Elucidation of the Concept of a Law Clinic as a Prerequisite for Developing the Standards for Law Clinics in Europe

Abstract

Teaching law in Europe and many other parts of the world is primarily and traditionally conducted in an ex-cathedra style of transferring knowledge. The emergence of law clinics and their integration into the law schools and the general curriculum of law students pose the constant question of what specifically defines a law clinic in contrast to other programmes. The authors therefore set out to answer the question of what is essential for a programme to call itself a law clinic as they deem it important for the further development of specific concepts and on a more general note for the general acceptance and movement of law clinics. For this, the article investigates the history of law clinics and the initial motivation of providing social justice as the reason of their formation. With that in mind and their basic understanding of a clinic as an institution that helps clients with specific problems, the authors take the position that a “law clinic” must render legal aid to people in need and therefore work with life-client cases. As the possibility of working on live-client cases with law students is thus defined a prerequisite of operating a law clinic, this must be checked for feasibility. In the following, the article compares different European national legal regimes on rendering legal aid and concludes that the proposed work with live-client cases isn’t only desirable but also viable.