The 10th Annual International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference took place in Durham, UK from 11-13 July. The conference was attended by more than 180 delegates from more than 20 countries around the world. Keynote addresses were given by the world’s leading experts in the field and the conference was hosted by Northumbria University Law School, whose award-winning clinical legal education programme is one of the best in the UK.
The focus of clinical legal education is on student experiential learning – learning by doing – for academic credit. Clinical legal education, at its best, simultaneously equips students with an understanding of the special role that lawyers can play in pursuing justice and protecting human rights. It is widely regarded as the most important innovation in law teaching in the last century.
PILA and FLAC have advocated for the establishment and expansion of clinical legal education programmes in Ireland with a public interest emphasis for the last number of years. Existing and planned clinical legal education programmes in Ireland focus to varying extents on the capacity of law and the legal system to vindicate the rights of vulnerable people.
PILA Manager Larry Donnelly presented a paper in which he discussed PILA’s work to promote clinical legal education in Ireland to date and outlined his view as to how best to progress this important work in future. The paper is available here.