Each year law school clinics provide free legal assistance to tens of thousands of clients, most of whom would otherwise go unrepresented. The work of clinics allows clients to advance or defend their rights or obtain assistance or funds to which they are entitled, assistance that is in many ways invaluable to clients and their communities. While the benefits of clinic work to clients can be difficult to monetize, it is possible to estimate the dollar value of the millions of hours of free legal assistance law clinics provide each year to individuals, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations. Using ABA annual reports, Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE) data, and market rate and employment wage data, this paper estimates total law clinic enrollment, the number of hours worked on client matters, and the economic value of the work. Using conservative data points and assumptions, law clinic students in 2020-21 provided more than three 3 million hours of free legal assistance to individuals, government entities, and non-profit organizations. At the market rate for non-lawyer legal assistance, students are estimated to have provided over $325 million in free legal assistance in 2020-21. Alternatively valuing student time at the prevailing wage rate, law clinic students provided over $88.5 million in free legal assistance
