International Journal of Clinical Legal Education

The Stateless Legal Clinic: Innovative Models for Addressing Unmet Legal Need in Australia through Clinical Legal Education

Katie Robertson — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Stateless Legal Clinic is a unique service providing legal education and aid to eligible stateless children in their application for Australian citizenship. It also provides law students at the University of Melbourne with the opportunity to gain practical legal experience and engage in experiential learning, through a clinical legal education elective subject offered within the Juris Doctor (JD) degree. The Stateless Legal Clinic aims to address a critical gap in legal services for stateless children in Australia and situates clinical legal education within the relatively new and emerging discipline of ‘statelessness studies.’ Through an examination of Australia's legal framework for addressing the global human rights issue of statelessness, this article examines the design and operation of the Stateless Legal Clinic, arguing that clinical legal education can provide innovative models for increasing access to justice for communities often overlooked or under-serviced by the legal industry.

Clinical Legal Education and Social Justice: Assessing the Impact on Law Students in a Law Clinic in Nigeria

Folakemi Ajagunna, Ibijoke Byron — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

One of the core missions of clinical legal education is to expose students to the legal needs of society while enhancing access to justice for indigent members of the community. This, the University of Ibadan Women’s Law Clinic (UI-WLC) does by offering pro bono legal aid to indigent women in the community who lack access to justice. In the process, law students are engaged in clinic experiences involving interaction with real clients and conduct of outreach programs for different target audiences within the community. Through these experiences, it is expected that professionalism, empathy, equality and and a sense of fairness is inculcated in the students. Students trained with these values ideally have a strong sense of what is just and fair, and are able to choose careers and lifestyles that support their immediate communities. Since its establishment, the UI-WLC has groomed over 960 law students; and currently has about 120 students spread over third, fourth and fifth year students, however, an assessment of the impact of social justice values which the clinic seeks to impart to the students through the training they receive at the clinic has not been carried out. This research seeks to achieve this aim through a mixed methods approach. Using a quota sampling method, 90 law graduates were identified and interviewed through self- administered pre-tested questionnaires and in-depth interview guides. Two sessions of focus group discussions were also conducted. Findings in this study revealed how participation in the UI-WLC through various activities and programs has had both positive and negative outcomes for the students. It also showed an aspect of group dynamics which has to be improved upon at the UI-WLC to better equip students to impact the society.

Clinical Legal Education and the Future of Pro-Bono in Nigeria: A Guarantee for Access to Justice for Accused Persons Awaiting Trial

Olajumoke Shaeeb, Yakusak Aduak, Matilda Chukwuemeka — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The idea of access to justice is strongly related to the doctrine of the rule of law, and the effectiveness of a nation’s judicial system is mostly evaluated by its citizens' access to justice. Human rights are guaranteed and protected by instruments including the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended). However, when these rights are not protected (fair hearing, access to court) owing to financial constraints and lack of access to legal counsel, justice cannot be guaranteed. The large number of accused persons awaiting trial in Nigeria is ascribed to several factors, including missing files, inability to post a bond or provide surety, delay in the DPP's advice to the police over which case to pursue, the police's failure to promptly investigate and prosecute, among others. In Nigeria, despite the voluntary legal services provided by the government, lawyers, and clinical law students, the legal system towards indigents does not abate. This article explores the problems and potential solutions to providing increased legal aid services to accused persons awaiting trial in Nigeria. An interdisciplinary approach was adopted in this study, where primary data was gathered from prison visits made by Nigerian Law School, Yola Campus Law Clinic to the Yola and Jimeta medium security correctional centres. The barriers to accessing legal aid in light of the available legal aid services are critically examined here.

Navigating Vicarious Trauma: The Importance of Planning, Teaching, and Delivering Vicarious Trauma Training to Support Law Students and the Legal Profession

Emma Curryer, Gillian Mawdsley — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The significant effects of Vicarious Trauma (VT) are now being recognised in various professions, including law where the requirement for trauma informed practice’”[1] is now starting to be recognised. VT can be defined as: “a process of change resulting from empathetic engagement with trauma survivors. Anyone who engages empathetically with survivors of traumatic incidents, torture, and material relating to their trauma, is potentially affected” . Trauma- informed practice then focusses on how to work with those who have been impacted by their traumatic experience as a result of exposure to reading, writing, and hearing details of cases that they deal with. This may lead to a one-off feeling of despair or may be the result of the cumulative effect from working constantly with complicated, sensitive, and emotional materials and people. The legal professional may take on the emotions of a client and experience trauma that puts them in the place of the individual that they are trying to assist. Certain areas of the profession may be more prone to such experiences, for example criminal lawyers dealing with such cases as murder, manslaughter, and serious sexual offences. These feelings can be overwhelming, even for the most experienced practitioner. VT too, may also be experienced by students participating in Clinical Legal Education (CLE) undertaken in universities, again impacting on those involved in criminal case work where students have their first exposure to complicated and sensitive cases.

This article considers the experience of members of the Criminal Justice Clinic (CJC), within the Open University (OU) and looks at the scope and impact of the VT training that is being delivered and its importance in preserving students’ mental well-being. Added is the factor of this being an online only clinic where isolation can also be an issue. There is a need to provide VT training to support the mental welfare of students, and staff alike. This training is paramount to the success of the CJC and is pivotal to any CLE provision and should be expanded to the law curriculum and onto legal practice.

This article argues that the experience in the CJC demonstrates that there is a need for professional legal education to recognise and address the incidence of VT and to provide skills to those who may be affected. Consideration is given to measures that should be adopted in the delivery of CLE to support students participating in pro bono projects. This should carry on beyond university into their future careers. A brief mention will be made of the provisional results of a small-scale research project in this area. Another article is planned to discuss those results fully in the future.

[1] Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill as introduced references the introduction and definition of trauma -informed practice. https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/legislation/bills/s6-bills/victims-witnesses-and-justice-reform-scotland-bill/introduced/https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/legislation/bills/s6-bills/victims-witnesses-and-justice-reform-scotland-bill/introduced/bill-as-introduced.pbill-as-introduced.pdf (accessed 12th January 2024).

ChatGPT, I have a Legal Question? The Impact of Generative AI Tools on Law Clinics and Access to Justice

Francine Ryan, Liz Hardie — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The launch of ChatGPT in November 2023 will perhaps be come to be one of the defining moments in our relationship with technology. The rapid pace in which generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is developing and the rate in which it is being adopted, is transforming how we interact with technology, and poses new risks and challenges. As GAI tools such as ChatGPT are used by non-lawyers, this article explores the implications of generative AI in the provision of legal advice. This research examines the performance of GAI tools in providing legal information and advice in response to commonly experienced legal problems and finds there are significant errors and mistakes with the responses it produces. There is a critical need to improve access to justice and this article explores the implications for non-lawyers in using GAI tools and considers the risks of reliance on GAI advice. The article goes on to examine the utility of generative AI in clinical legal education to consider whether there is a role for responsible use of GAI in law clinics. It suggests the adoption of GAI tools has the potential to increase the capacity of law clinics, and enhance employability skills, but law schools need to be cognisant of the risks of GAI.

Evaluating the Academic Benefits of Clinical Legal Education: An Analysis of the Final Average Marks of Five Cohorts of LSBU LLB Graduating Students, 2011-2015

Andy Unger, Catherine Evans, Alan Russell, Matthew Bond — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article seeks to contribute to the ongoing pedagogic debate about the aims and benefits of clinical legal education and to do so using a quantitative methodology.

It is the result of a collaborative project within the School of Law & Social Sciences at LSBU, researching whether placements in our Legal Advice Clinic have had any positive impact on Law students’ academic performance. We have analysed the academic results^[1] of five cohorts of LLB full-time undergraduates, those graduating from 2011 to 2015,^[2] to see whether students who volunteered in our Legal Advice Clinic achieved better grades than those who didn’t. Generally, they do. However, given the fact that places at the clinic are limited and recruitment is selective and to try and eliminate the possibility that the most academically successful students are the most likely to volunteer and be selected, we have controlled for first year average results. Even so, it appears that students who achieve similar grades in their first year are likely to get slightly better final grades, just under 2% better, if they volunteer in our Legal Advice Clinic in their second year.

[1] We would like to thank Dr Bond’s Post-graduate student, Joshua Freeman-Birch, who undertook the long hours of date entry to code the results of five cohorts of LLB law students results, to allow the research to be conducted.

[2] Unfortunately, writing up our research has taken longer than we hoped. Conducting the data analysis and the impact of COVID are the two main reasons.

Editorial

Lyndsey Bengtsson — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000