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Key Text Forging the Future: Engaging Law Students and Young Lawyers in Public Service, Human Rights, and Poverty Alleviation

Author: S Golub
Date: 2004
Size: 17 pages (641KB)

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Summary

It is widely proven that providing legal services to the poor enhances development in general. But how can this best be done and why is the donor community in general not funding existing initiatives? This Open Society Justice Initiative Issues Paper advocates the use of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) and seeks to fill the informational vacuum that makes it an underappreciated and underutilised resource.

A growing array of research demonstrates that providing legal services for disadvantaged populations contributes to the rule of law, good governance, human rights, empowerment of the poor and poverty alleviation. CLE and similarly oriented efforts engage law students and young lawyers in public service. However, development and human rights communities pay insufficient heed to this cost-effective set of tools for forging the future of legal services and legal systems across the globe. There are various approaches to supporting and facilitating CLE-related activities. These include:

A region-wide strategy, such as that undertaken by the Soros Foundation network with a partner NGO, the Public Interest Law Initiative, in approximately 70 law schools across the former Soviet Union (FSU), Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), and Mongolia.
Building a national CLE network that can affect the overall delivery of legal services in a country, as South Africa’s Association of University Legal Aid Institutions has done with government support and assistance by the Ford Foundation.
Adopting a sector-specific approach, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its partner NGO, Legal Assistance through Refugee Clinics, have done in helping to launch numerous law school clinics focusing on political asylum in several FSU and CEE nations.
Interaction with legal services and human rights NGOs.
Facilitation by international NGOs, such as the Center for International Environmental Law’s work with human rights and environmental NGOs, young lawyers, and law students from across the globe.

CLE-related efforts to engage law students and young lawyers in public service should be seen in terms of public interest law, human rights, and justice. But in many contexts they should be equally viewed as advancing poverty alleviation, good governance, and other development goals. Thus:

They merit financial and technical assistance from various branches of the development and human rights communities.
Just as UNHCR has helped launch refugee law clinics at numerous law schools, other sector-specific institutions should consider supporting CLE and related work—concerning gender, children’s rights, or the environment for instance.
Donors and funding recipients alike also should consider creative options for sustaining CLE-related efforts in a cost-effective manner.
The Justice Initiative is exploring the potential for attorneys’ pro bono services to stretch CLE programs’ limited resources. Establishing funds for CLE can also sustain this work.
By providing support that builds law schools’ and NGOs’ fundraising capacities a donor can help programs survive and thrive.

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Source: Golub, S., 2004, Forging the Future: Engaging Law Students and Young Lawyers in Public Service, Human Rights, and Poverty Alleviation, Open Society Justive Initiative
Author: Open Society Justice Initiative, http://www.justiceinitiative.org/