There are three claims concerning clinical legal education in the Australian literature. The first, associated with CLE's 1970s heritage, is the claim that CLE is about the study of injustice and the progressive practice of law. The second is that CLE is about skills training. The third is that CLE is about effecting personal value change in students through exposing them to the 'different side of society'. The recent documentary Street Practice (2004), as a representation of CLE in Australia, revealed the highly problematic nature of CLE as value change. It showed that emphasis on value change through 'ethical training through experience' presents CLE as another site for the hierarchy, manipulation and egotism long identified by critical accounts of legal culture. Furthermore, at the very moment when conservatism is on the rise in Australia, CLE - in talking and aiming for value change - seemingly has abandoned its progressive origins and joined in this lurch to the right.