International Journal of Clinical Legal Education

Law Reform Clinical Programmes Should be Promoted in Law Schools: An Explanation

2023-10-29T06:32:40+00:00

This paper suggests that experiential education involving law reform is particularly suited to the academic stage of legal training. We review the current extent of clinics engaged in law reform, provide examples from our own practice, and then explain why law reform clinics are particularly beneficial. This is for several reasons. These include (i) the range of desirable graduate attributes and skills developed through involvement in law reform; (ii) the understanding that law reform is a career option; and (iii) the benefits to law schools and society generally from better laws, from legal academics using their skills to push for law reform, and from students being introduced to the civic obligation of the legal profession to be involved in seeking to improve the law. We also provide guidance from our own experience as to what can be done to establish a law reform clinic, whether as a dedicated course or as a way of running an existing course, and set out the steps that should produce good suggestions for reform.

Not a Blueprint: Reflections on the Cardiff Environmental Law and Policy Clinic

2023-11-07T10:17:27+00:00

This article addresses the evolution of environmental clinical legal education at the School of Law and Politics at Cardiff University, with particular reference to the shift in its clinical focus from ‘law’ to ‘policy’. Law and policy are of course deeply intertwined, and the shift under consideration is to be understood neither as abrupt nor comprehensive. It is one of emphasis, which in turn is a reflection of the richness and complexity of the discipline of law within which clinical legal education, like all legal education, operates. The article examines the nature of, and factors shaping, the shift in Clinic emphasis towards law and policy. It addresses some of the practical implications of this for a host of clinical considerations (including resourcing, training and expertise, relationships with clients and management of outputs and impacts in the real world). It is hoped that this case study will feed into a wider literature around environmental clinical legal education, and the policy dimension in particular.

The Cardiff Clinic is housed in a multi-disciplinary School of Law and Politics, which contains a wider clinical provision beyond the ‘Environment’, including a world-leading Innocence Project. This is the broader institutional context within which the Environmental Law and Policy Clinic is situated, and it is with this that our analysis begins in Section 1. We highlight what we call the ‘strategic accident’ and ‘accidental design’ underpinning the School’s clinical provision, as a core dynamic which is carried through in the analysis of the environment-focused Clinic. Section 2 elaborates on the substantive environmental law and policy context within Wales and the UK as a whole, and how this has shaped the increasingly policy-oriented nature of work of the Clinic. Section 3 critically reflects on the Cardiff experience, drawing in part on feedback the authors have obtained from student participants, as well as the authors’ own perspectives, to evaluate the developments under scrutiny.

"Training is Everything": How to Prepare Students for Policy Clinic Projects

2023-08-30T12:23:03+00:00

As more students carry out policy work as part of their law degrees, the different skills needed for policy work have become clearer. Policy work differs from traditional legal studies in a number of key ways, and so requires different, or more developed, skills to effectively participate and engage in projects. This article reviews the literature on the skills required for policy work. It summarises the evaluation of the online training provided to Open University policy clinic students in 2022-23, analysing the attendance and engagement data and the findings of a student survey to draw conclusions about the value and effectiveness of the training.

In order for law students to carry out policy work, there is a need for training in policy research and analysis skills and the research suggested students found this of value. Whilst the literature suggested the need for further communication skills training, it was not possible to reach an evidenced conclusion about this from the research. Students expressed a strong preference for online synchronous training sessions provided at the start of a project. The recording of those sessions allowed students to re-visit the training throughout the project as and when needed, which was of value to them.

The Impact of Policy Work on Employability Skills in the Policy Project Connected to the Criminal Appeals Clinic at the Open University

2024-05-02T08:22:02+00:00

The impact of policy work in allowing students to obtain skills in case work should not be understated. At the Open University (OU) one of our modules on our law degree incorporates clinical legal education. The Criminal Justice Clinic (CJC) is a digital clinic that sits within that. The purpose of the CJC is to assist clients that state they have been wrongly convicted of serious criminal offences and are serving long sentences in prison. It aims to assist with social justice and provide students with professional skills. Students research and advise on live criminal cases under the supervision of a solicitor. They apply legal principles to determine whether there are any grounds for an appeal to be made. Students have full access to case papers. It is an innovative project as it aims to teach students legal professional skills working on difficult cases in a digital only setting.

Last year we set up a system where students undertake a policy project before commencing work in the clinic. This assists them with acquiring the skills that they need when they work on live criminal cases and helps them understand the background to what they are doing. Students were split into groups and given a policy project to look at and at the end they provided a report. They worked collaboratively to do so and needed to complete the project within a specific time frame. This paper looks at the practicalities of doing such a project digitally and considers the impact on employability skills.

Policy Clinics Across the Globe: Development, Impact and Collaboration

2024-06-04T08:39:24+00:00

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

2024-06-04T08:20:45+00:00

In the spring of 2022, clinicians from the University of Central Lancashire’s Advice and Resolution Centre and Lancaster University’s Law Clinic launched a pilot environmental law policy clinic. A primary motivation for starting the policy clinic was to involve a wider range of students in clinic work, including those who may not have volunteered for the main legal advice clinic due to either a lack of confidence or a lack of desire to enter the legal profession.

Through participation in a CLEO workshop on policy clinics, the writers were introduced to the work of the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF). ELF provides free information and guidance on environmental issues for individuals and communities through a university-based law clinic policy network. The aim of our policy clinic project with ELF was to investigate the extent to which local authorities in a UK region are considering climate emergency declarations in their decision making and are on track to achieve net zero emissions. Participation in the project did not require any previous experience in environmental law or policy work, and the supervisors of the project did not have expertise in this niche area of law.

This paper will reflect on the experiences of running a pilot, cross-institutional environmental law policy clinic and the lessons learned (both good and bad) from the undertaking.

When Worlds Collide

2023-08-31T14:44:32+00:00

In the United Kingdom, policy clinics are generally established as an extension of a university law clinic. Policy clinics give students the opportunity to undertake empirical research, often for the first time in their legal studies, to further investigate societal issues which impact diverse communities. The University of Exeter’s Policy Clinic is no exception. As a new component of the University of Exeter’s Community Law Clinic, the Policy Clinic aims to influence public policies that are relevant to the legal issues that Community Law Clinic clients collectively face.

This practice report will explore the author’s first-hand experiences of working in the Community Law Clinic as a student legal advisor within the ‘Access to Justice Clinic’ undergraduate module at the University of Exeter, as a research intern collaborating with the Policy Clinic on a scoping project in its nascent year and, finally, as a support officer in a developing Policy Clinic. In the context of these three roles, this report will discuss the differences between research practices, the extent of academic and professional involvement, client interactions, and relationships in both clinics. Despite these differences, this report concludes that working at both clinics allows for developing skills in various contexts, which leads to the constant redefinition of integral values such as collaboration, trust, and respect. Ultimately, working at both law clinics and policy clinics are complementary, seeing that the fascinating interplay between casework and policy work reiterates the distinction between legal theory and “real world law”—providing invaluable insight and experience to law students regardless of jurisdiction.