Legal Aid and Community Empowerment Clinics - LACEC

Legal Aid and Community Empowerment Clinics - LACEC

Introduction

Overview and Goals
The Legal Aid and Community Empowerment Clinics sub-program (hereinafter LACEC program) focuses on promoting skills and opportunities for human rights and law reform advocacy among future and young lawyers and, consequently, on building a culture and commitment of public interest and social justice within the legal profession. To a certain extent, the program also aims to empower non-lawyers to uphold and advocate human rights and social justice issues for broader segments of society through community legal literacy programs and paralegal training support. It does so through the support for creation of university legal clinics and promotion of clinical legal education (CLE) at universities and law schools around the world. CLE programs are practical skills- and values-oriented interactive courses where senior law students engage in practical legal work in a participatory manner out of a legal clinic office and under supervision by a professor and a practicing lawyer. Legal clinics educate future lawyers about importance and role played by them in upholding, sustaining and supporting the rule of law, human rights and social justice causes. They do so by exposing the students to the reality and problems faced by the most disenfranchised members of society.

Specifically, the LACEC program aims to:
A. promote and provide support to university legal clinics through establishment, development and sustainability strategies;

B. assist in the development of clinical teaching skills and the recognition of university-based clinical legal programs as accredited courses at universities;

C. strengthen public interest and rule of law function of clinics and promote thematic focus of legal clinics on human rights, social justice and community legal education/empowerment.

Methodology
The methodology consists of supporting the introduction of innovative law teaching methods within existing law schools curricula, as well as creating and promoting new law courses that focus on emerging legal and social justice issues. This is done through establishing university-based legal clinics, i.e. faculty and student-run legal aid offices that provide skills development training to law students and provide pro bono legal services and empowerment to most vulnerable members of society. In addition to establishment, LACEC program focuses on providing on-going capacity building support and skills development opportunities for those legal clinics that engage in various human rights and rule of law promotion activities.

History and Partners
The Justice Initiative, through its predecessor Constitutional and Legal Policy Institute (COLPI) at OSI, has acquired extensive experience in supporting and establishing university legal clinics, initially in Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union (CEE/fSU). The first pilot legal clinic in CEE/fSU was launched at ELTE University in Budapest (Hungary) in 1996. In 1997, COLPI convened the first CLE conference for university representatives from CEE/fSU to discuss the opportunities to establish legal clinics in the region.

From 1997 - 2002, COLPI has assisted in establishing and developing the capacity of nearly 75 legal clinics in the CEE/fSU countries. This work was done jointly with national Soros foundations, which focused on legal education methodology reform for 10 years now. To date, most of them have received official accreditation from host universities, although more is to be done in the field of standardization and full institutionalization of teaching methodology. During the seven years, COLPI organized 10 teacher trainings, 5 clinical colloquia, more than 10 conferences, workshops and study tours targeting the staff and administration of universities where legal clinics exist. More than 700 teachers, university administrators and practicing lawyers benefited from these capacity building efforts.

Starting 2003, the Justice Initiative legal clinics work focused on new programmatic and geographic areas. The work particularly focused on Africa, East and Southeast Asia, Central America and Middle East. It also consisted of introduction of new thematic issues for legal clinics to specialize on, such as children/juveniles’ rights, HIV/AIDS, criminal defense, community education/paralegals, et al.

Its major partners include, among others:
Africa: University of KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa), Eduardo Mondlane University (Maputo, Mozambique), Network of University Legal Aid Institutions-NULAI (Abuja, Nigeria), Fourah Bay College (Freetown, Sierra Leone), Legal Development Centre Legal Clinic (Uganda),

Europe: Polish Legal Clinics Foundation (Warsaw, Poland); Ukrainian Legal Clinics Foundation and Association (Kiev, Ukraine); Bilgi University (Istanbul, Turkey); University of West (Timisoara, Romania); ELTE University (Budapest, Hungary); Public Interest Law Institute-PILI (Budapest, Hungary);
Southeast Asia: Pannasastra University of Cambodia-PUC (Phnom Penh, Cambodia); Bridges Across Borders-BAB (USA/Cambodia/Thailand); TIFA Foundation (Jakarta, Indonesia);

Central America: CIDE Law School (Mexico city, Mexico); ITAM Law School (Mexico city, Mexico).

Middle East: PINACLE Public Interest Centre (Beirut, Lebanon); University of Herat (Herat, Afghanistan); International Legal Foundation-ILF (Afghanistan).

North America: Human Rights Education Associates-HREA, Inc. (Boston, USA).

For more information on Legal Aid and Community Empowerment Clinics, please contact Ms. Mariana Berbec-Rostas, associate legal officer for legal capacity development at info@justiceinitiative.org or at telephone: + 36 1 235 6136, fax: + 36 1 327 3103.