The clinics may include variety of activity:
- Legal Aid Clinic is traditionally the most common type of Clinical
education. Students under supervision of lectors provide pro bono legal aid to general public (usually to those who cannot otherwise afford it).
- Lewis further distinguishes:
- Simulations – students can learn from a variety of simulations of what happens in legal practice. For example, moot court
are commonplace. They have traditionally formed part of law school
activity and introduce students to the intricacies of advocacy, at least
before appellate courts. More ambitiously, some use mock trials,
sometimes with professional actors, to convey the difficulties of, for
example, introducing evidence and establishing facts in what may be the
rapidly changing environment of a first instance tribunal. Other simulations can range from
- negotiation exercises—whereby opposing groups of students learning
the art of negotiation, rather than trial court litigation, by being
given realistic case files and asked to resolve them in as economic and
fair manner as possible
- client interviewing exercises
- transaction exercises-between groups of students such as buying and
selling property or with individual students in e.g. drafting a will
- legal drafting and writing programmes
- Although of exceptional value in teaching law, these simulations can
lack the complexity of real client work, and the role play may not
create the same demands that exist upon the legal practitioner.
- Placements – students can be sent out to work with practising
lawyers for short periods to encounter real problems, clients, and
courts. They are then expected to bring back their experience to the law
school and reflect upon it, using it to inform the remainder of their
time spent in academic establishment. They are particularly attractive
to some law schools, because that they can be arranged at little cost.
On the other hand, the student's experience can vary greatly, and it is
especially difficult for teachers to monitor what has happened in order
to make use of it, and provide effective feedback. It is difficult to
assess the student's progress.
Many clinics combine all the before mentioned activities. For
example, at the beginning of the clinical program the students are
thoroughly taught some area of law that the general program may teach
only briefly—for example immigration and asylum laws. Later they go
through simulations to strengthen their practical knowledge. In the
third part, they come to contact with real clients and solve legal
issues (this can also be done via placements, for example in NGOs
related to the area).
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