EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION / CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION CONFERENCE

CONFERENCE PAPER ABSTRACTS

Here is a list of presenters and papers. There are 50 parallel papers to choose from. The full abstracts are set out below.

Presenter(s) / Title of paper
Adam Jackson
Joanne Clough
Northumbria University, UK / Are idealism and realism mutually exclusive concepts in clinical legal education?
Adrian Evans
Monash University, Australia / Self-Assessment of Clinical Programs
Amari Omaka
Ebonyi State University, Nigeria / New Clinical Projects – a case study of EBSU Law Clinic Prison Project
Aminu Gamawa
Ebonyi State University, Nigeria / The Making of the Clinical Teacher: A Reflection of my Experience as Clinical Student and a Clinical Teacher
Asnida Mohd Suhaimi
Suzanna Abdul Hadi
Nur Farzana Mohd Zulkifli
University of Malaya, Malaysia / Students' Attitude Towards Street Law Based CLE
Brian Donnelly
Columbia Law School, USA / Clinic Curriculum and Fieldwork Projects at the Intersection of Information Technology and the Practice of Law
Bruce Lasky
Bridges Across Borders South East Asia Community Legal Education Initiative, Thailand
Madya Norbani Mohamed Nazeri
University of Malaya, Malaysia / The Development and Expansion of University Based Community/Clinical Legal Education Programs Throughout Malaysia: Means, Methods, Strategies
C A Agebebaku
S K Mokidi
Ambrose Alli University, Nigeria / Legal Clinics and Professional Skills Development
Caroline Foster
Sarah Morse
Victoria Murray
Northumbria University, UK / Mirror, mirror on the wall which is the fairest reflection method of all? A comparative study of journaling and blogging
Clark Cunningham
Georgia State University, USA
Nigel Duncan
City Law School, London, UK
Paul Maharg
Northumbria University, UK / Global Collaboration Towards More Effective Teaching of Legal Ethics and Professionalism
David McQuoid-Mason
University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa / The ‘Chicago Seven Trial’ Reloaded: Using the Chicago Seven, Nelson Mandela & Saddam Hussein Trials to Teach About the Role of Lawyers, Judges and Accused Persons in the Criminal Justice System
Elisabeta Olarinde
John Akintayo
Kevwe Omoragbon
Isaac Adejumo
Folake Olaleye
Peter Lifu
Women’s Law Clinic, University of Ibadan, Nigeria / Developing Lawyering Skills in Law Clinic Graduates Through the Application of Customary Law: The Experience of University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Eric T M Cheung
University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong / Setting Up a Legal Clinic in Hong Kong: Progress and Challenges
Folake Olaleye
University of Ibadan, Nigeria / Cultural and Social Barriers to Access to Justice – A Case Study of Women Seeking Legal Aid at the Women’s Law Clinic, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Frances Gibson
La Trobe University, Australia / “Coming together is beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success” (Henry Ford). Advantages and disadvantages for organisations in accepting CLE placement students
Frank Dignan
University of Hull, UK / Bridging the Divide (continued)
I J Bezuidenhout
University of the Free State, South Africa / The limits in value teaching in a diverse society and the changing face of lawyers as opposed to lawyering on the African continent (1): Assessing values: the Generational influence of the Post-Apartheid era
[Paper 2 will be delivered by Michelle Karels]
Idorenyin Akabom Eyo
University of Uyo, Nigeria / The role of the Nigerian Universities Law Clinics in Prison Decongestion in Nigeria
Jonathan Bainbridge
Clare Sandford-Couch
Northumbria University, UK / Educating towards ethical lawyers?
Katherine Pearson
Pennsylvania State University, USA / An Internationally Relevant Question in Professional Responsibility: “Who is My Client?”.
Kevin Kerrigan
Northumbria University, UK
Undrell Moore
University of Newcastle, UK / Blood sweat and teeth – a comparative analysis of the student experience in dental and legal clinics at two UK-based universities
Kim Diana Connolly
University of South Carolina, USA / The Hybrid Simulation Model: Creating “Bite-Sized” Learning Experiences That Integrate Actual Legal Matters
Lawrence Donnelly
National University of Ireland, Republic of Ireland / Who “Clinics” and Where? Considering and Questioning the Operational Practices of a Fledgling Clinical Legal Education Programme in Ireland
Les McCrimmon
Charles Darwin University, Australia / Development of Advanced Legal Skills in the Virtual Learning Environment
Lisa Nolan
Westminster University, UK / An exploration of issues around quality assurance and enhancement of extra-curricular clinical legal activities
Lydia Bleasdale-Hill
University of Leeds, UK / Organised Chaos: An Academic’s Perspective on Establishing and Maintaining a Law Clinic
Lynette Osiemo
Mmatsie Mooki
Strathmore University, Kenya / Clinical education and the lawyers of the future: one university’s quest for a unique contribution to the legal profession in Kenya
Michelle Karels
University Of The Free State, South Africa / The limits in value teaching in a diverse society and the changing face of lawyers as opposed to lawyering on the African continent (2): Is teaching values in a multi-ethnic, developing nation facilitated or hindered by the personal circumstance and bias of the academia?
[Paper 1 will be delivered by I J Bezuidenhout]
Malcolm Bennett
Monash University, Australia / The Family Law Assistance Program – A new experience for students undertaking clinical legal education
Maria Eichart
Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, Poland / Clinical legal education in the non-governmental organisation – example of Law Clinic “Innocence”.
Marta Skrodzka
University of Bialystok, Poland / Which way to follow? New directions of Polish CLE
Maxim Tomoszek
Radim Licenik
Katerina Ivanova
Palacky University, Czech Republic / Return to Origins – Joint Clinical Education of Students of Law and Medicine
Michael Bennett
Portsmouth University, UK / Launching a Law Clinic: Lessons from Portsmouth
Michael Churgin
University of Texas, USA / The Importance of the Student Practice Rule (Right of Audience)
Monique Lampke
University of Dayton
Ann Vessels
University of Denver, USA / Using Experiential Learning Courses to Prepare Students for Lawyering and Life: Identifying, Developing and Assessing Critical Competencies
Mutsa Mangezi
Rhodes University, South Africa / Enhancing Student Learning through Assessment in Clinical Legal Education
Paul McKeown and Tamsin Nelson
Northumbria University, UK / Clinical Teaching through Popular Culture
Paula Galowitz
New York University, USA / The Challenges and Opportunities of an Interdisciplinary Clinic
Peggy Kerdo
La Trobe University, Australia / Standing upright in the winds that blow: The rule of law, unpopular causes and clinical legal education
Pilar Bonet
University of Valencia, Spain / Legal Clinics and pro bono activities: differences and similarities
Richard Grimes, Legal Education Consultant, UK / Public legal education in law schools
Richard Owen
University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK / Making a Difference: Using Clinical Legal Education for Policy Change
Richard Roe
Georgetown University, USA / Learner-Centred Instruction in Clinical Legal Education: Lessons from a Model Street Law Class
Richard Wilson
American Society of International Law, USA / Early Efforts at a Pedagogy of Practice in the US: 1870 to 1920
Sara Chandler
College of Law, London, UK
Rebecca Parker
College of Law, Birmingham, UK / From Practitioner to Educator: Can Litigators Let Go?
Shaheda Mahomed
University of Witwatersrand, South Africa / The theory of learning and how it helps promote clinical legal education
Tony Foley
Margie Rowe
ANU College of Law, Australia / Teaching professionalism in legal clinics – what new practitioners say is important
Wendy Morrish
Bridges across Borders Southeast Asia Community Legal Education Initiative, Thailand / The Community Legal Education Movement in Southeast Asia “Law Students Making a Difference”
William Wesley Patton
Whittier Law School, USA / Getting Back to the Sandbox: Designing A Legal Policy Clinic
Ying Dai
University of Political Science and Law, China / Criminal Clinics in China


Are idealism and realism mutually exclusive concepts in clinical legal education?

Adam Jackson, Northumbria University and Joanne Clough, Northumbria University

"In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”

Eric Hoffer

The hypothesis upon which this paper is based is that a high quality clinical programme should provide students with a realistic experience which develops practical skills and prepares them for practice. It should also achieve the underlying educational aims of the clinical programme including the development of academic skills and the passing of an assessment. It therefore appears that clinical education has to achieve two very distinct aims

On the one hand a good clinical programme will seek to achieve both academic and educational goals by putting law into practice for the students. It will provide students with the opportunity to learn and develop new legal skills such as drafting and interviewing. Clinic will encourage students to become reflective practitioners and will provide valuable experience for students to take into their legal careers.

On the other hand, clinic is set within a working office and provides a key means of access to justice within the local community. The regulating body (such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority) demands that clients are serviced to exactly the same high standard as any other law firm and the supervisors are responsible for the advice and representation provided. This clearly requires a level of realism in that advice and representation has real life consequences. With this in mind, can a clinical programme successfully achieve both its educational and practical aims or are the two principles mutually exclusive?

The speakers come from very different backgrounds and will take a different viewpoint as to which, if any, of these competing interests should prevail. On the one hand, the educator will say that the instructive value of clinic, with its practical approach to learning the law, far outweighs the necessity for the practical context to be wholly realistic. This view argues that clinic is a safe environment in which students can experience the law for the first time thus it is important that clients can be hand-picked depending on how much educational benefit can be gained from the case. Students should be encouraged to reflect on their practice and will be able to adapt to realities if they are reflective lawyers. The solicitor supervisor will suggest the opposite. In reality, a legal environment is more than just representing the clients; it is a business environment. This requires practitioners not only to know the law, but how to deal with a case to maximise fee earning potential while still providing a high quality service. Every client is a fee and there can be no selection process. Having learned the law, clinic should be an opportunity to highlight the realities of law in practice before students take the final leap into a tough career.

This paper will seek to address the question ‘are idealism and realism mutually exclusive concepts in clinical legal education’ with reference to relevant literature in the field of legal pedagogy. Both speakers will advance arguments about whether clinical programmes provide students with the academic and practical tools necessary to adapt to a legal career or whether in fact they prepare them for a legal world that does not exist.


Self-Assessment of Clinical Programs

Adrian Evans, Monash University, Australia

Modern clinical programs are rich in their diversity and ambition, so much so that it is often difficult to decide if a putative clinical program meets the definition of ‘clinic’ or is merely an ‘el-cheapo’ fellow traveller, seeking to achieve academic acceptance without investing in the pedagogy or infrastructure. Law schools that seek accreditation within some national systems are already well aware of clinical standards, but most are not and many Deans simply decide to let the definition issue slide into academia because finding a definition is practically speaking, unnecessary for most international contexts.

The issue of international clinical accreditation is nevertheless ahead of us in the coming decade as bodies such as the International Association of Law Schools and GAJE begin to address comparative standards for law schools and justice education. The global effort to improve living standards in the context of over-population and declining resources will make its presence felt in all social sciences. Increasingly, whether a law school churns out more sausage-like commercial lawyers or seeks to shift emphasis to nurture justice artificers, will become socially more important.

This paper looks at some of the criteria that international recognition of clinical method might require; for example, whether the program is periodically reviewed by an external team?; is it law student-education centred or client-service centred?; does it focus on skills development or promote a normative/ critical emphasis?; is it merely a ‘for credit’, pro bono placement program for students; and how does it relate to/integrate with the culture of the law school in which it resides, especially in relation to the selection of new academic staff? And finally; how might a law school decide to assess the credibility of its own clinical presence?

“New Clinical Projects- a case study of EBSU Law Clinic Prison Project”

Amari Omaka, Ebonyi State University, Nigeria

Following the need to be part of the Federal Government of Nigeria and Development Partners, multifaceted approach to prison services and consequent decongestion, the EBSU Law Clinic decided to make prison projects one of her cardinal projects for 2009/2010. This project is not only geared at assisting the inmates of the two federal prisons in the Ebonyi State, Eastern Nigeria, to access legal service, but also to avail the clinical law students an opportunity to work and learn with real live clients, viz the awaiting trials and those wrongly detained.

While, the scope of the project is limited to the two federal prisons (Afikpo and Abakaliki Federal Prisons), the objectives are to train the clinical law students on the dos and don’ts in prisons, especially in relation to inmates; to identify the precise legal needs of the prisons inmates; to identify the available legal aid facilities presently available to the inmates of the two prisons; to investigate or access the impact of available legal aid, if any, to identify legal needs most imperative to them; to carry out advocacy on the legal aid need of the inmates and as much as practicable, secure release of deserving inmates. Hence, the project is mainly research-based and also embodies pro bono legal aid.

The prison programme was kicked off by pre-field training workshop on the code of conduct in prisons. Advocacy visits were paid to Nigeria Bar Association, the Attorney General of the state, the Chief Judge, State Controller of Prisons and other stake holders. The project is conducted by law students involved in clinical work. Data is being collected through interviews, questionnaires and observation during field visits by clinicians, who are divided into groups of 5 each. While, the project is ongoing, it is expected that at the end of the project/study justice would be more accessible to prison inmates; there would be proper identification, categorisation and documentation of the legal needs of prison inmates; the student clinicians would know the role of law clinics in prison projects; the communities served would benefit and the clinical law students would learn the law by doing, which will ultimately translate to functional and effective law practices by graduates of Ebonyi State University Law Clinic.