PPT on Clinical education in india

1. CLINICAL LEGAL
EDUCATION IN INDIA
PRESENTED BY – PUJA RAVINDRA KHAIRKAR
RAVINDRAN V
SRAVONDEV

2. INTRODUCTION
 Clinical legal education is a progressive educational ideology and pedagogy that is
most often implemented through university programs..there they teach classes that
are designed to help people understand and access their legal rights and services.
 CLE has been significant part of legal education since 1960, the first clinic started
in U.K. in 1970s, in Australia in 1990s. The concept in first expanding across the
glob also, the CLE in necessary to bridge a gap between theory and practice.
 It considered as an extremely beneficial tool of instruction for law students
because it exposes the students to practical skills and values of the legal profession
and serves the goals of access to justice.

3. Why Clinical Legal Education in India?
 The new model for law schools – the law university – grew out of a perceived need to
enhance the quality of legal education in India. The universities represent a bold move to
reinvent legal education practices.
 The practices that were found lacking in law schools were overcrowded classrooms, lack
of rigor in teaching, lack of attention to socio-economic problems, and a general lack of
preparation for professional practice. As with other law schools in India, students come to
the national law universities straight out of 10+2. Arguably, these students are too young
and their education too narrow to take full advantage of professional training.
 Clinics expose students to the impact that the practice of law has on people. No one
should pretend that they are prepared to practice without a sense of this impact and a
constructive way to think about it. This perspective has significant implications for the
way legal education is approached in India.
 It is law schools that must foster a contextual understanding of what lawyers should do to
meet the needs of the country. This means connecting students with communities and
involving them in creative solutions that focus on the common good.

4. GOALS OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
 LEARN THROUGH EXPERIENCE
 Instill a dedication to access to justice for traditionally unrepresented clients.
 Reinforce the duty to use the law and the legal skills developed to serve the client and society.

5. MODELS
 IN-HOUSE CLINICS
 On-campus law office supervised by law faculty.
 HYBRID CLINICS
 Combine direct representation with externship elements
 E.g., Criminal Law Clinic
 EXTERNSHIP/FIELD PLACEMENTS
 Classroom component focuses on broader issues collateral to casework (e.g., self-assessment, professionalism)

6. TYPES OF REPRESENTATION
 CLIENT REPRESENTATION
 Litigation: Criminal and Civil, Trial and Appellate
 Non-Litigation/Transactional
 ADR/MEDIATION: Students as Neutral
 LEGISLATIVE ADVOCASY
 INFORMATION AND POLICY
 STREET LAW

7. METHODS
Professional legal education aims to develop critical legal thinking among the students while nurturing advocacy skills of
applying such thinking to practice at bar and the bench. Unlike other professional courses of engineering wherein the subject
matter is tangible in the form of machines, legal education poses students to abstract notions of socio-legal issues which are
intangible in nature making problem solving a very complex process. Therefore, teaching ‘thinking like lawyers’ requires
methods that could avail students a first-hand experience of critical legal thinking and problem solving.
 Classroom instruction designed to introduce lawyering skills, values and relevant substantive law
 Simulations, roleplays, other interactive classroom learning
 To guide the student-client relationship-
 Applied to real life experiences
 Develop reflective skills
 Ask students to self-assess; teach effective self-assessment
 Activities & Provide feedback that helps students grow

8. WHY CLINICAL LEGAL
EDUCATION ??

9. • Prof. Upendra Baxi expressed his concern that there is no new generation of lawyers coming up in India
who will work to help the underprivileged access justice.
The reason behind this fear might be the failure of the law school curriculum to put the values of public
service and social justice at the Centre of young law student’s education, instead encouraging the growth
of a corporate culture.
• The National Knowledge Commission’s working group on legal education specifically mentioned the
need to introduce students to issues relating to poverty, social change and social exclusion, through
clinical legal education.
WHY CLINICAL EDUCATION
1. It promotes access to justice for the underprivileged by representing them in various forums.
2. It introduces law students to ideas of public service responsibility or pro-bono work.
3. It creates an understanding of the relationship between law and social justice among the law students.

10. VARIOUS COMMITTES AND NOTIFICATIONS ON CLINICAL EDUCATION
• Processual Justice to the People: Report of the Expert Committee on Legal Aid (1973), Justice V. R.
Krishna Iyer
• Equal Justice-Social Justice: Report Of The Juridicare Committee (1977)
• Committee for Implementing Legal Aid Schemes, 1981, Justice P.N. Bhagwati
• In 1994, a three-member committee made up of Justice A. M. Ahmadi, Justice B.N. Kirpal and Justice M.
Jaganaddha Rao dealt in detail with law school teaching methods. The committee made important
suggestions relating to pedagogy and the more practical side of legal education.
• Bar Council of India Resolution No 04/1997
Big step toward introducing clinical legal education formally into the curriculum and law schools have
been required to introduce the four papers since academic year 1998-99.
Paper I addresses instruction in litigation skills, including pre-trial preparation and trial practice;
Paper II focuses on legal drafting skills and pleading;
Paper III covers professional ethics and bar-bench relations; and
Paper IV introduces legal aid work and public interest litigations.

11. • The Bar Council of India Rules 2008
Part IV of the Bar Council of India Rules (Rules on Legal Education) in schedule-II on academic standards
and courses to be studied prescribed the mandatory clinical courses along with other courses,
available at http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2010 /05/BCIRulesPartItoIII.pdf ,
1. Drafting, Pleading and Conveyance;
2. Professional Ethics and Professional Accounting system;
3. Alternate Dispute Resolution; and
4. Moot court exercise and Internship.
LEGAL AID CLINICS
• To set up legal aid clinics in every law school to provide inexpensive and speedy service to
underprivileged groups in society.(Schedule III, Bar Council of India Rules (Rules on Legal Education)
Bar Council of India, Inspection Manual 2010
24. Legal Aid Clinic: Each Institution shall have at least one community-based Legal Aid Clinic which
shall function under a faculty, preferably who is or was practicing law.

12. BCI AND OTHER INSTRUMENTS
MANDATE MANY THINGS ON
CLINICAL EDUCATION DO YOU
REALLY THING THEY ALL ARE
ACTUALLY IN PRACTICE??????

13.  UNDP & GOI, A Study of Law School Based Legal
Service Clinics (2011)
Almost 82% of the colleges do have designated full-time faculty to conduct
the teaching of professional skills. Only a handful of them provide academic
credit to the faculty in terms of workload / lecture hours. Legal educators in
India are struggling to grip this teaching methodology.

14. BEST PRACTICES
 NUJS- ONE CREDIT FOR THE LEGAL AID CLINICS
 V.M. Salgaocar College and Jindal Law School are focused on Rural Good
Governance as their primary focus through Legal Aid Cells.
 Symbiosis Law School has a unique program of providing Legal Aid by
creating Legal Aid Fund and dedicating few lawyers to an adopted village.

15. SUGGESTIONS
 Appointing four clinical course teachers/trainers specifically for each of the course specified
by the bar council and do not entrust them with any other assignment.
 Classes have to be split into small groups i.e. a class of sixty may be split into three or four
groups. This provides more time and opportunity to discuss and train each member of the
group effectively by the teacher/trainer for each clinical course
 There must be at least two practicing advocates/retired judges employed in each law school
to help the trainers and the students in each group
 Case documents must be archived with the help of judiciary or advocates to provide
authentic details
 Law school faculty should be motivated to help the groups on theoretical aspects of the
subject and provide guidance on the cases they picked if required
 Trainer should give instructions followed by assignments and ask the student to practice and
provide feedback regularly on components such as drafting, trial advocacy; case preparation
etc. so that students get abundant chance to practice and develop the skills and
 Allot class hours for the class groups and provide for sufficient time in the timetable as per
the course requirement.

16. CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION
DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC
• STUDENTS’ ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN MOOT COURTS, MOCK TRIALS, TRIAL
ADVOCACY, ADR ACTIVITIES ETC. WERE PUT ON HOLD INITIALLY AND AS THE
CORONAVIRUS SPREAD AND NATIONWIDE LOCKDOWNS CONTINUED SUCH
PRACTICAL ORIENTED TEACHING-LEARNING PRACTICES AUTOMATICALLY
STOPPED.
• PROFESSIONAL LEARNING CAME WITH THE CLOSURE OF THE COURTS
THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY. THE MOMENT COURTS STOPPED HEARING
MATTERS PHYSICALLY AND TURNED INTO THE VIRTUAL MODE, THE STUDENTS
PURSUING LAW COURSES WERE LEFTOVER IN THE ONLINE PROCESS OF E-
COURTS.
• LAW FIRMS, CORPORATE HOUSES, ETC. STOPPED ALLOWING LAW STUDENTS TO
JOIN THEM AS INTERNS, THOUGH THESE LAW HOUSES WERE HAVING ACTIVE E-
LAWYERING AND LEGAL MATTERS IN HANDS DUE TO SPREAD OF THE VIRUS, AS
A PREVENTIVE MEASURE, THEY TOO DID NOT ALLOW THE LAW STUDENTS TO
UNDERGO TRAINING.

17.  From July 1, 2020, most of the law schools, public and private, have started their
academic session in virtual mode.
 The teaching-learning pedagogy was only the normal lecture method in online mode.
During virtual teaching-learning process mediation, negotiation and
conciliation/reconciliation skills are another area where students have lost their grip
over such learnings and teachers could not train their students well on these
practically oriented learning. Visiting courts, tribunals, chambers of senior advocates,
law firms; corporate houses, government offices, child homes, old-age homes,
prisoners etc. have become virtually distanced learning during these days.
 The Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, Shri Justice S.A. Bobde, said,
“the COVID-19 pandemic would present a ‘huge pendency of cases’ in courts and a lot of
emphases has to be placed on utilising mediation for resolving many of these matters”.
“this is the time when a lot of emphases has to be placed on utilising mediation, pre-
litigation and post-litigation mediation to resolve many matters. I am not suggesting
every matter can be, but when the Pandemic goes away and the lockdowns are all lifted,
we are going to face a flood of cases which I do not know how we are going to decide if
we go in the usual way to following the detailed procedure and this is something which
we all have to put in our minds together to deal with”.

18. Lok Adalats and the functioning and success of e-Lok Adalat
 The COVID-19 pandemic had resulted in the suspension of the regular functioning of Lok Adalats in
various states. This resulted in serious hardships to persons whose cases were referred to the Lok
Adalats. To cope up with the pandemic the Legal Service Authorities of various states adopted virtual
means to conduct Lok Adalats.
 Hon’ble Justice N.V. Ramana, Judge, Supreme Court of India and Executive Chairperson of the National
Legal Services Authority, while talking about e-Lok Adalats said “We [the judiciary] always thought of
making use of technological services like video conferences, e-courts, etc. to enable marginalised
people to access justice. Now, finally, it has been put into action.”
 To conduct e-Lok Adalat, states adopted different platforms such as a videoconferencing, website or
mobile applications developed specifically to conduct e-Lok Adalats to connect the judges, lawyers,
authorities and litigants.
 The Secretary of District Legal Service Authority has to ensure that the litigants who consent to their
matters being taken up for virtual Lok Adalats fill in a form for referring the dispute to Lok Adalats.
Once the benches are constituted, links are created for each case and the information is uploaded on
the websites of District Court.
 E-Lok Adalats have been a huge success in various states and states have settled thousands of cases
on a single day in e-Lok Adalats.

19. University and college students across India have taken initiatives to assist the needy and
deprived sections of the society to make them aware of their rights and to ensure that
justice is done. In a few such cases, students from various National Law Universities from
different parts of India have come together to assist people to get their rights enforced.
A few of such initiatives for legal aid by students at a pan India level are:
Mazdoor Mitra: The students from National Law Institute University, Bhopal joined hands
to assist the migrant labours to procure food, arrange night shelters and provided them
with e-passes and means of transport to return home.
 It is an entirely student-led program. Since all educational institutes were also closed
during the lockdown period, the students communicated with each other and kept in
constant touch through videoconferencing and Whatsapp. They coordinated with
various state authorities and NGOs to assist migrant labourers. The Mazdoormitra
website was set up within 24 hours which had contact details of various COVID-19
helpline numbers for states as well as labour welfare agencies. The students were
available 24/7 through their website and the contact details furnished on the
Mazdoormitra website. Within a month they had solved more than 200 inquiries from
migrant labourers from across India, and, were able to connect people during this
emergency.

20. Initiative by students from Gandhinagar National Law University, Gandhinagar:
Students and alumni of Gandhinagar National Law University, Gandhinagar (GNLU)
came together during the nation-wide lockdown enforced due to COVID -19 to assist
the migrant workers to return home.
 They worked with Zenith Legal Aid Clinic in Madhya Pradesh to provide aid to
migrant workers concerning food, shelter and conveyance to travel back to their
hometown. The team also worked in collaboration with governmental and non-
governmental agencies to assist the migrant workers.
 They provided information to migrant workers regarding trains scheduled for them
to travel back home, assisted the labourers to register themselves for trains
scheduled for them, assisted the labourer to reach home from the railway station,
and tracked the location of migrant labourers on their way back to their homes.
They also assisted the governmental authorities and NGOs to connect to labours to
provide them with food and shelter facilities. In their first phase i.e. from May 14,
2020, to May 21, 2020, they assisted a total of 6000 workers from Madhya Pradesh
who were stranded in Maharashtra. The team has also assisted workers who were
being abused by their employers and being forced to work extra hours when they
wanted to leave for their hometowns. The team contacted the officials and
administrators in the area and the workers were given police protection and sent
back home.

21. Technology-Assisted Legal Aid Programme
 The initiative by the students of Law in the instances of Mazdoormitra, an
initiative by students from Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar as
well as the huge success of the e-Lok Adalats in various states forms the
basis of this current model for setting up online legal aid clinics connecting
law schools pan India.
Parties involved in the functioning of online legal aid clinic

22. Stages of implementation of the model
Stage I
Setting of Legal Aid clinic
at the University
Stage II
Setting up online portals and mobilizing
volunteers to take up legal aid activities
Stage III
Collaborating with Legal
Service Authorities
Stage IV
Contacting Local Area Governance
Institutions and Schools
Stage V
Collabration between and
with NLUs

23. Conclusion
 Practical learning adds more skills of advocacy for the budding lawyers,
and will also help them to understand the needs of society at large.
 Acquiring such knowledge and understating of the socio-economic
needs of disadvantaged people, will help the students to learn the
implementation process of legislation and lacunas in it.
 The use of technology in the justice delivery system has already proved
successful in the court system in India and is functioning effectively.
 The huge success of e-Lok Adalats and that of the student initiatives
during times of COVID-19 pandemic in providing legal aid has proved
that legal aid through online means is possible and very well received
by people who do not have much knowledge about it as well.
 By providing mechanisms for legal aid clinics to function online, the
dual purpose of legal aid clinics i.e. to impart practical training and to
ensure access to justice can be achieved.