Beyond Role Playing: How Simulated Clients Enhance Learning

In a previous article, I wrote about the benefits of simulations in jump-starting learning. In this article, I want to focus on one specific aspect of simulation: the use of simulated clients.

Medicine has long used simulated patients to help students develop practical skills and bedside manner. The use of simulated clients to support law student learning is a more recent development. Through the pioneering work of Paul Maharg and others, simulated clients have become an important educational tool in legal education in Canada and around the world.

Rather than discussing the history of simulated clients or the training they receive, I want to focus on the value they bring to student learning.

Learning with Classmates

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with articling students developing interviewing skills both with and without simulated clients. Working with another student can be beneficial, particularly in the early stages of learning, but pairing two law students together has its limitations.

The most obvious limitation is that they are both law students. They want each other to succeed and, often without realizing it, can “feed” information to their partner. Students acting as clients may ask questions that steer the interview in a particular direction or volunteer information that makes it easier for the student acting as the lawyer to ask the “right” questions or provide the “right” advice.

Their shared focus on legal analysis also removes them from experiencing the interaction from the client’s perspective. As a result, they are less able to assess something equally important: how it feels to be the client.

This is not to say that working with classmates has no value. Practising with someone who is also developing the same skills can create a sense of trust and psychological safety that allows learning to take place. It is also a relatively inexpensive way to provide students with opportunities to practise interviewing skills.

The Value of Simulated Clients

When properly trained, simulated clients can provide an incredibly meaningful learning experience.

Like first-time clients, they are unknown to the student. This uncertainty allows students to experience many of the same nerves and emotions they will encounter in practice. Simulated clients have no stake in the outcome. Their role is to portray the client authentically, and their training helps prevent them from unintentionally “feeding” students information.

In most cases, simulated clients are not lawyers. They do not evaluate the interview through a legal lens or focus on a particular technique. Instead, they occupy a unique position from which they can assess something that lawyers sometimes overlook—the client experience.

Did they feel heard? Did they understand what the student lawyer was telling them? Did they feel respected? Did they have confidence in the student’s ability to help them?

These are questions that go to the heart of client-centred practice.

Another benefit is that the experience remains low stakes. No real client is harmed if the student misses an issue, asks incomplete questions, or provides incorrect advice. At the same time, students receive something that most real clients are unlikely to provide, meaningful feedback on the interaction itself.

Hearing the Client’s Voice

Perhaps the greatest benefit of simulated clients is one that lawyers rarely experience in practice: hearing the client’s perspective.

In practice, clients seldom tell us whether they felt heard, whether our explanations made sense, or whether they left the meeting feeling reassured or overwhelmed. Unless something goes seriously wrong, lawyers often receive little feedback about the experience from the person sitting across the table.

Students face a similar challenge. Most feedback comes from instructors, assessors, or peers. While valuable, that feedback is inevitably filtered through a legal lens. It focuses on whether the right questions were asked, whether issues were identified, and whether the law was accurately explained.

Simulated clients offer something different. They provide feedback from the perspective that matters most, the client’s. They can tell students whether they felt listened to, whether they understood what was being explained, and whether they had confidence in the student lawyer’s ability to help them.

Those observations provide students with insights that are difficult to obtain elsewhere. They help students appreciate that effective lawyering is not simply about identifying legal issues and providing accurate advice. It is also about building trust, communicating clearly, and ensuring clients feel heard and understood.

Perhaps that is the greatest value of simulated clients. They remind students that legal practice is not just about solving legal problems. It is about serving people.

More Than Assessment: Reflection and Growth

Simulated clients provide students with valuable feedback on both technique and what medicine would refer to as bedside manner. They replicate many of the emotions and uncertainties that accompany real client interviews while avoiding many of the limitations associated with practising exclusively with classmates.

They are also valuable assessment tools. Simulated clients can provide insights into communication skills, professionalism, empathy, and a student’s ability to build trust, competencies that are difficult to assess through written assignments or traditional examinations.

More importantly, simulated clients provide students with an opportunity for structured reflection. Feedback from the client perspective often reveals gaps between what students intended to communicate and what the client actually experienced. Those moments can be powerful catalysts for learning.

Students move beyond simply asking, “Did I get the law right?” to considering broader questions: “Did I make my client feel heard? Did they understand what I was trying to explain? Did they leave the interview confident in my ability to help?”

These are not merely questions of technique. They are questions about the client experience and the relationship that lawyers build with those they serve. Reflection on those questions helps students develop the self-awareness and communication skills that are essential to becoming practice-ready lawyers.

Investing in Practice-Ready Lawyers

Programs that are serious about preparing practice-ready lawyers should consider incorporating simulated clients into their curriculum. Training and employing simulated clients require both time and resources, but the investment is well worth it.

Students gain more than an opportunity to practise interviewing techniques. They gain experience interacting with clients, develop confidence in their communication skills, and receive feedback that helps them understand not only what they did, but how they made another person feel.

Ultimately, law is a profession built on relationships. Simulated clients help students develop the skills needed to build those relationships before the stakes become real.