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Abstract:
Scholars have devoted considerable attention and resources to creating and expanding legal aid clinics, law school clinics, and university-based law clinics in order to make the law school experience more educational and relevant for law students in developing countries by introducing more skills training into the curriculum. Those who support the expansion of clinical legal education in South Africa and elsewhere have sought to achieve specific objectives related to improving legal education for students and providing assistance to economically disadvantaged groups.

Legal education is enhanced when it reflects the realities of the citizens within a country, such as South Africa where a majority of the people live in poverty. Clinics and clinical courses promote important values such as equal justice for even the most disadvantaged in society. Clinical legal education also provides an opportunity for students to actually practice lawyering skills such as interviewing, negotiating, and analyzing cases, and to confront ethical issues that arise in real cases. Another objective is to increase access to the legal profession for students from disadvantaged backgrounds in countries like South Africa that require candidate attorneys to serve a legal apprenticeship before attaining admission to the bar, regardless of race and cultural background. Finally, clinical legal education helps to expand the resources for legal representation available to low-income people, especially on issues vital to their survival such as public benefits, shelter, family matters, and civil rights.

This Article reviews the development of clinical legal education in South Africa and the valuable lessons such an analysis provides for those seeking to promote clinical legal education elsewhere. The author hopes that a review of the obstacles faced there and the creative ways clinicians have attempted to overcome them, some much more successful than others, will be especially useful.

clinical legal education, South Africa, law school curriculum, developing countries, clinics, economic disadvantage, practice, skills, lawyers, teaching, access, legal profession, low-income

Abstract:
This Article focuses on one of the key ways in which the trend toward globalization and the creation of a more integrated world has manifested itself in the legal education community: the increased number of visits by U.S. lawyers and law professors to overseas school. A large number of those consultants have come from the clinical law community, and specific attention is paid here to the efforts of these clinicians both in broad-based projects in Iraq, China, and Russia, as well as smaller scale ones in other parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa.

The Article’s jumping-off point is to contrast these recent efforts with those forty years ago during the “Law and Development Movement,” an era which has been severely criticized because the American experts who visited foreign countries then never bothered to learn the way justice was administered and law was taught in the U.S. The failure of those efforts demonstrated the need to adopt a different approach, and the data reviewed for this Article indicates that to successfully support the implementation of positive reforms in other countries, the methodology needs to be more collaborative.

The Article therefore concludes that in practical terms this means that both U.S. funders and the consultants they support will have to involve colleagues from the host country from the out-set in establishing the purpose and the goals for the project. Further, the overseas visitors will have to thoroughly immerse themselves in the local context and culture early in the process and then maintain a high level of collaboration through all phases of delivery to insure that the reforms they seek can work in the local context. Finally, particular attention will have to be paid to and during the collaboration to those factors that will help sustain the reforms after the formal consultation has ended.

legal education, law professors, lawyers, United States, consultants, law and development movem,ent, American, foreign countries, reforms, collaboration

Abstract:
This Article examines the system of educating and licensing attorneys in South Africa to determine whether that country’s experience can provide guidance to jurisdictions in the United States that are considering proposals to reduce or eliminate the importance of bar examinations. The analysis set out here is supplemented by a companion article, providing a first-hand account of the South African system by Ms. Thuli Mhlungu, who was educated and sought admission to the bar during the last years of apartheid and the early years of the new democratic regime.

Examining the situation in South Africa makes particular sense because South Africa is a country whose tortured history parallels the United States’ history in many ways. Further, the South African system (1) has always required some form of practical training prior to admission as an attorney; (2) expanded the way to fulfill the practical training requirement ten years ago to include two alternatives being considered in the United States - community service apprenticeships and practical training courses; and (3) suffers from societal problems similar to those of the United States, including under-representation of people of color within the legal profession and inadequate resources to provide access to justice for indigent persons.

Any analysis of how helpful a consideration of the South African history of bar licensure can be for jurisdictions in the United States initially requires an understanding of the structure of that country’s bar, its system of legal education, the historical method it used for licensing law graduates, and the racial composition of its bar. Part I of this Article sets out this historical framework. After providing that historical information, Part II discusses the post-apartheid changes to bar admissions, the rationale for those changes, and how successful they have been. Part III examines key issues jurisdictions in the United States will face if they try to institute a parallel system. Finally, Part IV offers a suggestion for how U.S. jurisdictions might try to duplicate the successes achieved in South Africa.

legal education, attorney licensing, licensure, bar admissions, South Africa, United States, community service, practical training, clinical legal education

Abstract:
It is difficult to get people to remember, let alone focus on the accomplishments and ongoing challenges that emerged during the United Nations sponsored World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance (the WCAR) held just over a year ago in Durban, South Africa. The reason is simple: that conference ended on September 8, 2001, and what we remember about that period is now permanently obscured by what happened just three short days later. But the events of September 11 make it more imperative than ever that we address the evils of racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia. It is important that we remember what the Durban Conference achieved and, more importantly, continue our work to reach the vision for the world announced there. This Article seeks to help refocus attention on that important need.

A full review of what the Durban Conference did and did not achieve is beyond the scope of this Article. Indeed, only the passage of time will reveal that answer. Instead, this Article will focus on the current struggle of the host country, South Africa, to overcome its notorious past as a means of assessing what is involved in the present day struggle to eliminate the scourge of racism and poverty. South Africa seems to especially appropriate as the subject of such a case study because of that country's history and the fact that the government led by the African National Congress (ANC) was born with the express purpose of ending the years of racial hatred and discrimination that were central to the prior regime. Further, during its eight years of existence, the current government has consistently struggled to create a truly democratic society. Therefore, looking at events in South Africa should teach us about the obstacles that must be overcome to reach that goal even where there is a strong will to do so.

Before assessing South Africa's efforts to create the type of society envisioned in the Durban Declaration, Part I describes what happened prior to and during the WCAR that led to the adoption of that declaration. This review is helpful because, among other things, it reveals both the areas of agreement and division between nations regarding responsibility for remedying the past effects of racism, slavery, and colonialism. That knowledge, in turn, allows for a more accurate assessment of both the ability of South Africa to effect change as well as the international support South Africa can expect from other countries. To further prepare for an assessment of how well South Africa is meeting its obligations under the Durban Declaration, Part II describes the current situation in the country and how its history of colonialism and apartheid has brought it to this point. Part III then contains an analysis of the effects of the new South African government to eradicate the racial disparities that are the legacy of the past. As recognized in its new constitution, those efforts are assessed in relation to the achievement of both social justice – i.e., the elimination of prejudice and discrimination – and also economic justice – i.e., the reduction of poverty and depravation. Finally, as the delegates to the WCAR recognized, the achievement of economic justice in this globalized world is dependent on the support of the wealthier Western and developed nations. Thus, Part IV concludes the analysis by considering how South Africa's efforts have been aided or hampered by those countries. In the end, it is hoped that this Article will provide some insight into what must be done to create the type of world so elegantly and passionately described in the Durban Declaration.

World Conference Against Racism, Radical Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, WCAR, Durban Declaration, United Nations, South Africa, prejudice, apartheid, racial disparities, constitution, poverty, economic justice

Abstract:
The South African Constitution recognizes socio-economic rights as a necessary foundation for the enjoyment of civil and political rights. The South African Constitution, one of the most progressive in the world, contains many important protections such as the rights to equality, housing, and education. The Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Law (BEE) was designated to address the economic inequities of apartheid. South Africa’s commitment to economic justice is also evidenced by the fact that it is a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The challenge is translating these rights into opportunities for social and economic advancement by the vast majority of South Africans living in poverty.

This chapter first identifies ways in which legal education must continue to change in order to educate lawyers who are able to assist with South Africa’s development. Second, it analyzes the contributions of clinical legal education since apartheid and some of the obstacles to its growth. Third, the chapter discusses community economic development (CED) law school clinics in the United States and the ways they may provide new ideas for South African legal education. Finally, the chapter discusses specific CED opportunities that exist in South Africa. The article argues that legal education in contemporary Africa must relate to the development needs of the country.

legal education, lawyers, law students, South Africa, clinical legal education, law school clinic, community economic development, social justice, economic justice, equality, civil rights