Tackling difficult lawyering questions and learning from them are part and parcel of the clinic experience at Penn Law, says Douglas N. Frenkel, W '68, L ‘72, director of the Gittis Center for Clinical Legal Studies. The concept is termed "reflective lawyering," and it is more than an idiom, it's a mantra in Penn Law's clinics. "Our overarching teaching objective is to prepare students not just for the immediate experience but the ability to teach themselves from this collection of experiences," he says. "What were the alternatives? What can I learn from this experience? How can I generalize from this experience, so that when I leave here, I will in a sense become my own teacher?"

He sums up: "It's not only teaching students how to do this case, but how they can learn from this case for a lifetime."