| Unit name | Clinical Legal Studies |
|---|---|
| Unit code | LAWD30005 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 4 (weeks 1-24) |
| Unit director | Professor. Cowan |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | University of Bristol Law School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
This Unit will have the following aims: - To provide students with practical legal skills applicable to practising law in the relevant thematic fields, to include: ethics, ADR, court structure and lawyering, legal aid, access, submission of pleadings, costs, enforcement and conducting interviews. - To provide students with real-life experience of drafting legal briefs, commenting on draft or existing legislation or legal documents at the national and international levels, as appropriate, and participating in projects with external organisations which have a political or legal impact. - To enable students to select a particular thematic area on which they will critically reflect. The objectives of the unit will be to provide students with an understanding of the application of law in practice; an appreciation of the concept of professionalism and ethics necessary for a legal career; an ability to bridge the gap between the academic study of law and the practical application of law.
By the end of the unit students will have acquired the following: - an ability to appreciate and apply alternative methods of dispute resolution; - An awareness of the advocacy techniques which are appropriate for national tribunals and courts and some international tribunals and courts; - A range of practical skills and knowledge base necessary to provide advice and advocacy in the chosen field; - An understanding of the application of law in practice; - An appreciation of the concept of professionalism and ethics in line with appropriate standards; - An ability to bridge the gap between the academic study of law and the practical application of law; - An ability effectively to communicate with clients, lawyers and non- lawyers.
The unit will be composed of two elements:
Part I: A series of ten workshops and seminars which will examine a variety of legal skills. The seminars (5 x 2hrs) will focus on academic discussions around the following: Access, including legal aid; Legal Needs; Alternative Dispute Resolution to include mediation and bargaining; Legal Ethics; Legal Representation. The workshops (5 x 2hrs), which will be compulsory, will be practical in orientation, focusing on the production and delivery of legal skills, including confidentiality; letter writing; client interviewing; Court Rules; skeleton arguments; costs. These workshops and seminars will be delivered in the “standard” format in Teaching Block 1.
Part II: Participation in various cases or projects, through e.g. the Law Clinic and Human Rights Implementation Centre, which will involve application of the knowledge of the skills acquired in the formal workshops. This will take place in TB2. The students will be separated into groups and assigned to work on individual cases or projects. The range of individual cases which the Clinic will be accepting will be wider and less constrained than currently, as all cases will fall under the management and oversight of the Law Clinic Director, a practising solicitor. There will be fortnightly oversight sessions run by the unit director or other relevant member of staff, which will be in similar format to the workshop sessions. The students will be required to maintain a reflective diary of the skills they are engaging, which will be overseen by the unit director in the oversight sessions.
In order to achieve the learning outcomes, the assessment is made up of two 2000 word essays. The first essay will be worth 40%, the second will be worth 60%. The subject-matter of the first assessment will concern an engagement with the literature on clinical legal education. The students will be maintaining a reflective log on the practical work in which they will be engaged during the second teaching block. The second assessment will enable the students to draw on that material to reflect on their experiences in light of the material in the first teaching block.
There will be no formal formative assessment. However, there will be ongoing peer and tutor review of the reflective log, as well as advice on how it should be maintained (especially as regards ethical issues).
The summative assessments will test the learning outcomes by requiring the students to understand the terrain of clinical legality, that it does not always require “going to law” and that there are alternative forms of dispute resolution; an appreciation of the theoretical approaches and practical issues in legal practice and professional ethics; a reflection on the gap between academic study and legal practice, as well as the skillset required to practise law.
S. Blake et al, The Jackson ADR Handbook, OUP, 2013 S. Carle, Lawyers’ Ethics and the Pursuit of Social Justice: A Critical Reader, NYUPress, 2005 H. Genn, Judging Civil Justice, CUP, 2009 C. Maugham and J. Webb, Lawyering Skills and the Legal Process, CUP 2009 L. Mulcahy and C. Stychin, Legal Methods and Systems, Sweet & Maxwell, 2010 S. Roberts and M. Palmer, Dispute Processes, CUP, 2005. A Sarat (ed),Blackwells Companion to Law and Society, Blackwells, 2006
