as well.Only one of our U.S. faculty speaks Chinese and many Chinese trainees have little or no English language skill.Therefore, most of our activities in China have required interpreters. 61It is important to use professional interpreters rather than rely on English.The main choice we had to make was between consecutive and simultaneous translation.We opted for consecutive, believing it would probably be more accurate and that the much higher expense of simultaneous translation was not warranted.Simultaneous translation would become especially difficult in the small group sessions which became the heart of our program.We did use the "whisper" system in small groups where the Chinese participants were engaged in learning exercises among themselves. 62We discovered an unexpected advantage to 57 of lawyers and judges.The latter, in turn, depends upon the committed training by Chinese law schools of tomorrow's lawyers and judges.As Professor Guo Jie, Vice-president of Northwest University of Political Science and Law, has observed: "The outcome of the legal education will influence and even decide, in some sense, the direction, process and future of the judicial reform and development of the whole country." 11 This article describes how our "rule of law" program has been structured and will be structured going forward and the methods used in the program.It then turns to the challenges we have faced and will face going forward and the lessons we have learned.It concludes with a discussion of the program's impact.In designing our program, we were struck by the seeming consensus among many Chinese educators at a conference of Chinese and American law school deans in Beijing in 2005.Professor Huang Jin of Wuhan University noted that China needs a large number of lawyers equipped to perform on the global market.He believed that although lawyers should be professionals with practical problem-solving abilities, the curriculum neglected practical skills.President Huai Xiaofeng of the National Judges College also mentioned the need to enhance the problem-solving ability of students, as well as their professional ethics and ability to handle trials and mediation.
Second, many young lawyers, products of the newly minted law schools in China's universities, take the government's promise of rule of law and what they learnt in law textbooks literarily, but as they meet the reality of rule by the CCP political and legal committees, they become the front-row challengers of the system, and leaders in the civil rights movement."cadre Another speaker, from China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), also noted that practical skills training in China was under-developed.

on two legs in Chinese law schools"
14 Finally, Professor Cai Yanmin, a leader in China's clinical education "Walking 11 Guo Jie, Reform of Legal Training and Education Pattern of LLB Programs -A Study and Experience from Northwest University of Political Science and Law, in conference book for Chinese and American

International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Summer 2011
and other Law Schools.20Itdiffers from other prior U.S. involvement in Chinese legal education, which largely consisted either of U.S. teachers teaching Chinese law students or of U.S. entities funding programs they deem beneficial.A multiplier program aims for self-sustaining long range effect, by emphasizing the creation of a cadre of Chinese academics who have participated in creating experiential curricula based on Chinese needs and circumstances.21Afterreceiving the US AID grant, we held a planning session with our partner schools at Zhejiang Gongshang University in Hangzhou in December 2006.We had recruited one U.S. partner, American University's Washington College of Law, which offers one of the top clinical programs in the United States.Our Chinese partner schools covered a spectrum: China University of Political Science and Law is one of China's top law schools and had created several clinics in 2004 with assistance from the Ford Foundation.Zhejiang Gongshang University (ZGU) is a provincial university whose law school, operating under a dynamic relatively young Dean, Qingjiang Kong, is environment."http://www.law.georgetown.edu/clinics/fellowships.html, viewed on March 4, 2010.Georgetown firmly committed to becoming a leader in experiential education.It had formed Zhejiang Province's first legal clinic in 2005, on an experimental basis.South China University of Science and Technology (SCUT) is recognized by the Chinese government as a "key university" and has a fairly new law school and clinical program, some of whose faculty shows great interest in experiential education.While all three Chinese partners already offered their students a mock trial program, this programs was voluntary, not for credit, and teachers were also volunteers.

"Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools" 43
20 For example, in 2000 Chinese and U.S. clinical educators conducted a one week training conference at Wuhan University, followed by an Autumn week long training at Yale and a December forum at Renmin University in Beijing.See Cai Yanmin and J.L. Pottenger, Jr., The "Chinese Characteristics" of Clinical Legal Education, in Frank S. Bloch, The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice 87, 92 (Oxford University Press 2010).Columbia law school adopted a "train the trainers" approach in 1979, and in 1983 the Committee on Legal Exchange with China (CLEEC) was formed and began bringing to U.S. law schools young Chinese law teachers for training.R. Randle Edwards, Thirty Years of Legal Exchange with China: The Columbia Law School Role, 23 Colum.J.Asian L.3, 10-12 (2009).In 1997 a U.S.-China summit meeting led to the adoption of a Joint Statement providing for cooperation between the two countries in the field of law, which led to a conference of law deans on expanded cooperation on legal education.Paul Gewirtz, The U.S.-China Rule of Law Initiative, 11 Wm & Mary Bill Rts.J.603, 613 (2002-3).See also the testimonials to the Yale China program, at http://www.yalechina.org/testimonials.php?Id=10&SubId=95, viewed on May 14, 2010.21Anearlystudy of clinical programs in China distinguishes between reductive and pragmatic strategies.In a reductive strategy "we know at the commencement of the developmental process what the institution being 'developed 'should look like after that development is completed."Apragmaticstrategy makes "the discovery of developmental paradigms the goal of the project, rather than a prior (and hence ideological) condition for the project."Thereductivestrategy focuses primarily on training, while pragmatic strategies focus more on discourse.Michael William Dowdle, Preserving Indigenous Paradigms in An Age of Globalization: Education Reform in China Through U.S.-Inspired  Transplants, 59 J. Legal Ed. 60, 62 (2009).
. Pacific McGeorge School of Law created an LL.M. in Experiential Law Teaching.Over the course of three years eight Chinese law teachers will have earned this LL.M.The heart of the LL.M. is found in a seminar on teaching methods and in 1960s to spread the U.S. Law and Development Movement to other countries); Matthew S. Erie, supra, at 87, 95 (noting the need for joint PRC-U.S. training programs to cultivate grassroots legal transplants).
The significance and nature of such skills as fact investigation, litigation, and alternative dispute resolution … differ in ways that Chinese clinicians need to consider when developing their own course syllabi."30 29This conclusion was supported by limited observation of a Chinese trial and of Chinese law school mock trials.My notes on one such mock [experts don't testify].A student journalist took pictures for an internet report on the trial.Organizer will give me a disc of the moot court.One professor came in briefly…."tolocal circumstances."

"Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools" 47
30 Pamela N. Phan, Clinical Legal Education in China: In Pursuit of a Culture of Law and a Mission of Social Justice, 8 Yale H.R. & Dev.L.J. 117, 140 (2005).laws; fourth, laws shall be made in a democratic manner and be publicized and popularized among the masses; last but not least, see to it that there are laws to go by, the laws are observed and strictly enforced, and law-breakers are prosecuted.A

"Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools"
On the Role and Significance of Advocacy and Clinical Legal Education in China, presentation at Pacific McGeorge School of Law conference on Experiential Education in China, Jan.

"Walking on two legs in Chinese law schools"
It is now well entrenched in most U.S. law schools.Lawyering skills courses are virtually non-existent in China, but are found in most U.S. law schools; in China, mock trial programs are common but are not courses for credit.On the other hand the division that has developed in the United States between clinical education and lawyering skills education does not currently exist in China.55Chineseprofessorsgenerallyreceive less recognition and pay for teaching experiential courses.The status of experiential education in China, in short, resembles its status in the United States until the 1970's. 56S. law schools went through a slow and uneven transition to a curriculum that includes lawyering skills and clinical legal education, creating teaching standards and techniques through trial and error and through dialogue among experiential education scholars.As with so much of Chinese society, more rapid change is possible in Chinese law schools, for several reasons.The Ministry of Education has encouraged higher education institutions to incorporate learning by doing.57Chineselegal scholars are familiar with the U.S. experience and they show high regard for U.S. legal education.Since the U.S. now has a mature, though still evolving, experiential legal Culture of Law and a Mission of Social Justice, 8 Yale H.R. & Dev.L.J. 117, 142 (2005)(describing a Chinese student who "insisted that he could not learn without the instructor answering his questions directly and resolutely").However, many students adapt well to interactive learning techniques.See Patricia Ross McCubbin, Malinda L. Seymore, Andrea Curcio, and Llewellyn Joseph Gibbons, Essay: China's Future Lawyers: Some Differences in Education and Outlook, VII Asper Review 293, 299 (2007).In the late 1980's some Chinese law schools created law firms that provided legal services, and law school student unions began offering legal advice.However, these were extracurricular activities.Michael S. Dowdle, supra, at 175-176.Clinical Legal Education in China: In Pursuit of a Culture of Law and a Mission of Socieal Justice, 8 Yale Hum.Rts.& Dev. L.. 117, 143 (2005).
54 55 See Pamela Phan, Year Plan for China's Educational Development and the Development Outline by 2010, viewed on Feb. 17, 2010.