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Harnessing NGO Internships for Student Learning: Project Report Submission to the Gaje Symposium 2021
Get PDFNon-Governmental Organisations (“NGOs”) are amongst the most important actors in the field of legal education. They offer to students what the classroom never can – an opportunity to contribute to addressing real life issues, while equally contextualising what they learn in the classroom. Yet, the role of NGOs in developing pedagogical innovations in clinical education is often overlooked. Similarly, there exists a discord between the internship model and the clinical legal education model. That is, while many NGOs offer internships, such internships rarely provide the level of cross learning expected from a clinical program. Instead, students are delegated clerical, sometimes meaningless work. A well-designed internship in coordination with university faculty provides an invaluable opportunity for students, NGOs and universities to share and co-construct knowledge. However, the potential of such an arrangement is rarely explored, at least in the Indian context.
With this as the point of departure, this report captures the experiences and learnings of Centre for Social Justice (“CSJ”) in promoting practice-oriented learning rooted in field realities through its internship program. While a broad overview of CSJ’s internship program is provided, the predominant focus is on the organisation’s work during the COVID-19 lockdown
Evaluating the Role of a Non-Doctrinal Legal Research Method on Legal Education and Practice in Common Law Africa: Nigeria as a Case Study:
Get PDFThis paper presents the results of a study examining the relationship between a non-doctrinal legal research method (NDLRM) and the quality of legal education and practice, with a view to determine the reason for the increasing poor quality of law graduates from common law African countries. Consequently, in this study, faculties of law offering NDLRM in Nigerian universities were investigated as a case study and the challenges of doing so. To achieve the objective of this study, an experimental research design was formulated. Interviews were conducted and a NDLRM challenges questionnaire developed and administered amongst a selected population of law teachers and law students across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Data collected from the respondents were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results of the analysis showed a positive co-relationship between NDLRM and legal education and practice. Law students were not taught NDLRM in Nigerian universities and their teachers were not taught NDLRM as students in Nigerian Universities. In the conclusion of this paper, compulsory training on inter-disciplinary research for all law teachers in Nigeria was recommended. Further, the provision of adequate funding for research in all faculties of law and adequate training facilities such as smart boards and software for teaching empirical research in all law faculties should be a priority
The Resource Implications of Work Integrated Learning and Legal Clinics in Australian Legal System: Managing Workload, System Support and Recognition
Get PDFWork integrated learning (WIL) has been embraced as a valuable pedagogy by many Australian law schools, which offer students the opportunity to engage in a variety of WIL including clinical legal education, placements in law firms and industry projects. However, there is widespread recognition that WIL pedagogies have unique resourcing requirements in terms of workload and infrastructure. In addition, there is evidence that academic contribution to WIL pedagogies is not positively regarded in the context of academic advancement. This article explores the resources required to deliver legal WIL and presents novel data about how this is being accommodated by Australian law schools. This analysis informs the development of specific recommendations for Australian law schools on the resourcing of legal WIL
Book Review: International Perspectives on End-of-Life Law Reform: Politics, Persuasion and Persistence, Edited by Ben P. White and Lindsay Wilmott (Cambridge University Press, 2021)
No full textClinical Legal Education as an Instrument to Address Access to Justice: A Critical Analysis of the Clinical Movement in Germany
Get PDFThis report explores the role of clinical legal education in promoting Access to Justice and human rights. Legal clinics have the potential to provide practical skills to law students, sensitizing them to social challenges and Access to Justice issues while offering free legal advice to marginalized individuals. By effectively combining these approaches, legal clinics can contribute significantly to achieving greater Access to Justice. However, German law clinics take up a rather neglected role within German legal education. After highlighting the role of legal clinics within Access to Justice, the report assesses the movement of clinical legal education in Germany, providing a historic overview and discussing the current situation. The report then identifies the main challenges of the German clinical movement such as limited recognition in the academic environment and financial instability. In conclusion, institutional support, and recognition within the educational and academic fields are identified as crucial elements in enhancing Access to Justice through legal clinics in Germany
Forming Lawyers who can Contribute to Equitable Access to Justice in South Africa
Get PDFDrawing on Amartya Sen, this paper proposes that clinical legal education and training should be evaluated in the light of contributions to wellbeing and agency freedoms, foregrounding people’s capabilities as an appropriate metric for judging access to justice. The context is post-apartheid South Africa and aspirations towards transformative Constitutionalism which seeks to operationalize values of dignity, equality and freedom for all. The role the legal system, mediated by legal practitioners, should support Constitutional values and the public good as envisaged by the National Standards for university legal education. This challenge is explored in the article, drawing on a qualitative interview study. The researchers interviewed candidate attorneys across six University Law Clinics to identify the professional capabilities they valued for the purposes of contributing to enabling people to flourish in their everyday lives. Transformative Constitutionalism further suggests a set of capabilities which legal practice should enable. Through the perspectives and voices of practitioners, valued legal capabilities and the corresponding university education and training practices are also identified. The idea of legal capability is developed and broadened both conceptually and empirically, building on work both by Atkins and Habbig and Robeyns. The claim is made that legal education, lawyers’ professional capabilities, and transformative Constitutionalism should be grounded normatively in a capabilities metric of justice and hence what matters for people’s wellbeing and agency freedoms
The Law Tech Clinic: Leading the way in Entrepreneurial Law Clinics
Get PDFGlobalisation, economic forces and technological advancements are changing the way law is practised. Clients are seeking innovative solutions to an increasingly broad range of legal challenges. They want greater connectivity and streamlined delivery of legal services. The rate of change has accelerated in response to remote working, with the digital maturity of legal firms advancing more rapidly than ever before, utilising technology such as electronic billing practices, digital mailrooms, e- discovery, digital document signing and workflow automation.
Newly developed and deployed legal technology within the sector has increased demand for lawyers with the skills to adapt and thrive in a technological environment. Law firms favour graduates with a ‘technology mindset’ and aptitude to think beyond the traditional professional services model. The Monash University Faculty of Law, one of the leading law schools in Australia with a pioneering clinical program, has established a Law Tech Clinic (LTC). The LTC provides a unique opportunity for students to work on real client matters and receive end-to-end industry input to develop client-ready applications.
This paper describes the LTC’s structure and how the clinic is designed to educate students on the changing demands of the legal industry, providing practical knowledge on legal technology usage to advance legal services. This paper outlines how the LTC enables students to develop professional and practical legal skills that will help them become successful entrepreneurial lawyers, adept at integrating technology with innovative legal services. Further, this paper demonstrates how the Monash Clinical Program, with a strong focus on best practice in clinical legal education, provides a perfect forum to run such a clinic. We demonstrate how students work with technological systems to assist industry partners, law firms and other organisations and provide accessible legal services to their clients.2 Finally, this paper highlights how the LTC educates students on technological advances in legal practice, equipping them with frameworks for the knowledge, skills and attributes to be technologically proficient future legal practitioners. Although this discussion is in the Australian context, it can also apply to other jurisdictions as the associated issues with legal technology and its effects on legal practice are occurring globally
A Systematic Quantitative Review of Literature on Social Justice and Clinical Legal Education in Africa
Get PDFThe global spread of clinical legal education programs is punctuated by nuances in clinical practices. These result from the diverse priorities placed on clinic missions, the different legal frameworks and foci of educational curricula as well as variances in political and socio-economic realities among countries and regions. Some aspects of these features are reflected in the few existing systematic reviews of clinical scholarship which focus on clinic sustainability or the European continent. This article is a quantitative systematic review of 61 articles published before 2020 in English language legal journals. It contributes a coherent picture of the development and flow of research on the social justice role of clinical legal education in Africa generally and more specifically, in Kenya and South Africa. The results demonstrate that a small group of authors concentrated in particular countries are driving the publication of studies on particular topics in the continent, with diverse methodological approaches, in journals focused on legal education. They co-authored some publications and were highly prolific in their single-authored works. The results provide researchers exploring this topic with an evidence base to advance global scholarship and inform policy and practice on the social justice and pedagogical roles of clinical legal education
