Restorative Justice in Legal Education: A Virtual Symposium for Law Students

The aim of this one-day, virtual, gathering is to explore the applicability of restorative justice content and practices in the law school context and what restorative approaches have to offer the field of legal education. The gathering will focus on the perspectives of law students.

The existing criminal legal system replenishes itself regularly with newly minted graduates and other professionals educated and trained in an adversarial model. This classical education teaches criminal justice leaders to use the law, rules, and procedures to maximize the strength of their own position, while highlighting and exploiting the weaknesses of the adversary. Educating undergraduate, graduate, and law students in the adversarial model perpetuates the use of the adversarial model.

Bringing restorative justice to the law school context interrupts this cycle and equips the next generation of criminal justice professionals to bring the restorative justice approach to bear in reforming the current system.

This event offers law students, aspiring law students, and recent graduates from any law school in the United States the opportunity to learn more about restorative justice and actively explore how to bring it into law school classrooms and communities as a community. Attending the event requires no previous knowledge of restorative justice, and it is free of charge, although advanced registration is necessary.