New England Clinical Conference 2023

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Vermont Law and Graduate School is thrilled to host the 2023 New England Clinical Conference (NECC 2023) this March 31, 2023.  The New England Clinical Conference is a one-day gathering for clinical faculty from law schools in the New England region.  For our first in-person gathering since 2019, our theme will be: It's the End of the Law as We Know It (And I Feel Fine?): Clinical Teaching in a New World.  This event offers opportunities to strategize and discuss clinical teaching in the context of recent seismic shifts in the legal profession and the legal system, and how we can better adapt to meet students' needs in a time of rapid change.

Our keynote speaker is Shilpa Jain (she/her), who has found passion and a career in helping communities adapt to change, at a personal, community, and systems level. In our first live conference in three years, we are excited to go on a learning journey for the day with Shilpa. As she notes, we are wiser, together. Through a variety of different community-building and co-learning practices, we will bring out our unique strengths, questions, struggles, unlearnings, strategies, dreams, and more, and weave them together -- to give us all a little more jump in our step, juice in our engines, and kick in our pants (the good kind). All of these collective moments will be bolstered by our breakouts into small groups -- an incredible variety of colleague-generated grow-horts - working through different dimensions of the end of the world as we know it, being the change, and imagining new futures. We can't wait to be, and see what we unleash, together.

Topics might include:

  • understanding law students’ cultural backgrounds and current concerns;
  • an appreciation for the profound effects of vicarious trauma;
  • how students experience the changing legal system and their clients’ goals;
  • the need to understand students’ own evolving needs and abilities;
  • the need to support students’ voices in shaping new systems; the need to understand and teach the cultural, racial, and power underpinnings of the legal and client ecosystems;
  • and so much more.

Shilpa Jain's Bio:

Shilpa is currently rooting herself in Oakland/Berkeley, CA. She served as as the Executive Director of YES! for 11+ years, working with social changemakers at the meeting point of internal, interpersonal and systemic change.  Prior to this role, Shilpa spent two years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator of Other Worlds, and ten years as a learning activist with Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, based in Udaipur, India, where she served as coordinator of the Swapathgami (Walkouts-Walkons) Network. Shilpa has researched and written numerous books and articles, and facilitated workshops and gatherings on topics including globalization, creative expressions, ecology, democratic living, innovative learning and unlearning. She is also co-author of “Connect. Inspire. Collaborate”, a highly sought-after facilitation manual. Shilpa has facilitated dozens of transformative leadership gatherings in India, Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Egypt, Mexico, Canada, and the US, working with hundreds of leaders from over 50 countries. She sees her work as contributing to the deep healing of internal, interpersonal and systemic breakdown. Shilpa is committed to using very simple human technologies to uncover ways for people to free themselves from dominating, soul-crushing institutions and to live in greater alignment with their hearts and deepest values, their local communities, and with nature.

Agenda:

The agenda for the day is here.  

Travel, Lodging, and Food Options

The airports nearest South Royalton, Vermont are:

  • Burlington, Vermont (BTV) (~75 minute drive)
  • Lebanon, New Hampshire (LEB) (Cape Air only) (~27 minute drive)
  • Boston Logan (BOS) (~2.5 hour drive)

Some suggestions for possible lodging within driving distance of Vermont Law & Graduate School.