The Legal Aid Clinic in a Law College
Chapter Fifty-Four
Syllabus topic 4, "Clinical Legal Education - Legal aid, Legal Literacy, Legal survey and Law reform"
Pages 192 to 195 of 543
In one line
A law college legal aid clinic is not a college activity that resembles legal aid: it is recognised by regulation as part of the national legal services machinery, and the regulations that govern a village clinic govern it too.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: regulation 22 of the National Legal Services Authority (Legal Services Clinics) Regulations 2011 provides that the regulations shall apply mutatis mutandis to the student legal services clinics set up by law colleges and law universities, and permits students of law colleges and universities to use the legal services clinics established under the regulations with the permission of the District Legal Services Authority; regulation 23 permits law students to adopt a village, especially in remote rural areas, and to organise legal aid camps in association with the legal services clinics; and regulation 24 deals with legal services clinics attached to law colleges and law universities.
Why this is the hinge of Module II
Because it converts a teaching device into a statutory institution. Before these regulations a college clinic was whatever the college said it was. After them it is a legal services clinic, within a national scheme, answerable to a District Legal Services Authority.
Because it makes the student part of the delivery machinery. The Legal Services Authorities Act 1987 creates a duty to provide free and competent legal services. The 2011 Regulations recognise that some of that delivery happens through law students.
And because it is what the topic label is asserting. MU prints clinical legal education and legal aid in one line, and this regulation is the reason they belong in one line.
Regulation 22 of the 2011 Regulations: the college clinic is a legal services clinic
What it says. The regulations shall apply, with the necessary changes, to the student legal services clinics set up by law colleges and law universities.
A phrase a student must be able to explain. Mutatis mutandis means with the necessary changes made: the same rules apply, adjusted for the differences between a village clinic and a college one.
What follows practically. The requirements about who may man a clinic, how lawyers are deputed to it, what records it keeps, its signboard, its working hours and its administrative control apply to the college clinic too, adjusted as necessary. Those are regulations 5 to 21, taught at chapter 600.
And a proviso. Students of law colleges and law universities may also make use of the legal services clinics established under the regulations, with the permission of the District Legal Services Authority. So a college without its own clinic can place its students in one that exists.
The Legal Aid Clinic in a Law College
Regulation 23: adopting a village
What it says. Law students of law colleges or law universities may adopt a village, especially in remote rural areas, and organise legal aid camps in association with the legal services clinics.
Why it is the most useful provision in the instrument for an Indian college. It requires no premises, no continuity, no client file and no professional risk. It is street law with a statutory basis, and it is the model chapter 490 recommends as a first step.
What it produces. Legal literacy in the village, chapter 670; and a record of what problems the village actually has, which is a legal survey, chapter 690.
And it is the provision that makes the module's four items happen in one place, which is the worked example of chapter 460.
Regulation 24: clinics attached to law colleges
What it does. It deals specifically with the legal services clinics attached to law colleges and law universities, within the scheme the earlier regulations create.
Read it with regulation 3. Regulation 3 requires the District Legal Services Authority, subject to financial resources, to establish legal services clinics in villages or clusters of villages, called Village Legal Care and Support Centres, and in jails, educational institutions, community centres, protection homes, courts, juvenile justice boards and other areas where people face geographical, social or other barriers to reaching legal services institutions.
Educational institutions are named in regulation 3 itself, so the college clinic is not an afterthought in this instrument; it is one of the places the Authority is directed to establish a clinic.
What the college clinic can actually do
Legal advice and consultation. Regulation 9 governs the legal services rendered in a clinic, and advice is the largest part of what any clinic does.
Applications for legal aid. The clinic is a point at which a person can apply, and the 2010 Regulations govern what happens next. Chapter 590.
Drafting and assistance with documents, within what the supervising lawyer permits.
Legal literacy and camps, under regulation 23.
Referral. A great deal of clinic work is telling a person which authority to approach, which is help even though it is not litigation.
And keeping records. Regulation 20 requires the maintenance of records and registers, and those records are the material of chapter 690.
Who staffs it
Para-legal volunteers. Regulation 5 deals with the personnel manning a clinic and regulation 10 with the functions of para-legal volunteers in it. A para-legal volunteer is a trained person who is not a lawyer.
Lawyers deputed by the nearest legal services institution. Regulation 6 provides for deputing lawyers, regulation 7 for the frequency of their visits, and regulation 8 for their selection.
And students, under regulation 22.
The Legal Aid Clinic in a Law College
The point for a college. The supervising advocate a live client clinic needs, which chapter 490 identified as the binding constraint, is something the District Legal Services Authority can depute under regulation 6. A college that believes it cannot run a clinic because it has no advocate has not read the instrument.
A worked example
A law college in a Mumbai suburb wants a clinic and has no budget.
Step one. It approaches the District Legal Services Authority. Regulation 3 already directs the Authority to establish clinics in educational institutions, so the college is asking the Authority to do something the regulations tell it to do.
Step two. The clinic is established. A para-legal volunteer mans it under regulations 5 and 10; a lawyer is deputed under regulation 6 and visits with the frequency regulation 7 requires; a signboard goes up under regulation 13 in English and the local language, with the working hours.
Step three. Students are attached under regulation 22, and the work counts towards the internal marks of the clinical papers.
Step four. Under regulation 23 the students adopt a village or a settlement and run camps.
Step five. Records are kept under regulation 20, and after a year the college has a picture of the legal problems of its own neighbourhood that nobody else has.
Cost to the college: a room and a teacher's time. That is the answer to almost every objection made to clinical legal education in India, and it is in the instrument.
Quick revision
Regulation 22: the 2011 Regulations apply mutatis mutandis to student legal services clinics set up by law colleges and universities, and students may use clinics established under the regulations with the permission of the District Legal Services Authority.
Regulation 23: law students may adopt a village, especially in remote rural areas, and organise legal aid camps in association with the clinics. It needs no premises, no continuity and no client file.
Regulation 24: deals with clinics attached to law colleges and law universities.
Regulation 3 already directs the District Legal Services Authority to establish clinics in educational institutions among other places, so the college clinic is part of the scheme and not an addition to it.
Staffing: para-legal volunteers under regulations 5 and 10; lawyers deputed by the nearest legal services institution under regulations 6, 7 and 8; students under regulation 22. The supervising advocate a clinic needs can be deputed by the Authority.
Test yourself
1. What does regulation 22 provide, and what does mutatis mutandis mean? That the 2011 Regulations apply, with the necessary changes, to student legal services clinics set up by law colleges and law universities, and that students may use clinics established under the regulations with the permission of the District Legal Services Authority. Mutatis mutandis means with the necessary changes made, so the same rules apply adjusted for the differences between a village clinic and a college one.
The Legal Aid Clinic in a Law College
2. Why is regulation 23 the most practical provision for an Indian law college? Because adopting a village and running legal aid camps requires no premises, no continuity across vacations, no client file and no professional risk, so a college with no budget can act on it immediately, and it produces both legal literacy and the records that make a legal survey possible.
3. Where does the supervising advocate come from, if the college cannot pay one? From the nearest legal services institution, which may depute lawyers to a clinic under regulation 6, with the frequency of visits governed by regulation 7 and their selection by regulation 8.
4. What does regulation 3 add to the argument that a college clinic is part of the statutory scheme? It directs the District Legal Services Authority, subject to available financial resources, to establish legal services clinics in villages and in jails, educational institutions, community centres, protection homes, courts and other places where people face barriers to reaching legal services institutions, so educational institutions are named in the scheme itself.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.