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Abstract: Clinical law teachers around the world have been debating the future of a social justice mission for clinical legal education at the same time that many clinical programs have increased their emphasis on professional skills training. This paper examines a unique opportunity in India today to merge these sometimes competing goals by institutionalizing social justice-based clinical legal education at all Indian law schools. It also traces certain influences the US clinical movement has had on this development. Over the past forty years, clinical legal education has struggled over where to place its primary emphasis: providing students with the skills training needed to improve lawyer competence or engaging them in supervised high-quality public service. Although public service remains an important part of clinical legal education in both India and the US, professional skills training has begun to overtake social justice as the defining mission of clinical legal education - particularly in the US. The social justice mission remains comparatively strong in India in part because there has been a long-standing effort to involve law schools in a national legal aid scheme, but the goal of establishing law school-based legal aid programs at the national level remains largely unachieved. The stage is set now in India to implement a social justice-based clinical curriculum that would give formal sanction to the effort to link legal aid and legal education reform, and would move India beyond clinical legal education's traditional dilemma in a way that could prove instructive for the rest of the world. The Bar Council of India has mandated a set of four practical papers that require the teaching of a variety of lawyering skills and a certain level of legal aid work. Moreover, the Law Commission of India recently endorsed the idea of introducing a professional skills curriculum drawing on an American Bar Association task force report (the MacCrate Report). A critical look at the MacCrate Report and its relevance to Indian legal education suggests the importance of different values and additional skills needed to secure these values in a meaningful way. A few examples of current clinical projects in India demonstrate how the four practical papers mandated by the Bar Council can be used to instill in law students, and thus in new lawyers, those fundamental values and skills needed to transform the legal profession in India. These examples also show that, at least for the time being, this can be achieved without major changes in the present setup of law schools and without significant additional financial support from either government or private organizations. But more is needed to fully institutionalize social justice-based clinical legal education in India and for Indian society to obtain the benefits of a reformed legal profession, including financial and intellectual support from the bench, the bar, and the government.
legal education, legal aid, social justice, clincial, legal education
Abstract: Access to justice is widely accepted as a central component of clinical legal education in the US and in many other countries around the world. The existing literature documents the important role that law schools can play in assuring greater access to law and the legal system through clinical programs. This literature focuses on the educational, social, political, and professional importance of that role from various national and cross-national comparative perspectives and offers many examples of clinical programs around the world that are carrying out an impressive array of projects aimed at improving access to justice. This article takes up the question of clinical legal education's commitment to access to justice from a global perspective and argues that the emerging global clinical movement can strengthen that commitment and increase the level and quality of law-school-based access-to-justice activity worldwide. The article consists of four main parts, the first three of which focus on the three key components of a global clinical movement: its global reach, its clinical base, and its status as a movement. Each of these three parts examines one particular component - global reach, clinical base, status as a movement - in the context of the other two, and addresses the importance of that component to a global clinical movement that seeks to improve access to justice around the world. The last part suggests an approach for mobilizing the global clinical movement to improve access to justice around the world, drawing on examples from various projects and conferences initiated or supported by the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE) and other internationally oriented legal education organizations.
Access to justice, Clinical legal education
Abstract: In most countries with substantial disability benefit schemes, the number of beneficiaries has increased dramatically over the past twenty-five years; as a result, they are facing strong pressure to reform those schemes and to reduce the number of persons on the disability rolls. Some policy measures focus on reforming particular aspects of the relevant scheme, such as the amount of benefits or the process for determining eligibility. Others address broader issues, such as the definition of disability or the influence of demographic changes. Most, however, reflect a common pattern that signals a shift in emphasis toward the importance of individuals' employment opportunities and responsibilities and away from society's obligation to provide income support. This paper examines these current trends in disability policy, with particular reference to the influence that social contract theory can have on the structure and administration of reformed disability benefit schemes. Drawing on social contract literature that seeks to address the needs of persons with disabilities, the paper concludes that social contract theory can help guide social security policy makers toward implementing employment-related disability benefit schemes that are consistent with the needs of the modern welfare state.
disability, social security, social welfare, social contract
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