Toward a Rule of Law Society in Iraq: Introducing Clinical Legal Education into Iraqi Law Schools

Abstract

This Article details my experience introducing clinical legal education into three Iraqi law schools. I highlight some of the cultural, legal and logistical obstacles that existed, and the means my colleagues and I used to circumvent them. By and large we considered our project at least modestly successful and certainly garnered the interest of many faculty and nearly all students who participated. Nevertheless, the extent of our success depended largely on the cooperation of the faculty and administration at the law schools with which we worked, and we were able to achieve the most at those institutions where cooperation was highest. Unfortunately, however, our project was limited necessarily in both scope and duration, and further efforts must be undertaken in order for experiential legal education to gain a firmer foothold in Iraq.

Keywords: Clinical Legal Education, Legal Education, Iraq, Comparative Law, Iraqi Law Schools