1

Clinical Legal Education

The beauty of Clinical Legal Education as a pedagogic technique focuses on

the learner and the process of learning, and compels the law teacher to look
at educational psychology to evaluate different methods of teaching. This, it
is hoped in turn, will make an impact on the entire range of subjects and the
system of examination in the law curriculum.

1. WHAT IS CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION – AN INTRODUCTION

Clinical legal education is not a term of art; it can mean different things to
different people. It has been defined as:
"A learning environment where students identify, research and
apply knowledge in a setting which replicates, at least in part, the
world where it is practiced…. It almost inevitably means that the
student takes on some aspect of a case and conducts this as it
would… be conducted in the real world."
However, for present purposes I want to narrow the focus for discussion. This
is because in a broad sense replicating what goes on in the real world forms
part of much law school teaching and always has done so. It could include a
wide variety of activity including, for example:-
(a) Simulations – Students can learn from a variety of simulations
of what happens in legal practice. For Example, moot courts are
common place. They have traditionally formed part of law school
activity and introduce students to the intricacies of advocacy, at least
before appealla te cours. More ambitiously, use can be made of mock
trials, sometimes involving professional actors in order to convey the
difficulties of, for example, introducing evidence and establishing facts
in what may be the rapidly changing environment of a first instance
tribunal.
(b) Negotiation Exercises – whereby opposing groups of students
learning the art of negotiation, rather than trial court litigation, by
being given realistic case files and asked to resolve them in as
economic and fair manner as possible.
(c) Client Interviewing Exercises - a national competition
sponsored by Kerala Law Academy was organized in which students of
Jamia Millia Islamia also participated and the team was declared
winner. Such types of competitions are organized throughout India.
(d) Transaction exercises – between groups of students such as
buying or selling property or with individual students in drafting of will,
legal writing. Although of exceptional value in teaching law, these
simulations can lack the complexity of real client work, and the role
play must not create the same demands that exist upon legal
practitioners.
(e) Placements – Students can be sent out to work with practicing
lawyers for short periods to encounter real problems, clients and
courts. They are then expected to bring back their experience to the
law school and reflect upon it, using it to inform the remainder of their
time spent in the academic establishment. On the one hand, although
placements require the academic institutions to have good relations
with law firms and practitioners, they are relatively easy to set up.
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They are particularly attractive to some law schools because that they
can be arranged at little cost. On the other hand, the student's
experience can vary greatly, and it is especially difficult for teachers to
monitor what has happened in order to make use of it, and provide
effective feedback. It is difficult to assess the student's progress.
Although these placements and simulations have been included by
some commentators as examples of clinical legal education, here I
wish to confine my discussion to a narrower activity. By clinical
education I refer only to student involvement with real clients in an
environment supervised and controlled directly by the law school. The
practical experience forms part of, and are integrated within, the
education provided by the law school.
2. 1
FORMS OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
Clinical legal education may take a variety of forms. Selecting the most
appropriate type of program to establish will depend on a number of factors,
including the degree of support for clinical legal education within the law
school administration. Also important are state policies on legal education,
rules concerning the legal representation of individuals, and the needs of the
community where the clinic will operate.
Legal clinics are often defined by where they are physically located.
University-based clinics are housed at a university law faculty. The teachers
in the clinic are professors at the university, and the students usually receive
academic credit for their work with the clinic. Clients come to the university
to see their student-lawyers. Community-based clinics often operate out of
an NGO. The teachers are actual practitioners who supervise law students
from one or more law faculties as they work with their clients. In many cases,
law schools offer such clinics as “externships,” in which professors also
perform a supervisory role to ensure that students have a meaningful
educational experience.
Some clinics are known as live-client clinics, meaning that the students
represent real clients. Others are simulation clinics, which mean that the
students work on fact patterns that are based on real cases, but they do not
represent actual clients.
Clinical legal education emerged out of recognition that while a traditional
academic curriculum could teach legal principles, it took practical experience
to know how to apply those principles correctly and with confidence. It offers
students the opportunity to experience the realities of legal practice and the
context in which laws develop within the “structured laboratory” of legal
education.
3. CLINICAL LEGL EDUCATION IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES
Entering the workforce as a new lawyer can be a daunting prospect for any
law graduate in any country. From society’s perspective, it can be risky for
society to place responsibility for protecting the rule of law in the hands of
untrained lawyers. Although law school education immerses students in legal
principles, laws, codes, and regulations, applying this knowledge correctly
and confidently requires an entirely different set of skills from those required
to excel in classes and examinations.
Clinical legal education is an interactive method of teaching law students the
legal skills they will need in order to become competent, conscientious, and
ethical lawyers. Most consider clinical legal education to have two main
purposes. One primary goal is to teach practice skills and professional
1
Agenda in First Meeting of the Budapest University’s Child Rights Pilot Project at p. 12
 3
responsibility to law students by having them generally represent real client
under the watchful eye of professors who supervise the students’ work. The
other main goal is to provide legal services to meet the needs of the poor
and underrepresented. In the process of addressing those needs, students
must consider the practical, ethical, social, and moral considerations
concerning law and the legal process. The relative significance of these
objectives will depend on the country and the environment in which the
clinical legal education program operates.
Clinical legal education is different from the traditional method of legal
education. In traditional law school teaching methodology, professors lecture
law students about legal principles, laws, codes, and regulations. In legal
clinics, students usually represent real clients while being supervised by
professors who generally are or have been practitioners themselves. These
instructors teach the students practice skills such as how to conduct
interviews, counsel clients, conduct negotiations, and advocate ethically on
behalf of their clients.
Participation in legal clinics helps students learn about law through
application, practice, and reflection. Clinic students learn how to listen to and
communicate effectively with clients, witnesses, experts, adversaries,
prosecutors, judges, and other players in the legal process. Their research
and writing skills are enhanced, and students develop critical thinking skills
and a contextual understanding of the legal process.
Clinic teachers prepare the students for working with real clients in a variety
of ways. Typically, there is a classroom component in which interactive
teaching methods are used to teach the students core skills including
interviewing, client counseling, case analysis, negotiation, legal analysis and
writing, oral advocacy, and professional responsibility. The classroom
component may also focus on the substantive area of law that is the subject
of the client representation. A disability rights clinic, for example, might have
a classroom component that includes several sessions devoted to learning
about the rules and regulations applicable to people seeking government
assistance.
In addition to the classroom component, students have many opportunities
to consult with their supervising professor in order to prepare for real
interviews, engage in case analysis, anticipate problem areas, and
brainstorm possible remedies. When students engage in actual advocacy on
behalf of a real client, their supervisor is available to provide expertise.
Feedback is an essential part of the learning process.
Clinical courses are “process based”, examining the processes of
interviewing and counseling, negotiation, drafting, public policy, advocacy,
fact investigation, deposition questioning strategies and techniques, and trial
strategies and techniques.
In Clinical course clinical instructors supervise students as associates rather
than as lead counsel on a variety of public interest cases. Clinical supervisors
and students study and simulate in the classroom. Casework in the
deposition discovery course, for instance, is largely limited to preparing and
conducting specified depositions. This helps to focus the students’ attention
on general process principles rather than simply on case-specific
predicaments, alongside these innovations in case supervision methodology,
the Clinical Program continues to recognize that simulation has significant
educational value. It provides students with the repetition and feedback they
need to cement the concepts and techniques to which they have been
 4
exposed. It also allows faculty to introduce students to problems that cannot
feasibly be undertaken in actual cases, such as those involved in various
kinds of financing transactions (e.g., high-yield bond financing and
commercial bank financing).
The common thread running through all the courses, whether litigation or
transactional, live client or simulation, is that students examine common
problems in process areas that are important and in which competence is
typically not acquired simply through practice experience for example, it’s
unlikely that instructional time would be devoted to how to complete a notice
of Deposition properly. While that may be an important skill, it is one that
most litigators quickly acquire in practice.
Instead, precious law school instructional time is devoted to broader
principles of lawyering that practitioners rarely have the time to examine
systematically. Two short examples illustrate how clinical courses focus on
general principles and sills that students can apply across various
substantive law settings to help solve legal problems. A discussion on fact
investigation in a litigation course does not focus solely on what evidence to
look for in a given cases. Instead, the discussion begins with general
principles for identifying potential evidence, and then students are given a
chance to apply those principles as they attempt to identify potential
evidence in a specific-actual or simulated-case. Similarly, a discussion of
negotiation desirable outcomes and common methods of overcoming those
barriers. Students then have an opportunity to apply those concepts as they
develop strategies for a specific negotiation exercise.
Students are taught to construct the most persuasive and coherent
arguments that both support their client’s version of disputed events and
undermine their opponent’s version. These conceptual approaches are
designed to provide them wit argument construction skills that they can
apply when trying cases in any substantive area, from a simple auto accident
case to a federal antitrust action. Of course, a well-constructed argument
must also be communicated effectively to a judge or jury at all stages of
trial, from opening statement to final summation. So, students are also given
repeated opportunities to learn and practice trial techniques. By the end of
the semester, they have a chance to practice what they have learned in a
mock jury trial, with community volunteers playing the role of jurors and
witnesses. Students apply the argument construction and evidence
presentation skills learned, to real cases. The Legal Aid Faculty of Law, Jamia
Millia Islamia matches indigent clients with student-lawyers. Most of these
cases involve employment matters, either claims for unemployment
insurance benefits or for unpaid wages.
Student interview clients & witnesses, perform legal research and using the
same concepts and skills, construct persuasive arguments, examine and
cross-examine witnesses, and make closing arguments before the
administrative law judge who decides the case. Student experiences the
satisfaction and sense of accomplishment tat come from using their hard-
acquired legal skills t help someone in need. In a college n one case, student
lawyers successfully secured back wages for an in-home care giver who had
worked for months at well below minimum wage.
Clinical legal education may be simply described as learning through
practice, application, and reflection. It is quite different from the traditional
legal education. The lecture and seminar method in the law schools to teach
the students, does not meet the clinical demands. The aim and object of
 5
clinical legal education is to expose the law student in practice and to
provide analytical, management and problem solving skills. In fact the
clinical legal education is a bridge which connects between theory and
practice. What is learnt through books is easily forgettable but not what is
learnt through practical experience.
Clinical Legal education emphasizes on the student- centered education
rather than teacher-based learning. It is the student who actively finds the
learning and not the teacher putting the learning on the passive student. The
purpose of Clinical Legal Education is not only make a student a perfect
lawyer as a marketable commodity and also expose him to the social
realities, responsibilities, professional ethics, which is known as social-
centered education and value education.
It is submitted that clinical legal education is essential to the
student community and helpful to them in the following ways:
• To develop the professional skills and practical application of law.
• To develop research, analytical and communicative skills.
• To provide necessary experience and exposure to handle the cases
independently with the self reliance.
• To bring the law students closer to the people who arc in need of their
professional assistance
• To focus on social, moral and ethical values to a promising lawyer
which are necessary in finding social reasoning in judicial decisions.
• To motivate the law students by creating a sense of responsibility to
serve the community
4. CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION REVISITED
That question was: “should a law school try to teach students in a legal clinic
where they have to deal with problems faced by real clients?” The use of the
word ‘clinic’ prompts the analogy of trainee doctors meeting real patients in
their medical clinics. It is difficult to conceive of a doctor qualifying without
ever examining a living body, or of scientists completing their education
without setting up practical test- but his has been the norm in university
legal education. Why should this be so? In this article do two things: first, I
reflect upon new factors – as well as the old considerations – which affect the
answer to the question of whether clinical education should have a place in
law school teaching; and secondly, I explain why that question is of growing
importance not only in the India but also in other countries. The subject
should be of particular interest in countries, such as Japan, where
fundamental reconsideration is taking place of how lawyers are to be trained
and for what purposes. Although clinical legal education is only one way in
which theory and practice can be brought together, it encapsulates many of
the issues in the reform debate. Views expresses on this subject may
determine not only the future character of university legal education, but
also the nature and scope of the legal profession itself. Clinical Legal
Education thus constitutes a case study of many of the major issues in legal
education.
• When a student joins law college, its on his mind that he would learn
something about what powers the police had, and the procedure by
which the prosecutions which eh reads about in local paper took place.
He thinks that he would gain some knowledge of the range of criminal
laws which protected person and property. However, criminal law,
studied for only a very short time, it is pre-occupied with the fine
 6
distinctions between mental states which affect decisions at the apex
of the pyramid of criminal justice system. It had little to say about
everyday experience of the criminal process. Its focus on the fine
points which sometimes distinguished murder from the lesser charge
of manslaughter and it is not what is on the mind of the student. The
word ‘police’ is hardly mentioned, and their powers are never
examined. The criminal justice process and especially what happened
as a matter of routine in the lower courts at the base of the pyramid is
ignored. How a crime is proven, who decides whether or not to
prosecute, where the trial takes place and what pressures there were
to plead guilty are never discussed. Studying law like this seems
altogether very artificial. Dissatisfaction with academic law thus began
in legal career.
• Contract law is also discussed by means of abstract theoretical rules
applied to futile conceptual problems which have no counterpart in the
world of reality. Students know that climbing a greasy pole in return for
a reward which was withdrawn just before the climber reached the top,
or shouting a bargain across a noisy river, were not what lawyers were
really concerned about. But I was left with very little indication of what
the mass of lawyers actually did. Instead I was indoctrinated into the
presumptions of classical contract law. These include the unstated
notion that if there is a breach of contract then the automatic remedy
is to take legal action. This dangerous fallacy has hindered many an
inexperienced lawyers’ relationship with prospective business clients.
Enforcement of the law once the action had proven successful was also
taken for granted. In fact there is no discussion of civil procedure at all
– a falling of Indian law school which is continuing.
Finally, the common concerns voiced by people – whether about their
experience of the civil law system as consumers or as debtors – are
ignored. As trainees, students join a company law firms. The students
feel whatever limited company law they had learned at the vocational
stage of training is irrelevant to the work that is being done there.
In the evenings I assuaged my social conscience by working in a Law
Centre offering free legal advice in the East End of London. Social
Security, immigration, labour, consumer law and a host of other areas,
as it seemed not subject fit to be studied at the college in India,
through the students from these colleges are ready to become
practitioners. This most of the time increases dissatisfaction with the
education and training which a student had received in law colleges.
This means there are certain inherent flaws in the legal educational
system which is not able to impart the real legal education in the
students.
One of the debated in India is whether the law schools should become
mere involved with clinical legal education. And it is thought that it is
one which many law schools will have to face again as we enter this
next millennium.
5. 2
CONSTITUIONAL AND LEGAL STATUS OF CLINICAL LEGAL
EDUCATION
The Law Commission of India in its 184" report felt that legal education is a
fundamental to the very foundation of judicial system. It also felt that clinical
2
Jaya Kumar, Y.F., “Clinical Legal Education and Law Schools in India – Some Problems in India”, Delhi
Law Review (2007)5 at page 36-40
 7
legal education should be made compulsory which will be an excellent
supplement to the legal aid. The Indian constitution aims at securing, social,
economic and political justice. Article 39-A is the direct and express
provision of legal aid, which reads as:
Equal Justice and Free Legal Aid: the State shall secure that the
operation of the legal system promotes justice, on the basis of equal
opportunity, and shall in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable
legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for
securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reasons of economic or
other disabilities.
The National commission to review the working of the constitution
recommends that the following new article should be added to the
constitution making, legal aid as a fundamental right:
Article 30-A: Access to courts and Tribunals and speedy justice –
1) Everyone has a right to have any dispute that can be resolved by the-
application of law decided in a fair public hearing before an independent
court or, where appropriate, another independent and impartial tribunal or
forum.
2) the right to access to courts shall be deemed to include the right to
reasonably speedy and effective justice in all matters before the courts,
tribunals or other fora and the State shall1ake all reasonable steps to
achieve the said object.
Article 30-B: Equal justice and free legal aid: the State shall secure that
the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of equal
opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid, by suitable
legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that opportunities for
securing justice are not denied to any citizen by reason of economic or other
disabilities.
In Center for Legal Research V. State of Kerala3, it has been suggested
that in order to achieve the objective of Article 39A, the State must
encourage and support the participation of voluntary organizations and
social action groups in operating the legal programme. Therefore, the State
cannot avoid from its constitutional obligation to provide legal services to
indigent litigants who are facing financial and administrative difficulties.8The
Government should set up a “suitors fund" to meet the cost of defending a
poor or indigent.
In State of Maharashtra v. Manubhai Pragaji vashi4, the Supreme
Court held that Article 21 read with Article 39-A mandated or cast a duty on
the State to extend the grant-in-aid scheme to all Government recognized
private Law Colleges according to the criteria applicable to the regular
degree colleges. The purpose of giving grants to law colleges is to enable
those colleges to function effectively and in a meaningful manner and turn
out sufficient number of well trained or properly trained law graduates.
To implement the scheme for legal aid in India, the Legal Services Authorities
Act was passed in 1987. The Act aims at providing a protective umbrella to
the weaker sections of the society, against all injustices and giving it
adequate funds. The National Legal Services Authorities set-up under the
Act, provides for the constitution of Legal Services Authorities at the
national, the state and the district levels. These authorities are to provide
free and competent legal services with the aim of securing equal justice to
3
AIR 1986 SC 2195
4
1995 Indlaw SC 1146
 8
the weaker sections of the society. The Act has introduced a scheme for
deputing a Legal Aid Counsel in every court of Magistrate in the country for
providing free legal aid assistance to poor prisoners. The Code of Criminal
Procedure, 1973 under Section 304 provides for legal aid to an accused who
is not represented by a pleader in trial before the court of session, provided
that he has no sufficient means to engage a lawyer. The code requires that
the court shall assign a pleader for his defense at the expense of the State.
Section 304(2) of the Code, empowers the High Courts to make rules if') this
connection. The State government is also authorized, by notification, to
extend the legal aid to an accused in any case of trial before any other court.
6. 5
SUMMARY TO CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
• Provide professional skills instructions in areas such as interviewing,
counseling, and fact investigation.
• Teach methods of learning from experience.
• Instruct students in professional responsibility by exposing them
directly to the ethics of the profession.
• Expose students to the demands and methods of acting in the role of
attorney.
• Provide opportunities for collaborative learning.
• Impart the obligation of service to clients, information about how to
engage in such representation, and knowledge about the impact of the
legal system on poor people.
• Provide opportunities to examine the impact of doctrine in real life and
provide a laboratory where students and faculty study particular areas
of law.
• Expose our law teachers to wider experience in lawyering skills and
legal practice, which is fundamental to their development.

5
Syllabus of Nigerian University’s, New York, Budapest, Abuja
 9

HISTORY OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION

1. THE JOURNEY OF LEGAL EDUCATION FROM THE CROSSROADS

TO MODERNIZATION
Prior to the introduction of five year law course, most of the students who
performed well in their Intermediate Education aspired to study medicine,
engineering, computers, business management and accounting. Law as a
profession and legal education as a discipline was not a popular choice of the
students. Unlike India, the situation prevalent in England, America and in
many other developed countries is convincingly different. The admissions to
law schools in these parts of the world are highly competitive. The end result
is that the 'creams' among students opt for law by choice and not as the last
resort and thus richly contribute their shares to the society as lawyers,
judges, para-legals and academicians. Though, five year law schools are
doing their bit to bring about a change; but more effectively the perspective
of prospective law students can be changed by a healthy pre-legal education
at the school level.
2. 6
THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN LAW SCHOOL AND THE FIRST
WAVE OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
The first wave of clinical legal education in the United States began in the
early part of the twentieth century, shortly after the casebook method
emerged in the late 1890's as a popular route to preparing for a career in
law. The casebook method's emphases on appellate judicial decisions and
the Socratic method as the means to teach the skill of legal analysis were a
departure from the three prevailing methods of American legal education in
the nineteenth century: the applied skills training method inherent in the
apprenticeship system; the general education approach of the prevailing
European legal educational model, which was adopted by some colleges and
universities in the United States; and an analytical and systematized
approach to the law as interconnected rational principles, taught primarily
through lectures at proprietary law schools. The single focus on legal
analysis in the casebook method became "the objective" and "the structure"
of early legal education in the United States and represented early legal
educators' "narrow view of legal education." Even though the casebook
method was growing to become the dominant pedagogy in law schools,
there were critics of this method from the start.
While the casebook method was gaining wide acceptance, law students at
several law schools in the late 1890's and early 1900's established volunteer,
non-credit "legal dispensaries" or legal aid bureaus to provide hands-on
opportunities to learn and practice lawyering skills and legal analysis, and
also to serve a social justice mission by providing legal assistance to those
6
New York’s State Judicial Institute’s Colloquium on Developing Collaboration among Courts,
Law School Clinical Prog. and the practicing Bar at p.3
 10
unable to hire attorneys. As early as 1917, one commentator - William Rowe
- published a law review article advocating law school based clinical legal
education as the best way to train law students to become competent
lawyers. Prior to writing this groundbreaking law review article, Rowe was
the proponent of a resolution adopted by the New York State Bar Association
in 1916 that provided: "every law school shall make earnest clinical work,
through legal aid societies or other agencies, a part of its curriculum for its
full course."
In his 1917 article, Rowe discussed law student volunteer affiliations with
legal aid efforts, and he argued that these arrangements should be
formalized and transformed into a feature of the law school curriculum with
faculty involvement. The law schools, he observed, were lagging behind
medicine, architecture, engineering, and other disciplines in providing such
clinical experiences to students. Most law schools offered only a two-year
course of instruction at the time that Rowe was writing, and he
foreshadowed some efforts to integrate clinical education throughout a
student's law school experience when he wrote: "One year of the clinic is not
enough. Indeed, eventually, the clinic may be made a principal medium of
instruction in all years for all subjects. That will be the natural and logical
development." Rowe advocated a system of clinical legal education in which
students would take their clinic cases "to the classroom of the professor
dealing with the subject under which the case logically falls. The clinic thus
becomes a 'case book' - not, however, of dead letters descriptive of past
controversies, but always of living issues in the throbbing life of the day, the
life the student is now living."
The type of clinical legal education that Rowe promoted most closely
resembles a modern externship or perhaps hybrid clinic, in which students
are placed with an off-site legal aid office, prosecutor, or public defender,
combined with "general classroom work, with 'demonstrations' of current
clinical problems, as well as individual instruction and guidance in each case
in hand." Rowe also anticipated that the clinic would be overseen by a
faculty member "fully prepared to devote himself permanently to the work,
[and] who can, with his assistants, agreeably to all concerned, associate
himself, if necessary for temporary purposes, as counsel or otherwise, with
any lawyer whose office or business may become connected with the clinic."
In 1921, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching funded a
study on legal education, commonly called the "Reed Report" after its
nonlawyer author, Alfred Z. Reed. The Reed Report identified three
components necessary to prepare students for the practice of law: general
education, theoretical knowledge of the law, and practical skills training. The
emphasis on legal analysis in the casebook method fulfilled only one of these
three objectives by providing students with a theoretical knowledge of the
law. To satisfy the requirement of a general education component, the Reed
Report called for at least two years of pre-law college training - a proposal
the ABA promoted, starting in 1921. At that time, not a single state required
a university-based law school degree as a precondition for admission to the
bar, proprietary law schools were still prevalent, and apprenticeships still
provided the basic legal training for many entering the legal profession. In
the midst of this highly unregulated climate forentry to the legal profession,
the Reed Report's recommendation of practical skills training was not
vigorously pursued by law schools.
 11
In the wake of Rowe's early efforts to integrate clinical education into the law
school curriculum, and the Reed Report's call for practical skills training, John
Bradway and Jerome Frank pioneered the cause of clinical legal education
methodology in the 1920's through the 1940's, advocating an in-house clinic
as an essential component of sound legal education. Yet, despite the efforts
of Bradway and Frank, only a handful of law schools instituted in-house
clinical courses through the first half of the 1900's.
The dearth of clinical legal education programs in the first half of the
twentieth century reflects several conditions that law schools faced in that
era. First, law schools were distinguishing themselves from apprenticeships,
and clinical legal education efforts to create "model law offices" as part of
law school education did not further this market differentiation. Second, law
schools of this era were terribly under funded and clinical legal education
courses with intensive faculty supervision were not as economical as large
classes employing the casebook Socratic method. Third, law school teachers
of this era disagreed about the value – and feasibility - of teaching lawyering
skills other than legal analysis. For example, a 1944 Report of the
Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Curriculum Committee, primarily
authored by Karl Llewellyn, noted that the "current case-instruction is
somehow failing to do the job of producing reliable professional competence
on the by-product side in half or more of our end product, our graduates."
Fourth, the period from the 1920's to the 1940's was marked by ABA and
AALS efforts to create and raise standards for law schools, and none of these
standards focused on encouraging or requiring clinical legal education
experiences. These four factors combined not only to limit the number of
clinical programs but also to stunt the growth of clinical pedagogy by limiting
the number of law faculty teaching clinical courses.
By 1951, the value of "legal aid clinics" affiliated with or operated by law
schools had become "one of the current controversies in legal
education . . . ." Robert Storey, then the
Dean of Southern Methodist University School of Law, summed up the feeling
of some legal educators when he lauded the "clinical method" for exposing
"the student to actual problems confronting him with actual people who are
in actual trouble" and for furthering "equality of justice" by helping to set up
"an adequate system of legal aid offices." Yet, in spite of Dean Storey and
others who promoted clinical legal education in the 1950's, clinical legal
education was in a holding pattern.
In the 1950's, there was no single vision of clinical legal education and the
concept of a law school "legal aid clinic" encompassed any "law school
sponsored program for law student work on legal aid cases." A 1951 study of
clinical programs identified twenty-eight clinics run by law schools,
independent legal societies, or public defender offices. At five schools, a
clinical legal education experience was mandated, but most schools offered
clinics as electives or extra curricular activities. The work assigned to
students varied among programs, but typically included client and witness
interviews, drafting pleadings, and preparation of legal documents. Some
programs gave students the opportunity to negotiate matters with clients'
creditors, and at least nine law school clinics provided opportunities for trials
and other court appearances. Most clinics attempted to have students work
on cases from beginning to end. Student supervision was cited as a "major
problem," and the task of supervision was often delegated to experienced
students, who supervised less experienced students. At ten of the twenty-
 12
eight law schools with some form of clinical program in 1951, students did
not earn any academic credit for their work. At four schools, clinic credit was
available as part of a student's credits for a general course on legal practice.
At the remaining fourteen schools, students only earned between one and
three hours of credit for clinic work.
By the end of the 1950's, thirty-five law schools reported "some form of legal
aid clinic." In thirteen of these law schools, legal aid clinics were located
inside the schools. In a few law schools, all or most law students were
required to do some legal aid work. In fifteen law schools, students were able
to earn limited academic credit for clinic work. In only five law schools,
supervising faculty were able to receive teaching credit for their clinical
courses.
Although the number of clinical legal education programs increased slightly
from the late
1940's to the early 1950's, the late 1950's ended on a note of relative
stagnation for the nascent clinical legal education movement. There were
several different models of clinical programs, and no generally accepted
definition or description. Schools defined "clinical" programs to include both
credit-earning and non-credit-earning real-life experiences for law students
either in programs located within the law school or offsite at legal aid or
public defender offices. The level of faculty involvement and supervision
varied greatly, and clinical experiences existed on the fringes of the law
school curriculum.
The limited growth of clinical programs during this decade may reflect the
fact that clinical instruction was only one of several experiments under way
to address perceived deficiencies of the casebook method. Some of the other
"experiments" included simulated trial practice courses, legal research and
writing courses, drafting courses, and subject matter seminars based on
simulated problems. Notwithstanding these "experiments" – many of which
are now standard fare in virtually all law schools – the 1960's witnessed
continued complaints by law students and some law faculty about large
classes, the dominance of the casebook method, and the lack of writing
opportunities. Of all the curricular experiments since the introduction of the
casebook method in the late nineteenth century, "the concept of clinical
legal education was to prove the most important." In fact, clinical legal
education is "so often called the most significant change in how law was
taught since the invention of the case method that it now sounds trite."
3. 7
THE MATURING OF THE MODERN LAW SCHOOL AND THE
SECOND WAVE OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
During the second wave of clinical legal education - a period spanning from
the 1960's through the late 1990's - clinical legal education solidified and
expanded its foothold in the academy. The factors that contributed to this
transformation included demands for social relevance in law school, the
development of clinical teaching methodology, the emergence of external
funding to start and expand clinical programs, and an increase in the number
of faculty capable of and interested in teaching clinical courses. Perhaps the
most powerful of these factors was the zeitgeist of the 60's, which produced
"student demands for relevance." In reflecting on the growth and direction of
clinical legal education, Professor Dean Hill Rivkin has noted: "It was the

7
New York’s State Judicial Institute’s Colloquium on Developing Collaboration among Courts,
Law School Clinical Prog. and the practicing Bar at p.3
 13
societal legacy of the sixties . . . that most shaped clinical legal education.
The fervor of the sixties penetrated law schools quite passionately."
4. 8
HISTORY OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION: INDIAN
PERSPECTIVE
Clinical legal education emerged out of recognition that while a traditional
academic curriculum could teach legal principles, it took practical experience
to know how to apply those principles correctly and with confidence. The
legal clinic concept was first discussed at the turn of the twentieth century
by two professors as a variant of the medical clinic model. Russian professor
Alexander I. Lyublinsky in 1901, quoting an article in a German journal, and
American professor William Rowe, in a 1917 article, each wrote about the
concept of a “legal clinic.” Both professors associated it with the medical
profession’s tradition of requiring medical students to train in functioning
clinics ministering to real patients under the supervision of experienced
physicians.
This call for a clinical component to legal education was not an attempt to
replicate the apprenticeship system that already existed in many countries,
in which students worked outside the law school under the supervision of an
experienced practitioner. Instead, it was a call for a new type of education
that would offer students the opportunity to experience the realities of legal
practice and the context in which laws develop, within the structured
laboratory of legal education.
Although some legal clinics were operating in the United States in the early
to mid-twentieth century, the clinical legal education concept did not take
hold in U.S. law schools on a large scale until the 1960s. Law schools in
Russia and Central and Eastern Europe seriously began to consider clinical
legal education in the 1990s. One reason for the development of clinical
legal education in the 1960s was the general societal focus at that time on
civil rights and an antipoverty agenda. Law students were demanding a
“relevant” legal education, one that would give them the opportunity to
learn how to address the unmet legal needs of poor people in the
communities in which they were studying law. The Ford Foundation saw the
value of clinical legal education and funded clinics in their initial phases
through the Council on Legal Education for Professional Responsibility
(CLEPR). CLEPR grants enabled legal clinics to flourish, and once law
faculties, students, and administrators saw the virtues of clinical legal
education, law schools began to fund them from their general budgets.
Over the past three decades, law clinics in U.S. law schools have evolved
from an elective component within a handful of curricula into an integral part
of legal education. Most U.S. law schools have clinics, clinical law professors
generally have some kind of long-term status within the law school, and
students earn academic credit for their participation.
Parallel to these developments, clinical law school programs have developed
in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and other Commonwealth countries.
Countries in Latin America, Asia, and Africa have also developed clinical
programs designed to meet their societies’ dual needs for improved legal
representation of those who cannot afford to pay for legal services and for
more practically oriented legal education. For example, in South Africa in
1983, there were only two university legal aid clinics; by 1992, sixteen of the
twenty-one law schools had legal aid clinics. Meanwhile, in Central and
Eastern Europe and Russia, the clinical movement has spread from several
8
Agenda in First Meeting of the Budapest University’s Child Rights Pilot Project at p. 11
 14
experimental programs in the mid-1990s to more than sixty law schools in
2001.
Clinical legal education is so well entrenched in some countries that there
are associations of clinical teachers which meet on a regular basis to discuss
many of the issues this chapter raises. In the United States there is the
clinical section of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), the
Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), and the Society of American Law
Teachers (SALT). In the United Kingdom there is the Clinical Legal Education
Organization (CLEO), and in South Africa the Association of University Legal
Aid Institutions. In addition, the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE)
was started in 1996 to promote socially relevant legal education by forming
an internationally active network for the exchange of information and ideas
on justice education. The inaugural GAJE international conference was held in
India in December 1999, with the second conference scheduled for
December 2001 in South Africa.
Clinical Legal Education took off in the 1960s as a response to the social and
political movements of the time and the perceived irrelevance of traditional
legal education. It featured service to poor clients and lay advocates
interested in attacking poverty and racism. It represented first and foremost
a commitment to social justice and the law. But learning legal skills has also
been an important dimension of clinics, defined clinical education as “a
lawyer-client experience under law school supervision for credit.” As the
clinical movement matured, skills training increasingly became the primary
emphasis. At the same time, many clinicians gained faculty status and were
accepted into the academy. These developments have created a tension
between teaching skills, serving clients and remaining faithful to a vision of
social justice.
 15

LEGAL CLINCS AND CLINICAL PROGRAMMES

1. INTRODUCTION
Clinics remained focused on poverty law issues and formulated increasingly
sophisticated educational regimes to accompany live client representation.
Balancing the twin missions of service and education, the clinical movement
became an institutionalized component of legal education. Today, there is
little dispute about the merits of clinical legal education. By addressing
human rights and social justice concerns, law clinics and NGOs may help
upgrade the quality of the legal profession in general. Dismay at the
profession's low ethical and professional standards drove many top law
graduates into teaching or business in the past. The clinics and expanding
NGO opportunities can improve legal training and encourage high-caliber
graduates to practice law.
2. THE THEORY BEHIND CLINICAL COURSE
The theory behind clinical course is that although taking depositions is
perhaps the most important and difficult task performed by civil litigators,
lawyers typically receive little or no training before being required to take a
deposition. And, unlike many civil litigation clinics that touch on discovery at
a general level, the course focuses in detail on particular questioning skills
that help a lawyer take effective depositions. For example, students learn
techniques for eliciting helpful admissions from a witness, different ways to
undermine harmful evidence, and how to respond when a witness answers “I
don’t know” or “I don’t remember” to an important question.
In addition to specific questioning skills, the course also focuses on how to
prepare to take a deposition effectively. Building on concepts taught in
lawyering skills course, students discuss methods for identifying evidence
they hope to elicit during a deposition, and then focus on how to organize a
list of potential evidence into a deposition outline. Students also review
documents collected from clients and produced by other parties and learn
how to use various litigation support software to organize the documents and
retrieve them during deposition preparation. Students in every major part of
the lawsuit, including theory development, identification and selection of
plaintiffs for the class action, and formal discovery have weekly contact with
skilled practitioners and community activists from whom they learn the
substantive laws at issue, the procedural dimensions and strategic dynamics
 16
of complex litigation, and the evolving roles of lawyers working in the public
interest.
3. MISSION/OBJECTIVE OF THE CLINICS
The mission of the clinics is threefold:
TO train law students in pragmatic lawyering skills by combining work on
real cases with classroom learning;
TO contribute in a significant and meaningful way to safety of people and
the quality of life in country; and
TO develop a future generation of excellent lawyers.
Students work during the summer as full time law clerks, carrying out
the clinic’s work. Rather than serving as sole counsel on matters undertaken
by the stude3nts, the clinic uses a “borrowing” model that allows students to
work jointly with attorneys from other organizations on significant, often
groundbreaking cases. This approach provides students the opportunity to
work on more sophisticated, complex cases with exposure to some of the
nation’s most important lawsuits and projects and allows the clinic to
accomplish more than it could on its own. In turn, the clinic supplements the
often meager resources of nonprofit environmental organizations is their
disputes with better funded defendants. The clinic provides a unique
opportunity to teach problem solving skills and strategic thinking. Because
the clients and problems are real, students are exposed to the dynamic,
uncertain nature of actual lawyering in the context of complicated matters.
4. OBJECTIVES OF THE CLINICAL PROGRAM
The Clinical Program should offer students course credit for direct legal
experience with clients, practicing lawyers, and judges in a supervised
setting. Participation in this program differs from paid legal work available to
students, both in the level of supervision provided, as well as the
requirement of attendance at classes in conjunction with the placement.
Instructors monitor the quality of the clinical experience and ensure that the
clinics are integrated with the other parts of the law school curriculum.
Clinics expose students to diverse legal assignments at each placement, with
a level of responsibility not typically available to students. The educational
value of this program depends on appropriate organization and supervision
by law school faculty, individual instructors, and field supervisors.
Clinical program should be designed to serve the following
objectives:
1. Develop professional skills such as problem solving, legal analysis and
research, factual investigation, written and oral advocacy, creative
problem solving, professionalism, and dispute resolution. By practicing
under supervision with real clients or judges, students learn to: (a)
counsel and communicate effectively with clients, opposing counsel,
and the court; (b) identify factual and legal issues through research,
formulate relevant legal theories, and pursue appropriate strategies;
(c) draft effective memoranda, pleadings, transactional documents,
and correspondence; (d) comply with court rules and procedures; (e)
confront and resolve ethical problems; (f) learn to organize and
manage their legal work and balance competing priorities; and (g)
resolve disputes effectively.
2. Help students learn the workings of courts and legal organizations and
expose students to the legal profession. Through this exposure, the
clinical program also gives students the opportunity to participate in
activities designed to improve the legal profession.
 17
3. Enhance students' learning of a particular area of law and provide
students “real world” experience that enables them to participate
more effectively in law school classes.
4. Offer students on-the-job training, particularly in research and writing,
which complements their overall program of law school coursework.
5. Provide students with field experiences that support research projects.
6. Permit students to begin making contacts in the profession, enhancing
their ability to obtain employment and find potential role models and
mentors.
7. Reduce students' uncertainties about their ability to function as
lawyers.
8. Provide students the opportunity to become aware of meaningful
career alternatives, particularly in public interest and government
settings.
9. Provide students the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of our
legal processes firsthand, which in turn enhances their ability to offer
realistic and thoughtful criticism and suggestions for reform.
10. Stimulate scholarship about clinical legal education among faculty
members.
5. ESTABLISHING A LEGAL CLINIC
5.1 Whose support do you need to start your legal clinic?
Depending on the country in which you might establish the legal clinic, there
will be differing issues regarding the approvals necessary in order to
establish a legal clinic. In some places, approval of ministry officials is
required; in most places, university support is necessary. Although it is often
helpful to have the support of the judiciary and practicing lawyers in your
community, this is not always possible, at least at the inception of the clinic.
If the university or legal profession is not supportive, marshaling student and
community support will be key issues for success. Legal clinics frequently
begin with the support of a few members of the faculty who are willing to
donate time, enthusiastic students, and a base of clients in need.
5.2 What are the financial issues to consider when starting a
clinic?
Clinical legal education is often more expensive than traditional legal
education. While a traditional law professor may be able to teach 150
students in one class section, the clinic student/teacher ratio is much
smaller, often comprising less than 10 students per instructor, because of
the time-intensive and individualized nature of clinical teaching methods.
Clinics also take up more physical space within the law school, requiring
interview space, conference and student work space, office space for
professors, and space for computers and related technology.
A key issue is how the clinical instructors will be paid. Sometimes they are
not paid at all and must teach in the clinics in addition to their regular
teaching duties. In law schools, the regular teaching workload of clinical
teachers is adjusted in order to allow them to teach in the clinic. In others,
clinical teachers are paid a supplemental salary from foundation grants.
Other paid positions required by a clinic might include part-time practicing
lawyers working as supervisors and an administrative assistant to run the
clinic office. Sometimes students are hired to be part-time office managers.
Foundation grants may be available for some new clinics to cover a portion
of these costs, but often a clinic must be able to show that it will be
sustainable into the future once the grant period terminates.
 18
5.3 What will be the subject matter of the clinic?
When choosing the subject matter of a clinic, the following issues should be
taken into consideration:
• the availability of instructors to set up and teach in the new clinical law
program.
• the areas of law in which the best teachers specialize.
• the most common legal issues affecting the poor in the community.
• the kinds of cases that will allow students the greatest range of
practice .
• the legal subjects that students been exposed to in their substantive
classes
5.4 Who will teach in the clinic?
Clinic teaching is different from academic law teaching in that it involves
knowledge about the practice of law, not just theory. Sometimes clinic
teachers or supervisors are practitioners who have never taught before. In
such situations, teacher training in the interactive methods and pedagogy of
clinical teaching are crucial to the effective operation of the clinic. On the
other hand, clinic teachers may be professors who have never worked on a
real case. Under such circumstances, the clinic instructor may be paired with
a practitioner who agrees to work with the clinic. In any event, the
background of the teacher who is chosen to teach in the clinic will greatly
influence the choice of the type of clinic and its subject matter.
5.5 Putting it all together
Clinical legal education is a dynamic and interactive way of teaching law
students the methodology for good practice, the critical thinking required to
analyze all legal matters, the ethical issues essential to act professionally,
and the spirit of public service needed to represent the underrepresented.
Barbara—from the scenario at the outset of this chapter—entered law school
believing that she would practice in the private sector. She may still pursue
this path, but she will do so with much more confidence in her skill and her
ability to think creatively and critically. She knows that her exposure to
representing the poor is something she will never forget. She suspects that
she will use the sensitivity she developed in some way, even if it is as a
volunteer member of the board of directors of an NGO.
Anna always wanted to represent the underserved, and the clinic experience
has confirmed that this is where she will be most satisfied in her work as a
lawyer. The clinic has made her realize she is capable of being an effective,
competent lawyer. She is excited that she will soon be graduating and can
begin to use these skills as a practicing lawyer.
6. WORK OF A LAW SCHOOL CLINIC
Four Assumptions
We make four basic assumptions before setting out these ten steps,
assuming that many readers may be starting a law school clinic for the first
time in their region or country. They are the following:
1. Definition of a “clinic.” I use the following definition of a law school
clinic, and failure to include one or more of the components of this
definition would radically affect the design and methods that follow. A
fully operational clinic is made up of five key components:
i. The clinic is part of the law school curriculum, and it offers
academic credit for student participation in handling cases or
projects as well as in a seminar that is taught either before or
during the handling of cases or projects;
 19
ii. The students work on actual cases or projects, to the extent that
local rules for the practice of law permit, and with the goal to
expand those rules to permit the widest practical scope of
student practice that local conditions permit;
iii. The clients of the clinic are generally those who cannot otherwise
gain access to legal representation, either due to their poverty,
their social marginalization, or the unique or complex nature of
their claims;
iv. Representation by students is closely supervised by an
experienced attorney admitted to practice in the relevant
jurisdiction where they appear, preferably a teacher with full or
part time status in the law school;
v. Work on real cases is accompanied by a course in the law school,
taught with experiential methods such as simulation, role-plays
and games, which trains students in the skills, values and ethics
of law practice.
2. The need for re-design of the law school curriculum. As set out in this
definition, the creation of a clinic will probably require changes to the
law school curriculum, which has formal and legal structures that may
be internally or externally imposed. A clinic does not replace the
lecture or case method, but adds rich variety to legal education. The
design of a clinical program, however, should be consistent with the
overall pedagogical goals of a law school. In any curricular redesign,
those who seek to offer a clinic should consider the following, among
other possible issues: (1) which year or years in the curriculum the
clinic will be offered (I have seen clinics in the US that are offered from
the first year of law school on, and clinics in the civil law or Continental
tradition that are offered from the 3rd year on, in a five or six year
curriculum); (2) previous or contemporaneous doctrinal preparation,
both procedural and substantive, of law students for clinic
participation, either through particular courses or through a law school
design of gradually increasing responsibility for hypothetical and real
legal matters; (3) mandatory or optional participation in clinic.
3. Someone of sufficient rank and stature from within the law school as
coordinator of the design and implementation of the clinic. Experience
shows that an outside promoter of clinical legal education is not nearly
as persuasive or persistent as an ally within the law school academic
community, usually either a senior professor or dean.
4. Uses and goals of law itself. There is significant debate about the ends
and means of law and legal institutions in any society. Some clinics
have as their primary objective the training of competent beginning
practitioners of law, capable of the thoughtful application in their law
practice or other work of the skills, ethics and values acquired in clinic.
Other clinics see their role as deeper and longer-term agents of social
change through law – what is sometimes called “public interest” or
“social change” law practice in the US. The latter conception may
affect the decision of the clinic to take particular types of cases or to
use particular legal procedures or strategies. The conception of the
role of law will usually manifest itself within the clinic in almost every
case or project, and the insightful supervisor will point out the potential
for law reform and social change to students, discussing with them the
role and consequences of the law school clinic in taking such actions.
 20
This paper takes no position on the issue, recognizing that such
decisions are as much a function of facts and remedies as the ideals of
the designers of the clinic.

OBJECTIVES OF THE CLINICS

1. INTRODUCTION
All clinical models does not necessarily have the same objectives, but there
are some things that all forms of clinical experience are potentially good at:
• enabling students to understand experientially how the law works in
practice (especially as clinic problems will often cut across
conventional law school subject boundaries).
• enhancing knowledge and understanding of a particular area of law.
• facilitating and empowering students to take a more active and
reflective role in their learning.
• providing a realistic context in which students can practice their
general transferable and applied communication skills.
• integrating professional (and perhaps personal) ethics and values into
the law .school curriculum.
• integrating learning and assessment
2. OBJECTS OF LIVE CLIENT CLINICS
• provide students with 'on-the-job' training in a way that complements
their overall programme of learning.
• Provide students with direct experience of (as appropriate) the role of
advice agencies, law centres and the legal profession in delivering
legal services, and a range of 'access to justice' issues.
• offer a service to the community and provide a means of meeting
unmet legal need
Where the clinic is part of the formal curriculum, these generic aims should
be translated into a set of learning objectives or formal outcomes against
which students can be assessed. Remember that effective learning
objectives and outcomes should:
• speak to the learner
 21
• be clear and specific
• match the assessment requirements of the module
Learning outcomes in particular are behavioural and performance based
statements. They tend therefore to be written with a high degree of
specificity. The development of outcomes statements can be a useful way of
identifying key knowledge attributes and behaviours that are to be learned
and assessed. At the same time, however, concerns have been expressed
about the reductionist tendencies and behavioural assumptions of outcomes-
based approaches, particularly in that they tend to emphasise product at the
expense of process and may be of limited value in clarifying learning and
assessment of complex and high inference behaviours.
If you choose to go down an outcomes path, outcome statements are best
constructed by:
1. Selecting a verb for performing the task. This involves determining
whether it is the most appropriate verb to describe what students must
be able to do (generic words like 'know' and 'understand' are best
avoided, unless you intend to incorporate a clear statement of the
standard to be achieved).
2. Identifying the object of the learning
3. Specifying the conditions under which or the context in which the task
is to be performed.
Thus, for example, a learning outcome might be to critically evaluate (verb)
your ability to give accurate advice (object) in a client interview (context).
3. OTHER VALUABLE OBJECTS
• to help students decide whether a career in practice, or a particular
area of practice, is for them.
• to enhance students' self confidence, and in particular to reduce
uncertainty about their ability to work as a lawyer.
• to stimulate reflection and scholarship on (clinical) legal education
among participating, and perhaps even nonparticipating, faculty.
4. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES OF CLINICS
The educational objectives of clinical legal education are often described as
teaching lawyering skills (such as interviewing, counseling, and negotiation)
and written and oral advocacy and analytical skills (such as problem solving,
decision making, hypothesis formulation, and testing). These skills are often
neglected in the traditional law school curriculum. The educational objectives
contribute to the overall goal of preparing law students to become
competent and ethical advocates. Clinical legal education achieves these
objectives through the type of cases handled and the choice of curriculum,
teaching methods, supervision techniques, and evaluation and feedback
provided.
4.1 Types of cases. The area of law or types of cases on which a clinic
chooses to focus will be influenced by a variety of factors, including
community needs, expertise of the clinical teacher, laws about what
kind of cases students can handle, and the educational value of certain
types of cases. For example, in a community facing environmental
threats, the clinic might choose to work on environmental issues. In an
area where there is high unemployment, labor issues or social benefits
might be the subject matter of the clinic. If the background of the
clinical teacher is in criminal law, the clinic may focus on criminal law
issues.
 22
Some clinics choose to work on very simple legal matters, so that
students can easily learn the law and start to handle the matters
without substantial supervision. Other clinics choose lengthier, more
complex legal matters, but fewer of them, to expose the students to
many legal skills during the course of one case.
4.2 Clinic curriculum - Most law faculties that have a legal clinic require
the clinic students to participate in a certain amount of classroom time
each week in which they learn the practical skills involved in being a
lawyer. Classes usually focus on development of the following skills:
• legal analysis
• drafting of legal documents
• interviewing
• client counseling
• case analysis
• negotiation
• examination of witnesses
• oral advocacy
The clinic seminar generally focuses on those skills that the student will
utilize in their work in the clinic, as well as in their legal practice after
graduation.
While all clinics focus on the substance of the law applicable to the subject
matter of the clinic, each may do so in different ways. In a civil law clinic, for
example, students may be exposed to a variety of subject matter in their
clinic cases, such as family, disability, housing, and consumer matters. The
clinic instructor may choose not to devote time to substance in the weekly
seminar, but rather teach the law as it arises in each particular case.
Some clinics incorporate materials on the substance of the law applicable to
the subject area of the clinic as part of the classroom component. Other
clinics require that the students complete some prerequisite courses before
they can enroll in the clinic. For example, at the Jagiellonian University
Faculty of Law, students who want to enroll in its Human Rights Clinic are
required to take a yearlong seminar on human rights and refugee law prior
to participating in the clinic. Although not all students who take the seminar
enroll in the clinic, those who do are already knowledgeable about refugee
law and the European Convention on Human Rights.
What is most important is that the individual instructor devise a classroom
component with opportunities to learn the basic skills and analytical thinking
necessary to provide quality legal services.

4.3 Methodology of clinical legal education teaching

The most fundamental characteristic of clinical legal education is the
methodology of teaching. The teaching method requires students to confront
problem situations very similar to those that lawyers confront in practice,
handle such problems in the role of a lawyer, interact with others in attempts
to identify and solve the problems, and receive intensive critical review of
their performances. Clinical legal education is primarily an interactive
method of teaching, in which the students “learn by doing.” This learning
process is sometimes described as by the following sequence: “plan, do,
reflect.
 23
Clinical teachers use a variety of methodological approaches to stress the
lawyering skills they see as fundamental. Most university-based law school
clinics are structured around teaching techniques such as the following:
• use of written materials
• classroom discussions of case-specific fact patterns
• games
• brainstorming techniques to analyze the good and bad facts of the
case
• classroom role-playing exercises based on real cases
• use of videotaping to enable the students to watch others and
themselves perform particular skill
• individual counseling and training of students by faculty and
practitioner supervisor(s)
• provision of direct legal services to clients: advising, drafting
documents for, and representing clients in court proceedings, including
administrative hearings and/or trials
For example, interviewing is one of the most important skills to teach
students in a legal clinic. It is a skill they will use in the clinic and throughout
their careers, whatever their area of specialization. In addition to the
traditional lecture method, the teaching methodologies that might be utilized
to teach interviewing include the following:
4.4 Use of written materials - Students may be given written materials
describing the goals of interviewing and the potential obstacles to
effective interviewing, to be read prior to coming to class.
4.5 Classroom discussion. In class, students might discuss the goals and
obstacles, as well as techniques they can use to reach their goals. Use
of a case-specific fact pattern will enable the students to understand
better how to prepare for an interview.
4.6 Brainstorming. Rather than tell the students what they should have
learned about interviewing from the game described in the previous
box, the instructor could use the brainstorming technique instead,
asking the students to say what they think are the goals of
interviewing. The instructor could write all of the students’ responses
on a “flip chart” or blackboard, then go through the information on the
chart with the students and decide which are the most important
goals. The instructor would add goals that had not been mentioned or
emphasize those that had not been discussed sufficiently. The
students could also brainstorm obstacles to a good interview, such as
client fears about dealing with a lawyer, revealing secrets, or handling
the cost of representation.
4.7 Role-playing. The instructor could distribute a hypothetical fact
pattern to half of the students, and give the other half a brief synopsis
of the law that applies to that fact pattern. The students who received
the fact pattern play the client. The other students play the lawyer. In
turn, each student who is assigned to be the lawyer interviews a
student “client” in front of the class. The student is then evaluated or
critiqued on interviewing techniques by the instructor and other
students, including the student “client.” In this way, the students can
“learn by doing,” and when they are not “doing,” the other students
learn by observing. The students also experience what it is like to be a
client, and how it feels to be interviewed.
 24
4.8 Videotape. One method of teaching lawyering skills is the use of
videotaped role-playing of a client interview in the classroom. After
showing the video, instructors lead the students in critiquing a flawed
interview. They can also ask the students to demonstrate a better one,
perhaps videotaping it so that it can be critiqued together with the first
video afterward. Finally, teachers can accomplish similar goals without
a video, simply asking students to simulate interviews in pairs and
relying on memory or notes to critique them afterward.
4.9 Small groups. The student who is preparing for a real client interview
can tell the instructor or supervisor what questions he or she plans to
ask the client. The instructor might also role-play with the student, to
practice how the interview will be conducted.
4.10 Real client interview. The instructor or supervisor can observe the
interview, taking notes, and then meet with the student after the
interview to analyze it and give feedback. For a description of other
teaching techniques that might be useful in a clinic setting.
5. SUPERVISION
One of the most important elements of clinical legal education is supervision.
Sometimes the supervisor will be a professor, and sometimes the supervisor
will be a practicing lawyer who does not teach full-time. In either case, law
faculties should be concerned about ensuring proper supervision of students
who are representing real clients. The importance of supervision is that it
ensures that the student is working effectively, efficiently, and ethically on
behalf of a client. It gives the student and supervisor opportunities to
interact directly with each other to discuss the case, prepare for specific
tasks, analyze student questions, and stimulate critical thinking. A
supervisor’s task is to help students to learn by doing, thereby acquiring the
knowledge and skills necessary to become capable and effective lawyers.
Clinical law teachers often state that the student is “practicing on my
license,” and therefore they view supervision as essential to their own ethical
and professional responsibility to the client. In many cases, laws or rules on
student practice make this connection explicit. Sometimes the supervision
style is “directive,” which means that the clinician provides detailed
information to students about what they should do on a case and is always
present when the student performs any task. Other clinicians take a
“nondirective” approach, focusing instead on being available and teaching
essential skills but allowing students to make many of their own decisions.
Professor Peter Hoffman, in his article “The Stages of the Clinical Supervisory
Relationship,” maintains that students pass though several predictable
stages while engaging in this process. The supervisor’s challenge is to
maximize the opportunities during this progression in order to make the
students’ learning experience as efficient and beneficial as possible, but the
form of supervision evolves from directive to nondirective as the student
moves from one stage to another. Thus, in the “beginning stage,” the
student has a working knowledge of the law but does not know how to apply
it (similar to Barbara in the initial case study in this chapter). The clinical
teacher is “didactic and directive” and “concerned with the students’
knowledge and performance of specific tasks, orientation to the supervisory
relationship, and reduction of their anxiety” about representing real clients.
The teacher will give instructions to the student, explain the rationale for
each instruction, and make decisions about particular courses of action.
Barbara, the student described in the opening situation, would meet with her
 25
supervisor prior to the interview, alone or with Anna, to discuss the goals of
the initial client interview, what questions to ask, how to ask the questions,
and how to be an empathetic listener. In addition, they might role-play a
portion of the interview. They would meet again after the interview to
discuss the facts of the case, possible ways of framing the case, and the law
that may apply.
During the “middle stage” the student becomes more capable of making
decisions about cases. The student knows how to ask for help. The approach
to the case is more collaborative, with the student and teacher “defining the
legal problem to be solved, developing procedures for solving the problem,
evaluating the effectiveness of the solution and implementing it.” The
teacher “stimulates and guides” the student, who begins to make his or her
own decisions.
In the “final stage” the student develops skills and an understanding of the
legal process and his or her responsibility (similar to Anna in the initial case
study). The student is able to make decisions independently. The supervisor
may disagree with the student’s decision, but as long as “reasonable minds”
might differ, the student’s decision will be respected. The supervisor’s role is
that of “confirmer and guider; a safeguard against serious error.”
Whether directive or nondirective, the key is that the clinician is available to
consult with the student, observe the student’s interaction with clients and
others, and provide feedback and ask questions, all of which will help the
students analyze the case. This supervision can take place in the classroom,
in small groups, in one-on-one meetings, or in interactions with clients,
witnesses, opposing counsel, or court. The task of the clinical instructor is to
supervise closely enough to provide guidance when the case requires and to
monitor the student’s work sufficiently to prevent harm to the client’s
interest.
6. STEPS IN THE CLINICAL SUPERVISORY PROCESS
6.1 Planning. The faculty member discusses with the student how the
student is thinking about the case and the actions that the student
wants to take in the case.
6.2 Student performance. The student takes action in the case (for
example, interviews a client or conducts a hearing). This performance
is often observed by the supervisor. Most student practice rules require
that a supervisor be present for court appearances.
6.3 Evaluation/critique. The supervisor and student review the actions
taken, assess those actions in light of the consequences that have
occurred, and identify what has been learned in the process.

7. EVALUATION AND FEEDBACK

Another key element of clinical legal education is that the
instructor/supervisor takes time to give feedback to the student on
everything that the student does in the clinic. The feedback is meant to be
constructive, to enable the student to understand what he or she did, why
something different should have been done, the rationale for the difference
in approach, and ideas on how to do it differently. The feedback is always
two-way; the instructor/supervisor will listen to the student’s perspective and
try whenever possible to affirm the student’s thinking about the case.
During the evaluation and critique process, a student’s performance is
subject to intensive and rigorous review. With the instructor/supervisor and
other students, the student under review will analyze critically every step of
 26
the planning, decision making, and action. This can be done by replaying
videotapes or audiotapes of the performance, or by reviewing notes and
memoranda made during the performance or while engaged in a lawyering
activity for an actual case. This type of review can be used to analyze any
experience, such as a meeting with a client, a negotiation with another
lawyer, a conference with a state official, a trial, or the closure of a case, in
order to draw from the experience the lessons learned that it can provide.
Barbara, from the opening case study, would meet with her supervisor after
the initial interview. Her supervisor would have information on the interview
from hearing or reading Barbara’s self-assessment about it, from having
observed it, or from watching a videotape of it. The supervisor would
respond to Barbara’s self-assessment with specific comments. If the clinician
had the opportunity to observe the interview live or on videotape, he could
give Barbara specific examples of questions she asked, the client’s answers
and how Barbara responded or should have responded, facts that Barbara
should have elicited, or other feedback that would help Barbara develop
stronger interviewing skills.
With Anna, the clinician would discuss the ethical issues raised by the
interview, how Anna dealt with those issues during and after the interview,
and what options are available to her in dealing with this potential client.
Feedback is a critical part of supervision in that it is the technique that
enables students to learn from their mistakes, think in ways that may not
come naturally or be obvious to them, and develop their confidence and
effectiveness as a lawyer.

TYPES OF CLINIC

1. INTRODUCTION
Over the years, several clinical legal education “models” have emerged,
reflecting a variety of settings and emphases. Clinic can take a great variety
of forms. The big question is whether you go for a simulated or (so-called)
live client model - we look at the pros and cons of each.
To meet the demands of the Indian Constitution, and the Legal Services
Authorities Act, and the Bar council of India, an endeavor is made to ridge
the gap between the theory and practice and to provide a remedy to the
social problems, by Universities, Law Colleges, Bar Associations, Legal
Service Authorities, Courts and NGO's who are setting up legal aid clinics.
These clinics may be classified as:-
A. Simulated clinics
The term 'simulation clinic' is used to describe any learning environment that
sets out to simulate (some aspects of) the experience of live practice. I
suggest that a proper simulation clinic is more than 'just' a module using
skills-based teaching and learning. In particular, it tends to go beyond the
use of discrete exercises to involve a significant element of experiential and
 27
problem-based learning through the use of extensive case simulations. The
aim of a good simulation is to create realistic and adequately complex
problems through which students can get a feel of practice, both in terms of
developing technical knowledge and skills and experiencing the value
conflict and uncertainty that often accompanies professional work.
The main strengths of simulation clinics are that they are generally simpler
to set up, rather less resource hungry and time intensive, certainly when
compared with in-house live client clinics, and, some would say, provide a
more managed and perhaps predictable learning environment for students.
B. LIVE CLIENT CLINICS
If you are looking to develop a live client approach then you need to decide
what kind of clinic you want. There are three key sets of variables to
consider:
• full practice or limited representation?
• general advice and assistance or specialist/pro bono/public interest
orientation?
• in-house or externship?
In answering each of these questions it is likely that a key determinant will
be the breadth of supervision and other resources that you have available.
But it is not just a pragmatic decision. Consider carefully what your values
and objectives are in setting up a clinic, and then decide which model best
serves those objectives.
C. IN-HOUSE OR EXTERNSHIP
Externships, also rather confusingly called internships, are clinical
programmes designed to be delivered in conjunction with and often under
the supervision of an outside agency - usually a law centre or such like.
Students work on real cases outside the law school with practitioners who
supervise their work, often based at NGOs. A professor from the law school
provides supervision to ensure that the students have a meaningful
educational experience.
Although each of these models has unique characteristics, they all share
certain features, including the following:
• use of interactive teaching methodology
• focus on developing skills such as interviewing, counseling,
negotiating, and oral advocacy
• emphasis on ethical dimensions of legal practice
• close supervision by a clinical instructor who has experience as a
practitioner
• extensive evaluation and feedback
• work on real or simulated cases
• a fostered spirit of public service
D. UNIVERSITY-BASED OR “IN-HOUSE” CLINIC
The clinic is physically located at the law school. The law school offers two in-
house clinics: the Environmental Law and Justice Clinic and the Women's
Employment Rights Clinic. Each of these clinics operates on school premises,
with participating students performing the bulk of their work in the clinic
offices, under the supervision of full-time faculty.
E. COMMUNITY-BASED CLINIC
The clinic is physically located within the community served.
F. FIELD PLACEMENT CLINICS
 28
The law school offers a number of field placement clinics, supervised by law
school faculty, where participating students work at outside firms,
companies, agencies, or organizations.
G. JUDICIAL EXTERNSHIP PROGRAM
Students work in selected courts under the supervision of a judge or
research attorney.

H. LAW COLLEGE ANNEXED CLINICS

Clinics that provide an opportunity to law students to gain experience on
variety of problems which include labour matters, such as wrongful
dismissal, unemployment, insurance, compensation; Consumer Law
problems, such as Hire purchase, defective goods, unscrupulous debt
collection; Housing problems, relating to ownership and rent control; Family
problems, such as maintenance, succession, inheritance, woman's rights,
children's rights, aspects of HIV and Aids etc.,
The college annexed law clinics have an advantage of an association with an
university and the supervision of the Faculty of the college, which gives an
opportunity to the students to practice in different areas of law including the
emerging areas such as environmental raw, IPR, ADR and Cyber laws.
Students also have an opportunity to consult experts of the various fields of
law.
2. COMMON FEATURES OF THE CLINICS
(a)use of interactive teaching methodology
(b) focus on developing skills such as interviewing, counseling,
negotiating, and oral advocacy.
(c) emphasis on ethical dimensions of legal practice.
(d) close supervision by a clinical instructor who has experience as a
practitioner.
(e) extensive evaluation and feedback.
(f) Work on real or simulated cases.
(g) a fostered spirit of public service.
The highly respected and often-cited MacCrate Report of the American Bar
Association, Published in 1992, describes the skills and values of a
competent and responsible lawyer as developing along a continuum. This
continuum begins prior to Law School, reaches it’s most formative and
intensive stage during the legal education experience at the Law School, and
continues throughout a lawyer’s professional career. Clinical legal education
can make a significant contribution during this continuum, as it provides law
students with the necessary practical skills to become competent and
conscientious lawyers from a societal perspective and from the experience of
other jurisdictions, legal clinics serve a second purpose by meeting the legal
needs of the poor and under represented particularly in a developing country
such as Nigeria where the standard of living is still very low.
3. DEGREE OF REPRESENTATION
Just how much of the representation do you want your students to be
involved in?
• full representation - students normally manage the entire
transaction or piece of litigation, as they would in a law firm.
• partial representation - students normally fulfill only part of the
lawyering role, for example they give initial advice and representation
before referring the case on to another agency, or they provide
 29
primarily case preparation and advocacy services (for example, for the
Free Representation Unit).
• a 'cause lawyering' orientation where the emphasis is as much on
campaigning or education as it is on 'conventional' legal representation
of a class or individual.
• the 'street law' model can be seen as a specialized extension of the
cause lawyering outlook, where law students are directly engaged in
providing 'rights' education or supporting projects in conflict resolution
or legislative reform for specific groups or communities. Street law was
pioneered in the US and South Africa, and has expanded into a global
network.
How far do you want to limit the kinds of cases that the clinic deals with? A
generalist clinic may aim to replicate 'high street' practice by taking on a
wide range of matters (although many of these will not undertake
conveyancing or criminal representation, so as not to impact on the 'bread
and butter' work of the local profession). Others will set out to specialize -
this may be in either contentious or non-contentious work. Many American
law schools have gone down the path of specialization, but usually within the
setting of a school that offers a number of clinic programmes.

BENEFITS OF THE CLINICS

1. TO STUDENTS
1.1 Learning by Experience – The main advantage of clinical education
is that, compared to traditional teaching methods, it involves a
different approach to the learning of law: it encompasses experimental
learning, or "learning by doing". Instead of learning by means of
traditional lectures – where students are often expected to be sponges
reactively soaking up information – students are much more proactive
participants in the learning process. It is their initiative which
determines the scope of the client's process; and they plan and work
for its solutions. Such students are much more likely to learn if they
recognize that their success is determined by their own efforts rather
than external factors e.g. how good the lecturer is, or what questions
have previously been asked in the examination.
In addition, if there is a clear purpose to what is being learned it is more
likely to have an effect? It is not so much what has been learned, but what
can be done with what has been learned. That is, it is applying the
 30
knowledge that is the key, not the learning of it. Clinical education clearly
gives opportunities for the knowledge to be applied, but it also goes beyond
this and calls for reflection and self examination. It gives students the
opportunity to explain why they are taking certain actions and they are able
to discuss and reconsider their actions. Legal practitioners themselves rarely
have the time or opportunity to do this.
Students, by contrast, can examine the legal and social issues in some
depth, and they can form the basis for looking at the lawyer's role and at
legal ethics within a practical context. The result is that what is learned is far
more likely to remain with the student than the knowledge crammed for an
extremely artificial examination paper. The contrast between experiential
learning and the traditional information transmission model of legal
education can be stark. Treating students as merely empty vessels into
which legal information can be poured- apparently without end – provides
them with only a small art of what they need in order to understand the
nature and processes of law, and to operate effectively as a practitioner. As
a result the teaching of legal skills is now widely recognized "as a legitimate,
even critical part of an effective legal education."
We now have a great deal of knowledge about how students learn. There is a
considerable literature on educational theory. It is important for law schools
to understand and make effective use of this information when considering
how they achieve the educational goals that either are set for them or they
set for themselves. All too often in the past law schools have operated as if
they alone knew the best how to teach and how students learn. That position
can no longer be maintained. Reformers of legal education, whether in Japan
or elsewhere, must look to the wider developments which have taken place
in education generally if they are to set up effective and modern system for
instructing students.

1.2 Acquisition of Skills

Experiential learning means moving away from an information based
syllabus caricatured by role or memory based learning accompanied by
condensed summary examinations. Instead clinical education embraces a
skills-based approach. This means paying as much attention to the processes
associated with legal practice – e.g. the structure a letter, the interview with
client, face to face negotiation – as to the legal content of the rules forming
the background to the work done.
Many of these skills have already been mentioned. Their importance is
specifically examined in the most recent UK government report on legal
education.
The skills include:-
i. Research skill – especially where the relevant areas of law is
completely new.
ii. Communication skill – e.g. advocacy before differing tribunals or
bodies.
iii. Interviewing – e.g. clients and witnesses. The law student's
traditional indoctrination into a cross examiner's style is revealed in
clinical practice as inadequate and often leading to obscuring the facts
rather than discovering them. Instead students must learn to relate to
clients and e.g. develop active listening skills in order to obtain the full
facts.
 31
iv. Counseling – e.g. helping sometimes bewildered clients to understand
and deal with events.
v. Negotiating – the art of settlement for something instead of litigating
for all reflects much more the realities of legal practice and the use
made of the law than does study of formal accounts of those untypical
disputes which are adjudicated by a court.
vi. Problem Solving – seeing the full context of a client's problem and
bringing together what otherwise might be seen as distinct areas of
legal study – e.g. contact, debt, housing and land law, together with
social security and civil procedure commonly arise together in a
landlord-tenant dispute.
vii. Interpersonal and Organizational Skills – including e.g.
communicating and working as a member of a team, helping to
organize and maintain office procedures.
1.3 Students Motivation and Development
Students who work in a legal clinic are enthusiastic about their experience.
They are self-motivated and often highly committed to the work. They are
more responsible for what they do and how they do it. In theory, the
teacher's role becomes more facilitative – helping students discover
solutions for themselves. My own disenchantment with law school when a
student is a feeling still shared by all to many students. To an extent
involvement in clinical work can help reduce such feelings, and can
invigorate future study. It can cause students to think again about what law
school offers and what direction their future career could take.
"Clinical experience puts colour in the empty outlines of the legal comic
book……Questions which were dull and meaningless become important and
exciting. Answers which seemed black and white become grey, red and
green. Dull legal rules become memorable elements of unforgettable
events."
1.4 Professional Ethics and Responsibility
The study of ethics and professional responsibility and conduct of lawyers
has been markedly absent from law schools in contrast to medical schools.
However, there has been a growth of interest in this area in recent years,
and it is a subject which arguably is better dealt with in a clinical context
where the often abstract notions can be given a practical context. Whether
educators can actually affect the development of student's moral
consciousness is much open to debate. But at least the crucible of the clinic
allows moral issues to be debated more openly than within the confines of
the traditional curriculum.
1.5 Involvement with the Local Community
The image of the university as an ivory tower is often all too real in that it
can be very divorced from the environment in which it operates. Not only its
students but also its staff can be cut off from the local community. A law
clinic can help reduce this isolation by making the law school more relevant
to that community. It can, for example, offer advice and assistance to local
people who might not otherwise obtain any help at all. The benefits of this
can operate in more than one direction. Most obviously, the most
disadvantaged members of society may gain some means of redress. But in
addition the young student may be faced with the problems of those from a
different generation and background. This experience can add to their
understanding of the position of other in society, and can increase their
maturity and sense of responsibility. They have to deal with problems
 32
without becoming as emotionally involved with clients as to have their
judgment clouded.

2. TO SOCIETY
In every society some portion of the population cannot afford professional
legal representation, though they desperately need the advocacy of a good
lawyer. Clinic students can make a significant, if only partial, contribution to
filling this gap. Lawyers in many Central and Eastern European countries are
overwhelmed by demand for their services and unable to devote proper
attention to clients who cannot pay for their services.
Legal clinics can contribute to meeting this need, particularly in those cases
that do not present a level of complexity requiring an experienced lawyer.
Moreover, legal clinics can often do more for their indigent clients than law
firms can. People often go there to seek legal advice about a problem that
may be a result of a number of other social and legal problems that clients
may not even want to acknowledge. Students learn to deal with some of the
other needs of their clients and provide them with more than just the legal
advice sought. Wassal, the client described in the opening of this chapter,
came to the refugee law clinic to seek help with her refugee application. As a
result of her visit to the clinic, Wassal may file for divorce and start criminal
proceedings against her husband for domestic violence. The students can
also help her find an organization that provides support for battered women
and their children.
Clinic students are able to directly assist only a small portion of all those
individuals who might need free legal services. However, as is borne out
from the experience of clinics in many countries, students who have been
able to use their knowledge of law to help those in need often choose to
continue to work for the public good. Clinics often produce a pool of young
lawyers who will directly address society’s need for free or low-cost legal
consultation and representation.
In many of the emerging democracies in the region, where a majority of
people live in poverty, it is tempting for clinic administrators to look to clinics
as a means of meeting a significant portion of the population’s need for legal
services. Nevertheless, university legal clinics will always have to balance
the interest of serving underrepresented clients with the educational goals of
the clinic. This balancing will often mean taking fewer cases in order to have
sufficient time to provide the supervision, evaluation, and feedback that
clinical legal education requires.
2.1 Sensitizing students to social issues. In a profession that lures
young lawyers toward lucrative careers, clinics show students the
tangible advantages of legal careers devoted to empowering poorer
members of society and bringing the benefits and protections of the
law to those who traditionally have had little access to them.
Perhaps one of the most valuable products of clinical education is that
young lawyers-to-be feel the deep satisfaction that results from
providing free legal assistance to people in need. Clinic students learn
not only about the law, but also about its impact on life. By bringing
law to life through the experience of clients in need, law clinics can be
a crucial force in the improvement of human rights and the
development of the rule of law.
Clinical legal education programs are a mechanism for training law
students and helping them to understand the ethical, professional, and
 33
practical problems faced by practicing lawyers. Exposing law students
to real-world experiences, within the context of a clinical legal
education program, can result in a future talent pool for the public
interest legal community.
2.2 Assisting practicing lawyers and legal organizations. Legal
clinics can also help the practicing bar by relieving attorneys of cases
that demand too much time for too little reward. Student lawyers can
learn from these cases. Likewise, clinics might take on a small number
of less complicated cases referred by human rights groups, leaving
those groups the time and resources to focus on cases whose
outcomes might affect larger policy issues.
In many countries with clinical legal education programs, practitioners
choose to become involved in clinical legal education programs by
providing an “internship” or apprenticeship opportunity with their
organization or firm. They can also directly supervise students in a
university based clinic or serve as outside mentors whom the students
can consult regarding specific issues. In such situations, students profit
from a practitioner’s expertise and perspective, which may be different
from that of the clinical professor. In turn, the experienced attorney or
public interest organization receives low-cost labor and may benefit
from being able to influence and educate bright young students who
will later join the ranks of legal professionals better prepared for
practice.
2.3 Enhancing the legal reform process. In the societies of Central and
Eastern Europe, many viewed laws under the socialist legal order as
tools of arbitrary power. Large portions of the populations of the region
felt alienated and cut off from the benefits and protections of their own
laws, even though they could be punished or restricted by those laws.
As a result, to this day a pervasive attitude of fear, estrangement, and
mistrust toward the legal system discourages many citizens from
seeking the legal help they need.
By assisting individuals in their relationships with state and local
administration, clinics improve the legal consciousness of
administrators, bureaucrats, and citizens alike. Students’ assistance
and advice encourage citizens to pursue their rights through
administrative procedures. Students’ involvement in facilitating
communication between citizens and governmental entities also
functions as a type of civil control over the administration and
encourages officials to apply the laws in good faith.
Clinical legal education may also play a valuable role in promoting
legal reform and furthering respect for the rule of law. Clinical students
spend time studying particular legal provisions, applying such
provisions in specific cases, and communicating with administrative
agencies and law enforcement offices. The students’ experience may
bring to the attention of academia some of the discrepancies between
theory and practice or shortcomings of the law that might otherwise go
unnoticed. Stimulating professors’ interest in these issues may also
trigger academic discussion and encourage efforts to change judicial or
administrative practices, or even to achieve legislative reform.

3. ADDITIONAL BENEFITS OF CLINICS

 34
3.1 Teaching ethics and professional responsibility. Working as a
lawyer in the protected environment of the university-based clinic
helps students to understand the implications of being practicing
lawyers. The clinic serves as a forum for exploring and resolving ethical
dilemmas under the supervision of teaching faculty, after which
students are better equipped to make difficult decisions and live with
the consequences. Clinics thus infuse legal education with a strong
sense of responsibility and professional ethics.
As students handle their cases from beginning to end, they see the
results of their decision making and work. Through clinical training,
students assume responsibility for matters of great importance to their
clients, and they gain the opportunity to incorporate the legal
profession’s ethical standards into their practice routine during its
formative stages. Working with the law in real-world situations allows
students to discover the values critical to effective legal systems, and
it encourages their commitment to the rule of law, justice, fairness,
and high ethical standards. Indeed, learning about ethics on the basis
of actual cases is far more effective than learning the abstract
principles alone. Over the long term, clinics can help to develop
students’ understanding and appreciation of strategic considerations
with the interrelationship of issues of professional responsibility and
ethics.
Probably as a result of her almost yearlong experience in the refugee
clinic, Anna can now better handle complicated ethical situations. She
has learned how to identify who her client is, what is in her client’s
best interest, and how to avoid conflicts of interests. For example, in
the case of Wassal, Anna quickly understood that the interests of
Wassal and her children and the interests of Usuf, though similar, are
ultimately different. Indeed, it is still difficult for Anna to answer
whether there would be a conflict of interest if the refugee clinic takes
the case of Usuf, and on the other hand whether it would be fair not to
take his case if he is in danger and needs legal assistance. But after a
year at the clinic, Anna is able to identify potential ethical problems
and to analyze the situations more professionally.
3.2 Improving the system of legal education. Clinical legal education
may have a positive impact on the quality of education in the law
school generally. Meeting real clients and discussing real problems can
stimulate students’ interest in legal issues, encouraging them to
become more proactive and to pursue their studies more diligently.
Trying to solve real cases instead of simply memorizing legal rules
helps develop students’ critical thinking, a skill that they will use in
their other law school courses. For example, in the scenario at the
beginning of this chapter, after speaking to Wassal about her
problems, Anna appeared eager to consult her textbooks and her class
notes about the laws on domestic violence. Anna wanted to know how
she could help Wassal file her complaint, the chances that Wassal
would have her case heard in court, and her chances of eventually
winning.
Clinical legal education can also bring students’ practical experience
under the supervision of law school professors. The praktikum system
currently in place in Central and Eastern Europe provides an
opportunity for students to work with practicing lawyers in the
 35
community prior to or just after graduating from the university. The
system is widely criticized as inefficient because it places all
responsibility for instructing and supervising students on practicing
lawyers, judges, or prosecutors, who are most often overburdened with
other work. The law schools play an insignificant role, or none at all.
Introducing legal clinics into the law school curriculum offers an
alternative form of instruction by providing practical education
designed and implemented by law school professors to meet the needs
of their students.
Finally, clinical education affords students an opportunity to consider
the kind of legal work they would like to undertake in the future—or
even whether they want to be a lawyer at all—at a point in their
education that allows them to adjust their studies accordingly. In
putting their education to the test in a clinic setting, they discover their
strengths and weaknesses before finishing their legal studies.
Consequently, students are able to work with their teachers on
converting those weaknesses into strengths. The understanding of
their professional qualities versus the demands of the profession aids
students in determining which areas of legal practice suit them best
before they commit themselves to a specific field of law.

4. TO TEACHERS
a. To evaluate different methods of teaching.
b. Learn how to teach in the classroom setting as well as its applications
in real live client clinics.
c. Learn strategies and techniques appropriate to achieving the goals of
CLE.
d. Achieve a flexible package of techniques intellectually stimulating and
professionally significant leading to innovation, creativity and inspired
learning.
e. Operationalise clinical programmes for the benefit of the students.
f. Adopt practical methods for designing simulation-based Clinical
courses, arranging role-play exercises for students, critiquing clinical
performance, field placement programmes, supervising and evaluating
each of these activities to meet the learning goals that have been
devised.
g. Develop systems and procedures to ensure that courses are taught
and completed at the time scheduled for them by keeping to the
schedule.
h. Display a level of competence and dexterity in the teaching of the
Clinical law courses and other law courses.
i. Know what subject matter needs to be covered, the time allocated to
them and the reading materials to be assigned.
j. Ensure that students’ assignments and activities are designed to give
them the opportunity to meet all of the learning goals and objectives of
the course.
k. To have a clear understanding of the criteria on which students
performances will be graded by ensuring that their assessment
scheme is practical, valid, reliable, well-timed, and fair to all.
l. Be fully integrated with relevant subject courses in the curriculum and
use the lessons learned in preparing and teaching other non-clinical
course in their Faculties.
 36
m. Ensure that CLE is integrated into the overall curriculum of Faculties of
Law, as well as into the legal and judicial community in Nigeria to
achieve the goals for which it is set up.

PROBLEMS OF CLINICS

The legal education in India particularly in traditional law schools has always
been subject to criticism on the ground that it has failed to teach students
how to practice law and develop court craft. On the other hand the corporate
law schools have also criticized for not providing social context education
 37
namely service oriented, community oriented, public interest oriented and
ADR oriented education to focus on issues that have an impact on large
sections of the society. The present legal education is confined to traditional
method of teaching viz., class room lectures, seminars, tutorials, court
attendance and moot Courts. It is therefore, necessary to bridge the gap in
legal education by strengthening the present clinical legal education offered
in the law schools.
A. The integration of the clinic within the law school
There is a danger that the clinic will become an isolated outpost of the law
school, and not absorbed within its mainstream activity. It can be seen by
students as an interesting diversion, divorced from the rest of their legal
teaching. To avoid this it is important to draw clear links between
substantive law courses and work done in the clinic. For example, problems
arising in the clinic can be re-examined in other law classes, research can be
done on them, and even action recommended. A wide range of teacher
involvement is desirable. However, there is no ready-made solution to the
problem of integration.
There is a danger that unless the law school embraces the direction in
educational philosophy which lies behind the teaching of skills the clinical
work will be marginalized and treated as merely providing a "poverty law"
service for the community. As its worst this could result in a couple of
members of staff being left alone to supervise an ever-expanding
indiscriminate caseload, involving but a small clique of students, and where
there is no time to discuss, or write about the educational objectives, or
about the successes and failures of what has been done, The need for skills
teaching to be underpinned by an appreciation of the theoretical framework
of education is crucial in the law school's ability to integrate the clinical work.
B. Staffing Problem
Traditional legal education in the India has been marked by a sharp contrast
between the academic stages. Only a small minority of university law
teachers was qualified to practice, and very few of these had actually worked
as lawyers for any period of time. Asking such teachers to set up a clinical
programme at university was therefore beset with problems.
However, this portrait of traditional legal education has now much changed.
The profession has given up exclusive control of the vocational stage, and
has allowed a number of universities to become involved. Jamia Millia Islamia
is one of these institutions which provide skills training by offering a five year
of legal study at university. Most of the teachers of this college are not only
legally qualified, but also have spent some years in legal practice. Because
of them it is now much easier to see how a legal clinic could be staffed and
supported at Faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia; it fits within the new
teaching parameters. These teaching developments are not exclusive to
faculty of Law, Jamia Millia Islamia. They have been replicated at other law
schools in India, and provide the foundation upon which resurgence in
clinical legal education can take place.
C. Resources
Although a number of universities now therefore have a pool of staff
qualified to work in and give advice on clinical matters, it must be
appreciated that their participation cannot be on the basis of the high staff-
student ratio traditionally encountered in lecture based courses. Although
large group teaching can form part of the activities of clinical teachers, they
are ultimately responsible for a series of cases each requiring individual
 38
attention. The students, in turn, must be individually supervised and given
extensive feedback if the educational goals are to be achieved. Full
secretarial and law office facilities are essential; as is the relevant insurance
should thing go wrong. Extra resources must therefore be allocated to the
teaching and running of the clinic. This can be another cause of resentment
for traditional academics who are less involved in skills teaching, and it is
another reason why the support and involvement in the clinic of the law
school as a whole is needed. It is also especially difficult to seek extra
resources for teaching purposes when there has been undue emphasis in
recent years on the quality of research produced.
Resources can be particularly stretched if the clinic operates an open door
policy and attempts to deal with all cases which come in off the street.
Invariably a free legal advice centre is soon overwhelmed with unmet legal
need. The moral of both staff and students can then be badly affected by the
pressures created by the high caseload, especially where it involves dealing
in with what might be seen as identical problems. The clinic will therefore
usually need to limit access in some way. For example, it may avoid those
cases which are thought to be well dealt with by the local legal profession
-e.g. perhaps personal injury claims which can paid for on a conditional fee
basis, or complex criminal matters where legal aid exists. Similarly, the
directors of the clinic may need to ensure that it deals less with routine
disputes, and that it instead focuses upon cases which involve wider matters
of principle and which are better vehicles for achieving the educational
objectives of the clinic. For example taking on a public law project or an
important test case might be preferred to a series of minor consumer
disputes.
Another aspect of the resources issue is the number of students that can be
accommodated within the clinical education programme. The opportunity to
become involved in practice and deal with real clients makes work in the
clinic an extremely popular option choice for students. It is therefore usually
the case that the number of students admitted to the course has to be
limited.
How this is to be done can provoke dispute: are limits to be drawn by lottery,
by grades, or by evidence of commitment? This problem may also be
encountered by other popular subjects in the law school curriculum, but it
can be especially acute in the clinical context. Students may be aggrieved to
find not only that the courses run in the law school are not available to all of
the students all of the time, but also that some of them are never available
other than to a chosen few.

D. Difficulties in supervision and assessment

Supervising students in the clinic is subject to pressures which pull in
opposite directions. Arriving at the right balance can be difficult. On the one
hand the student learns best if left with as much control over a case as
possible so that there is room to make mistakes, appreciate how thing may
be done differently and change practice or behaviour accordingly. If 'learning
by doing' is to be the leitmotif, it is no good looking over the student's
shoulder all the time to correct what is being done. On the other hand, the
obvious danger is that too much freedom will be given to the student and
that this could result in a poor or even negligent service being provided to a
client. The public could be used as guinea pigs on which the inexperienced
experiment. It is therefore essential for a system of supervision to include
 39
checks on the quality of work being done e.g. the approval of all letters sent
out, certain interviews recorded, file entries checked and diaries examined. It
is also crucial that the supervisor be given sufficient knowledge of what the
student has done in order to provide effective feedback and ensure that the
clinical work forms part of the skills learning experience.
Another reason for ensuring that there is an appropriate level of supervision
is in order for the law school to be able to make a formal assessment of the
student's work. Obviously the traditional closed book three hour examination
is a peculiarly inappropriate method of dealing with legal clinic work. Instead
course work and some form of continuous assessment are employed. If these
are well focused they can be a major element in the learning experience, and
can provide clear goals to be achieved. Alternatively a simple pass/fail
assessment of the work in the class can be made. If, however, there is no
assessment at all, both the law school and the students will treat the clinical
work as less important. It will then be much more difficult to achieve the
educational goals outlined above. Attitudes towards assessment practices in
India have changed greatly in recent years. Acceptance of these new
practices is essential if clinical education is to thrive.
E. The dangers of public service
Although the idea of providing free legal advice is attractive to those who
wish to see the university become more closely involved with the wider
community in which it is based, problems can develop if the public service
aim takes precedence over that of providing a sound and well rounded legal
education. As already discussed, the clinic could become overwhelmed with
clients and deal with routine problems which lack any wider legal focus or
potential for lessons to be learned about the nature of law and legal practice.
However, it is not easy to draw a clear dividing line to limit the extent of the
public service as opposed to educational benefits to students. It is true that
clients can be turned away - although this is often something students find
hard to do. But if the case has already been taken on then the duty to the
client requires that the existing file must continue to be serviced even during
student vacations or examination periods. Again resources, effective
supervision and an efficient office system are needed to ensure that the
interests of both students and clients are met.
F. Relationship with the local legal profession
Some may fear that a legal clinic offering free legal work will upset the law
school's relation with the local legal profession. However, far from reducing
the amount of work done by local practitioners, the clinic is likely to expand
it. This is because it stimulates resort to the law, and the need for advice is
increased out of proportion to the clinic's ability to deal with it. A referral
system to local firms for certain types of advice or assistance is essential,
and the number of people thus sent to lawyers far outweighs the work taken
on by the clinic and which otherwise would have been dealt with a law firm.
Far from being a source of friction, the clinic helps to foster a closer
relationship with the local legal profession.

FOUNDATION OF LAW CLINICS, PRACTICAL PAPERS, ITS DRAWBACKS

AND REMEDIES
 40
1. ENCOURAGING CLINICS
In the past it was sufficient for those reading law to restrict their knowledge
to the theories of law, codes or decided cases. However, in order to meet the
new challenges of the present legal system, it is imperative that the law
schools provide clinical legal education.
Justice' must become central to the law curriculum and community based
learning must give the desired value orientation in the making of a lawyer.
This concept of justice education in the field of legal education means that
the law school curriculum should entail certain programs like Lok Adalats,
Legal Aid & Legal Literacy and para-legal training.
The complementary teaching methodology of learning by doing and the
conventional classroom teaching, through the law school clinics, help in
developing the advocacy skills in the law students. Mock trials and Moot
court competitions, structured as court trial; client interviewing and
counseling sessions; legal research; editing of law journals; legal drafting and
conveyancing; court visits etc. in the curriculum is one of the ideal ways to
facilitate performance based education. It is a means of improving in
students the basic skills such as the skills of critical thinking, presentation
skills, participation skills, and the skills to work as a team, the leadership
quality, in addition to the boost in students’ knowledge of law.
Even though, in tune with the time, Clinical Legal Education holds an
indispensable position, still its acceptance, existence and development in
present legal education system, is at its nascent stages. Albeit the Bar
Council of India, constituted under the Indian Advocates Act, 1961, is
endowed with the responsibility by Parliament to prescribe and maintain the
standards of legal education in consultation with State Bar Councils and
universities teaching law, the curriculum adopted at various law schools has
not been structured to give adequate time for clinical training programs. The
divergence between law in books and law in action calls to strike a balance
between the law curriculum and the teaching methods. The monologue
lecture scheme adopted in law schools, where practical training is either
totally neglected or marginally implemented at the level of Moot Courts,
Court visits and legal research will not make good lawyers in today’s scheme
of legal education.
Most of the Universities due to lack of infrastructural support and lack of
funds have failed to establish a clinic in the Law Schools which would
facilitate the students to carry out experimental learning of law. It is
pertinent that the University Grants Commission facilitates, by funding, the
establishment of functional clinics and for promoting the programs like Lok
Adalats, legal aid and legal literacy, client interviewing and counseling etc.
Even those law schools where the clinics do exist, the results are fruitless, for
the reasons of lack of resource faculty who have the competence and
knowledge in clinical training. The teachers associated -experience in law.
Association of retired judicial persons, as visiting faculty would be
instrumental in selecting suitable clinical experience for the students and
enhance amongst the students the commitment to learn.
Other constraints that curtail the law schools to foster higher standards of
clinical legal education is the high teacher student ratio. Law being an
interactive discipline there should not be more than 20 students to 1
teacher, so as to ensure adequate supervision, right guidance and extensive
practical learning. There should be regular refresher courses organized by
the authorities - 'training the trainers' which would consequently, help in
 41
developing among the students, the aplomb which every advocate should
possess.
2. BAR COUNCIL’S RECOMMENDATION: LEGAL EDUCATION IN
INDIA
The discourse on legal education in India has centered on the divide between
professional and liberal education. Despite such divide it has been accepted
widely that a law student should be trained in the skills of lawyer and
endowed with the accepted norms of professional ethics and a sense of
social responsibility".
Apprenticeship and the Bar Examination were abolished in 1967. The
abolition of apprenticeship was justified by scholars on the ground that
learning of the apprentice was entirely on the sense of duty of her employer.
The practical handling of clients or a case rarely happened as it remained the
sole prerogative of the employer and not the apprentice. Courses like
'Pleading, Drafting and Conveyancing', 'Practical Training', activities like
mock trial and moot courts, programmes relating to Legal Aid have been
used traditionally to provide a varied range of opportunities to students to
learn practical aspects of lawyering and lawyering skills. However, majority
of the law students pass out without any actual exposure to the practical
aspects of the lawyering profession.
In the law faculties/colleges, where the Legal Aid Clinics are active, they
operate mostly because of labour of love of teachers and students and are
not integrated in the regular curricula- of the faculty.' The students
participating in such clinics do learn various skills required by a lawyer in the
process but that is not the primary purpose of the clinic. The primary
purpose of a Legal Aid Clinic, run by a Law Faculty, is perceived to be
assistance to the poor in legal matters. Students participating in the
activities of Legal Aid Clinic turn out to be more sensitive citizens and
lawyers needed by the legal system but that is only an incidental
consequence. The clinics have not been used for any systematic teaching of
lawyering skills to students.
Falling standards of legal education and legal profession and making legal
education more 'modem' and 'contemporary' to make it 'socially relevant',
have been the subjects of concern for long. The principal 'moments' or
trends have been summed up in the Report of the UGC's Curriculum
Development Centre in Law (CDC) as follows:
In the first phase (roughly 1950-65), the principal theme was how best
to transform legal education away from the colonial heritage, and in a
way to Indianise it; in the second phase (roughly 1965-75) the
emphasis was on sound reorganization of curricula and pedagogy
towards professional legal education; in the third phase (1976-88) the
focus shifted to 'modernization' of law curricula so as to make these
increasingly relevant to the problems of a society and state in deep
throes of transition.
The CDC suggested a course on Practical Training in Law in addition to other
twelve core courses. While the Report contains detailed contents of "all the
other twelve courses, the details of Practical Training were absent. But in its
additional report the CDC had pointed out that a course on practical training
had to integrate:
(i) a regulated volume of actual client representation by the student
taking into account the needs of the student for exposure and the
needs of the client for adequate legal service;
 42
(ii) an individualized teaching relationship between the teacher and the
student aimed at identifying the personal needs of students for
professional purposes and designing the programme to fulfil those
needs;
(iii) a training in technical law skills and ethics of professional
responsibility;
(iv) a programme aimed at integrating and synthesizing the different
components of legal education;
(v) training in strategy formulation 'in pursuance of social and individual"
client objectives.
However, it felt 'that an adequate programme for practical training can only
be formulated after a social audit of the present programmes is undertaken
to enable it to identify specific remedial measures to bring the programme in
line with its objectives. It adopts the assessment of existing programmes as
a priority task for its continued further activities’.
The Conference of the Chief justices held in December 1993 also discussed
matters regarding admission to law colleges, syllabus, training, etc. A High
Powered Committee consisting of the chief justice and two other judges was
constituted on its recommendation to suggest appropriate steps to be taken
in the matter so that the law graduates may acquire sufficient experience
before they become entitled to practice in the courts. In, relation to legal
education the High Powered Committee suggested, inter alia,
12. Rule 21 of the Bar Council Rules directing that every University
shall endeavour to supplement the lecture method with case method,
tutorials and other modem techniques of imparting Legal Education
must be amended in a mandatory form and it should include problem
method, moot courts, mock trials and other aspects and make them
compulsory.
13. (i) Participation in moot courts, mock trials and debates
must be made compulsory and marks awarded, (ii) Practical
training in drafting, pleadings, contracts can be developed in the last
year of the study, and (iii) Students visit at various levels to the courts
must be made compulsory so as to provide a greater exposure.
Pursuant to these recommendations, the Bar Council of India reintroduced
apprenticeship for a year under a senior lawyer as a precondition for
enrolment as a lawyer from 2nd April, 1996.11The scheme has now been
struck down by the Supreme Court as ultra vires the rule making power of
the Bar Council of India under the Advocates Act.
Some law faculties have had a course on Practical Training on similar lines
for a long time for teaching the' lawyering skills to students. For example,
when I was teaching in the University of Jammu in 1983, Practical Training
was a compulsory course for all the third year students for more than a
decade. 10 students were 'assigned to a teacher. Every student was required
to visit the court with a part time teacher for a specified number of days in
the sixth semester, observe the proceedings and report her/his observations
in writing in a register to be maintained for the purpose. The register carried
10 marks, 5 marks each were assigned for written and oral arguments on a
moot problem. The students took a written examination in pleading, drafting
and professional ethics for the remaining 80 marks. Most teachers and
students felt that 20 marks were too little an incentive for the students to
work real hard on the Practical Training component of the course. Such
 43
courses are considered to be very limited in their concept, content and
actual practice.
Some other law schools are trying out different ways to teach the students
the practical skills required by lawyers. An optional course in Clinical Legal
Education and Practical Training for Profession of Law has, been recently
introduced for the sixth semester students of Campus Law Centre in Delhi.
50 marks are assigned for practical work and a written examination is held at
the and of the semester for the remaining 50 marks. The practical training
primarily consists of simulation exercises in the class room and observation
of proceedings and activities in the court and lawyers chambers. Professional
lawyers are invited for giving lectures on various practical aspects of legal
profession. The course focuses on the skills of client interviewing and
counselling, negotiation, mediation; arguments, examination and cross-
examination, legal research, issues relating to legal aid; public interest
litigation, professional ethics and basic information relating to court
structure, stages in cases, core documents, colloquial terminology, etc.
Though the title of the course refers to Clinical Legal Education, there is no
live clinic for the course. The activities of the legal aid clinic are limited and
sporadic. Students participate in those activities on a voluntary basis.
The National Law School of India University, Bangalore, offers a variety of
'clinical courses e.g., interviewing and counselling, trial advocacy,
negotiation, mediations, etc. It also has a Rural Mediation Center and a Legal
Aid Clinic. While the clinical courses are compulsory, participation in the
Rural Mediation Centre and the Legal Aid Clinic is voluntary. Simulation
exercises are used to learn the clinical skills but the opportunities of client
interviewing, negotiation, mediation, fact determination, etc., are offered by
the centre and the clinic. The placement programme of the National Law
School does provide a closer clinical learning setting but without the close
supervision of a teacher. The extent of 'supervision - feedback -
improvement' cycle, typical of clinical education depends in this set up on
the inclination, understanding and training of the person under whom a
student is placed.
3. CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION AND PRACTICAL TRAINING PAPERS
In 1994 Justice Ahmadi Committee Report dealt elaborately with teaching
methods. After reviewing the recommendations made by Justice Ahmadi
Committee, the Bar Council of India (BCI) introduced a one year training rule
while it discarded the suggestion of bar examination as 'a prerequisite to
enrollment. However, the BCI received a setback when this rule was
challenged in the Supreme Court in V. Sudheer v. Bar Council of India
the Supreme Court struck down the rule as ultra vires to the Advocates Act
and held that the Bar Council of India is not competent to pass such a rule.
Such rule can be introduced only by the legislature.
It was in response to the Apex court's decision that the Bar Council of India
introduced the four practical papers to improve the standards of legal
education, namely:-
1. Moot-Court, Pre-Trial preparation and participation in trial proceedings.
2. Drafting, Pleading and Conveyancing
3. Professional Ethics, .Accountancy for lawyer and Bar-Bench relations.
4. Public Interest lawyers, Legal Aid and Para-legal Aid Services. These
papers are aimed at providing practical training to law students. Until
these papers were introduced in the curriculum very little efforts was
made by law colleges to train students in skills of advocacy. Law
 44
colleges felt that training law students to work in the legal profession
was not the job of the colleges but of the Bar. With the introduction of
these practical papers, it is now mandatory for all law colleges to
provide practical training. The Bar Council of India successfully thrust
its responsibility of providing skills to the young entrants by
incorporating four practical papers in LL.B. curriculum.
4. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES – PRACTICAL TRAINING PAPERS
1. Moot-Court, Pre-Trial preparation and participation in trial proceedings:
This paper is designed to explore the possible skills as to legal
analysis, legal reasoning, legal research, communication, competent
representation, Trial participation, problem identifying and problem
solving.
2. Drafting, Pleading and Conveyancing: The aim and object of this paper
is to teach skills such as organizing the factual information gathered,
written communication and effective method of presentation.
3. Professional Ethics, Accountancy for lawyer and Bar-Bench relations: It
deals with ethical dilemmas, such as the nature and sources of ethical
standards, the means by which the ethical standards are enforced the
process of recognition and resolving the ethical dilemmas.
4. Public Interest lawyers, Legal Aid and Para-Legal Aid Services: The
instruction in this paper involves the students in community services,
by participating Lok Adalat, Legal Aid, Legal literacy and para-legal
trainings. Further it also develops skills like factual investigation,
negotiation, mediation and counseling techniques.
5. FAILURE OF IMPLIMENTATION OF PRACTICAL TRAINING PAPERS
It is observed that the laudable objectives of clinical education have
remained on paper and have not been implemented with letter and sprit.
There are many law colleges which do not have law clinics and not yet
actively imparting clinical legal education. The reasons for this are not far
seek. The law colleges may not be having trained faculty members to impart
clinical legal education or the funds required for this purpose. Clinical legal
education in these colleges is being imparted as if to fulfill a compulsory
ritual which has in effect reduce the whole process to a mockery and a
meaning less ceremony. It is further observed that some of the law colleges
are not having sufficient infrastructure facilities and funds to meet the
expenditure of the outreach program's such as legal literacy, legal aid and
Para-legal services. The campus law colleges, and law departments have no
exception in this regard. It is suggested that the government should provide
to these law colleges with sufficient funds to engage trained faculty
members in clinical legal education.
6. REMEDIAL MEASURES
It is suggested that the following measures to be taken to impart the clinical
legal education in law colleges on a practical, continuous and sustainable
basis:
• A suitable legislation be enacted by the State to make it compulsory
for every law college to establish a law clinic to impart clinical legal
education.
• The legislation should cover that every law college should adopt a
Revenue division to organize legal aid programs with the help of
authorities under Legal Service Authorities Act.
 45
• The four practical training papers such as Moot-Court, Drafting and
Pleading, Professional Ethics and Legal Aid should be attached to the
law clinics of the college.
• A full time professor should be entrusted with the duties of over all
supervision of the clinical legal education.
• The law clinics should have sufficient number of clinicians from the
teaching faculty and practicing advocates to assist the professor and
to execute the various programs of clinical legal education.
• Too many protocols and the existing formal procedure in organizing
the outreach programs for the welfare of the poor and indigent
litigants should be avoided.
• The State Government, State Bar council and the Governing Body of
the respective law colleges should workout a formula to share the
expenditure in organizing and conducting the legal aid clinics and
outreach programs.
It is further, suggested that clinical legal education should be client-centered,
service-centered, social-centered and community-centered with emphasis on
value based education. Then only, desired goals and objectives will be
achieved.
 46

CONCLUDING REMARKS

1. IS IT ALL WORTH THE EFFORT

A study by the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (now Law Works) indicated that
some 50% of UK law schools currently support some element of clinical or
pro bono activity by students. Even allowing for a fairly generous
interpretation of what this might mean, it is indicative of strong student
interest in clinical and work-based opportunities. Evaluations and qualitative
studies tend to show that students respond very positively to clinical legal
education, not just because of the practical knowledge and experience it
gives them but because of the developmental (reflection and self
evaluation), affective (for example self confidence, motivation) and meta-
cognitive (problem solving, work organisation) benefits they feel that they
have attained. Talk to experienced clinicians and you will generally receive a
similar endorsement.
But clinical work, as I've tried to show, is not to be undertaken lightly, or
because it is a current 'flavor of the month'. It can be resource hungry and
demanding on the time and energies of faculty and students. And it requires
careful planning and design if the educational benefits are to be maximized.
2. CONCLUSION
The Constitution of India in its Preamble and the Directive Principles of State
policy speaks about social justice as its key pillar. According to Part IV of the
Constitution it shall be a responsibility of the state to attain, through
economic growth, a constant increase of productive forces of the people,
with a view to securing to its citizens, the provision of the basic necessities of
life, including food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care. But due to
vicious circle of poverty, even after sixty two years of independence these
goals are yet to be achieved. High ideals of our liberation struggle as
reflected in the Constitution will continue to remain mere promises if we fail
to ensure that every individual citizen has access to justice and access to the
law - just law, justly and equitably administered.
In the background of constitutional commitment and the societal needs,
legal education must embrace a broad and comprehensive concept. Legal
education, therefore, should be rendered with a view to create an
environment and ability for reshaping the structure of the society for the
purpose of achieving national goals.
The law and legal system are being called upon to advance arguments and
develop tools to compel the state to abide by the social justice mandate of
the Constitution and to promote the human rights of the under-privileged
section of society. The responsibilities of legal education in a globalizing
world make it necessary periodically to revisit law school programmes, to
allow for necessary reforms and improvements. Law schools must prepare
them to meet these challenges by providing not only a sound substantive
education, but also the" necessary skills and experience. By adapting
curriculum to alert students to the international contexts, offering clinics and
externships, promoting student and faculty exchanges, and emphasizing
 47
ethical foundations, today's legal education will fulfill its obligation to train
lawyers to serve their clients and society.
The Commonwealth countries, among them developing commonwealth
countries, have inherited rich legal tradition. This has produced in these
countries not only many brilliant law teachers, scholars, judges and lawyers,
but also has established a wide and strong network of legal institutions - law
faculties, law colleges, law schools, legal research institutes, besides various
associations of law practitioners, where innumerable number of legal minds
are at work. They will make a great force if they do undertake various human
rights implementation programmes in their respective countries.
International links with existing clinical programmes present an important
opportunity to enhance the legitimacy of clinical education.
Legal educational in India should be changed to make it cope up with the
modern challenges and to prepare law graduates to be able to fulfill the
dreams, demands and aspirations of our people and society aspiring to
march forward as a modern nation through development and good
governance.
The present system of legal education in India is not able to meet the needs
of present time and national goals. Change of legal education in content,
quality and objectives in line with modern challenges, national goals and
global order would be able to produce law graduates having vision to
establish a just and equitable society through a democratic polity, where rule
of law and human rights are maintained as cardinal principles in all walks of
life.
As students of law, we have the responsibility to contribute in this process.
We cannot predict right now the end result of our efforts but we do know
that participating in this process from our own respective position is vital to
contribute towards establishing a true India as envisioned in our Constitution,
where it shall be the aim of the state to realize through the democratic
process a socialist society, free from exploitation - a society in which the rule
of law, fundamental human rights and freedom, equality and justice,
political, economic and social, will be secured for all citizens.
Clinical legal education has a relatively long history, but it has yet to make a
much of an impression on law schools in INDIA. However, there is now good
reason to believe, that it will begin to do so:-
• University law teachers are now more receptive to the teaching of
legal skills. They recognise the educational value of importing such
skills into many courses, including those in the traditional curriculum.
• There is now much more practical legal expertise in law schools upon
which a clinic more firmly can be founded and continued support
given.
• There are new sources of finance for clinical legal education and there
are particular initiatives in both the public and private spheres which
encourage the development of such programmes.
However, the relevance of these developments must not be confined only to
those interested in what may happen in INDIA. This article raises
fundamental questions about the future of legal education in other countries
and, in particular, in INDIA.