JUSTIFYING THE INTEGRATION OF CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION WITH PROCEDURAL-LAW MODULES TO DEVELOP PRACTICAL SKILLS IN LAW STUDENTS

Abstract

This article focuses on the integration of Clinical Legal Education (CLE) with the conventional teaching methodologies traditionally employed for teaching procedural law modules, i.e., civil procedure, criminal procedure and the law of evidence at university level. The aim of this integration is to teach law students professional practical skills as a means to promote effective and efficient interpersonal relations with clients, including attorney-client consultations. This article addresses the concerns of many legal practitioners that law graduates need to improve their practical skills before entering legal practice. The legal education system at university level is often blamed for this inadequacy. It has been argued that universities have the responsibility to develop those students lacking practical skills to prepare them for practice. In this article, it is argued that an integrated teaching and learning approach, as far as CLE and procedural-law modules are concerned, should involve more than just the mere transmission of the theory of procedural law and the principles of substantive law to students. It should go further and involve students practising such theory to achieve the desired effect or goal of excellence in legal practice. The Legal Practice Act is supportive of this argument. In addition, the concept of transformative constitutionalism is invoked to strengthen the argument that there is a constitutional imperative on law teachers to conduct teaching and learning in a transformative manner. By teaching students only or mainly by way of lectures based on theoretical presentations, law schools are not doing students justice in preparing them for legal practice. It is consequently argued that blending CLE with the teaching and learning of procedural-law modules would combine the teaching of theory with practice, which is foundational in preparing law students for their entry into the profession. This means that students would be taught so as to make them more skilled and ready to enter the working world after graduation. Besides possessing a sound theoretical basis required for practice, law graduates entering the profession would also then have some experience in legal practice; both legs of such an education serve the way in which the law should be applied practically.