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Access to Justice Clinic

Module description

With the decrease in Legal Aid, we have seen an increase in LIPs and vulnerable persons. Manoeuvring the legal system is daunting, even with a lawyer. Many individuals now faced with going it alone find themselves lost and confused and often give up, thus losing their opportunity to access justice. This module will provide a pro bono public service to the community in the South West. It will provide you with first-hand experience in working with the public. After initial training, you will have the opportunity to provide basic legal information and advice to individuals, in areas such as criminal justice, housing, benefits, debt, and employment law. As lawyers, we have a responsibility to those that need the legal system. This is an opportunity for you, as a future lawyer, to be a part of the solution. Students must complete a screening process before being accepted for this module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

In this module, you will develop valuable skills such as interviewing and counselling, public speaking, and client record keeping, and gain a broader understanding of what access to justice really means. Through studying the legal system in the areas of criminal justice, housing, benefits, debt, and employment law, you will learn to identify the barriers to justice. In identifying these barriers, you will discuss and develop pathways for individuals to access justice. You will also learn how to explain complex legal information to laypersons as part of creating this access to justice

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the means through which access to justice can be facilitated, and a substantial range of major relevant concepts and issues
• 2. Critically evaluate the extent to which access to justice is facilitated in the UK
• 3. Demonstrate critical awareness of the social and contextual implications of access to justice
• 4. Demonstrate ability to identify, explain and critically evaluate key issues relating to access to justice

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Demonstrate detailed knowledge and understanding of a range of legal concepts, values, principles, institutions and procedures, and the ability to explain the relationships among them, as well as their limits
• 6. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of legal concepts and their contextual/social/political implications
• 7. Demonstrate flexible capacity to define complex legal problems, identify their relative significance and select appropriate methods for investigating and critically evaluating them
• 8. Select, integrate and present coherently and reflectively, relevant law and legal/theoretical arguments

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 9. Interact effectively and proactively within a team/learning group, to share information and ideas, and to manage conflict
• 10. Manage relevant learning resources/ information/ learning strategies and to develop own arguments and opinions with minimum guidance
• 11. Communicate and engage in debate effectively and accurately, in a manner appropriate to the discipline/ different contexts
• 12. Plan and undertake tasks, individually and with others, with minimum guidance, to reflect critically on the learning process and make use of feedback
• 13. Identify, retrieve and use efficiently a range of resources with minimum guidance

Syllabus plan

It is envisaged that the syllabus will include the following topics, although precise content and order may vary.

• Legal FAQs, forms and recourse
• Criminal justice, housing, disability, benefits, debt and employment law
• Poverty, (mental) health, race and ethnicity, gender, age and the law

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

For practical reasons, referral or deferral of the professionalism in clinic element of the assessment may not be possible. Where students receive a fail mark for the professionalism in clinic element, that mark will stand (i.e. no reassessment).

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Bloch F, The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 2010)

Finch E & Fafinski S, Legal Skills (Oxford University Press, 2015)

Keats D, Interviewing: A Practical Guide For Students And Professionals (Open University Press, 2001)

Keyzer P, Kenworthy A & Wilson G (eds) Community Engagement in Contemporary Legal Education: Pro Bono, Clinical Legal Education and Service Learning (Halstead Press, 2007)

Giddings J, Promoting Justice through Clinical Legal Education (Justice Press, 2013)

Griffiths Baker J, ‘Ethical Education through the Student Law Clinic’ 5(1) (2002) Legal Ethics 24

Pleasence P & Balmer NJ, ‘Mental Health and the Experience of Housing Rights Problems’ 2(1) (2007) People, Place and Policy, pp 4-16.

Pleasence P & Balmer NJ, ‘Mental Health and the Experience of Social Problems Involving Rights: Findings from the United Kingdom and New Zealand’ 16(1) (2009) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, pp 123-140.

Pleasence P & Balmer NJ, ‘The Audacity of Justice: Recession, Redundancy, Rights and Legal Aid’ 9(4) (2010) Social Policy and Society pp 475-488

Key words search

Justice, Clinic, Housing, Criminal, Disability, Employment, Benefits, Welfare