Giovanna Shay

Inside-Out as Law School Pedagogy

In the fall of 2010, and again in spring 2012, the Author taught a course entitled Gender & Criminal Law inside the Western Massachusetts Correctional Alcohol Center in Springfield. Participants in the course included roughly equal numbers of law students from the Authors home academic institution, Western New England University School of Law, and residents of the facility. For fourteen weeks, the class met weekly at the institution to discuss issues including domestic violence law reform, the role of family ties in sentencing, and gender issues in prisoner reentry.The Author taught this course in a modified form of the Inside-Out format. Inside-Out is a national training program founded by Lori Pompa and based at Temple University. It offers training programs several times each year. The program has trained more than 300 instructors to date who have offered 300 Inside-Out courses around the U.S. and in Canada. Most of these instructors are college professors who typically teach undergraduates. The Author participated in training in summer 2009, becoming the first law school professor to join the Inside-Out network.This Essay reflects on the Authors Inside-Out experience. It makes the case for Inside-Out as a particularly useful form of experiential learning for law students. It also describes some techniques she learned through teaching an Inside-Out course that can be implemented in a more traditional law school setting.