Description
This session reflects on and explores the means by which Clinic legal supervisors enable and empower students to provide full legal representation for clients in the legal forums within the Scottish legal system where lay representation is permitted. It aims to share our learning enabling participants to explore their hopes and fears around student's providing representation.
Students from University of Strathclyde Law Clinic regularly provide not only legal advice but full representation to clients in our courts and tribunals. They appear in the our lowest civil court; the Sheriff Court in Simple Procedure claims valued at less than £5000, the Employment Tribunal, the First Tier Tribunal Housing and Property Chamber and before fitness to practice panels set up by the Scottish Social Services Commission ( SSSC).
Full legal aid is not available in any of these forums, but lay representation is permitted. In reality many claimants, often vulnerable and with a disability, appear without representation in these forums unable to articulate their claims in factual or legal terms and intimidated by those opposing, be it large corporate firms representing employers or the SSSC seeking the suspension of a care worker. We have the ability to take a case from start to finish for clients. Students often obtain successful outcomes for client, but whatever the outcome clients feel that they have been listened to by our students, and supported to access justice in circumstances where they would otherwise have been unable to do so. They see the effort made to present their case which in and of itself can be a healing process.
How do we enable students to carry out this onerous task, provide them with the skills, means and confidence to appear, confident that they can provide representation that will benefit the client’s case and do no harm to themselves? How do we support each other as supervisors in accomplishing this task?
Using case studies and discussing the tools and techniques used, we will look at how it is possible to support a team of students to prepare for and carry out meaningful representation that benefits clients, our primary goal within our LC, but also their own personal development, with opportunities that they may not obtain till well into their career as a practising lawyer. The learning is enormous, the growth curve incredible and the satisfaction they get as a team whether the person representing or supporting is palpable. How better to understand what access to justice really means and how to give a voice to those seeking our services?
| Period | 13 Dec 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Global Alliance for Justice Education: : Building Resilience and Strong Connections in Times of Global Challenges |
| Event type | Conference |
| Degree of Recognition | International |