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This study explored what role reflective practice has in Nigerian clinical law programmes, and aimed to understand how the concept is used in teaching and learning in law clinic practice and social justice work. The theoretical concept of reflective practice in clinical legal education is still an emerging concept in legal education, with suggestions for an integrative and expansive framework (Leering, 2014; Lowenberger, 2019; Madhloom, 2019; Seear et al., 2019; Spencer & Brooks, 2019). The theoretical framework of this study is positioned within experiential and transformative learning that recognised collective, relational, and contextual learning; and the concept that reflective practice should be an integrative process inclusive of cognitive and emotional processes. The methodological framework used a qualitative case study situated within a constructivist paradigm that incorporated contextual background of law clinics in Nigeria and the complexities law clinics face in dealing with their intervention in social justice issues. Data collection was through in-depth semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions. I interviewed six participants comprised of clinical law teachers selected through purposeful sampling, and data analysis was a comparative process moving from inductive to deductive processes by identifying meaningful and relevant themes (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Findings indicated that in clinical legal education in Nigeria, reflective practice was identified as an integral aspect without which teaching would revert to the traditional theoretical approach. I found five major themes through which participants integrated reflective practice, and they include, a) reflective practice was integrated in classroom learning processes through various feedback tools; b) reflections occurred during out-of-classroom experiential learning at different stages of law clinic practice cycle and community outreaches; c) reflection supported learning and helped to address issues brought forward as a result of emotions triggered during law clinic activities; d) participants connected their practice to theory and provided a framing of reflective practice which had not existed prior to this study; and e) reflective practice was fundamental in assessing the impact of clinical legal education on students and teachers - in the development of professional skills and social values, and communities - in addressing legal needs. Teaching clinically was seen as reflective teaching which holistically integrated critical reflection, reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action, and created space for the role of emotions and relational learning in legal practice. Law clinic practice evoked deep emotions for students when exposed to societal harms and the criminal justice system. The study however, indicated that reflective practice was implicitly an integral part of clinical legal education that needed to be made more explicit through increased documentation of processes, to promote transferability of knowledge and practice in legal education. The study provided a theoretical guide in framing and supporting a framework for an expansive concept of reflective practice for clinical legal education and for the legal profession.
Clinical Legal Education provides an opportunity for Law Students to, while learning, offer free legal services to the indigent community around where a law faculty is located. It is not enough to set up a law clinic without determining first of all, what role the clinic is to perform, and secondly, how the clinic will aid students' learning. To have a successful clinic, it is imperative that it is well-planned with a structure to allow for funding, effective running, and one that arouses student enthusiasm. The faculties of law in Nigeria have recognized that establishing law clinics will aid to achieve the vision of producing efficient lawyers who will be ready for practice soon after graduating from school. This article identifies the need to imbibe the right skills to aid student participation in law clinic activities and provides a guide to aid law faculties who wish to set up clinics or assist those already operating to realize their full potential. The article recommends the inclusion of a law clinic module as one that all students must pass before graduating even though grades should not count to determine the overall Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of a student.
Clinical legal education is playing an increasingly important role in educating lawyers worldwide. In The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice, editor Frank S. Bloch and contributors describe the central concepts, goals, and methods of clinical legal education from a global perspective, with a particular emphasis on its social justice mission. With chapters written by leading clinical legal educators from every region of the world, The Global Clinical Movement demonstrates how the emerging global clinical movement can advance social justice through legal education. Professor Bloch and the contributors also examine the influence of clinical legal education on the legal academy and the legal profession and chart the global clinical movement's future role in educating lawyers for social justice. The Global Clinical Movement consists of three parts. Part I describes clinical legal education programs from every region of the world and discusses those qualities that are unique to a particular country or region. Part II discusses the various ways that clinical programs and the clinical methodology advance the cause of social justice around the world. Part III analyzes the current state of the global clinical movement and sets out an agenda for the movement to advance social justice through socially relevant legal education.
Recent years have seen social justice emerge as a powerful driver for work, both in law schools and the legal services sector. However, questions remain about how that term is understood and given meaning within the legal academy and beyond. This edited collection explores the meanings that have emerged and might subsequently be developed, together with a practical exploration of projects that have sought to bring the social justice agenda to life in law schools and in communities around the world. Over the course of eighteen chapters, this volume engages with a range of social justice and legal education themes, including clinical legal education, innocence projects, access to justice, cause lawyering, LGBTQ identities, and sustainability in law schools. In addition, it also explores themes of ethics and values in contemporary legal education in Africa, Australia, North America, and the UK.
This 400 page book analyses the factors that are influential to the sustainability of clinical legal education programs.
Law clinics have had a late start in Ghana, compared with similar initiatives in Canada. Although there have been consistent calls for the establishment of law clinics at various faculties of law across the country, development on the ground has been slow. Unlike Canada, no law school at present in Ghana has a law clinic that engages students in actual client representation. However, a comprehensive plan is now being introduced to provide legal aid and advice to the poor, and the Ghana Legal Aid Commission is taking steps to institute law clinics across the country's faculties of law. Nevertheless, it is yet to be seen how this will be achieved. Drawing on the Canadian experience, this thesis examines the effectiveness of the law clinic method as an innovation that could be used to advance access to justice in Ghana. In so doing, a comparative legal analysis is conducted of approaches to the clinic method in Ghana and Canada, to identify ideal practices that could support the development of clinical initiatives in these countries.
Since the publication of Donald Schön's The Reflective Practitioner in 1983 there has been a dramatic growth of research and writing developing the concept of reflective learning. Surprisingly, there has been little application of concepts of reflective learning to social work education. This volume: ¢ makes accessible for the first time to a social work readership a book which focuses on reflective learning in social work ¢ brings together material on reflective learning from both academic and practice settings ¢ creates a seminal text for educators and trainers in universities and practice settings ¢ has relevance to an international readership, with contributions from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.
This book provides an accessible overview of the influential Fook/Gardner Critical Reflection framework for students, researchers and professionals. It then presents a wide range of illustrative case studies from a variety of different health and social care settings, demonstrating how it can be used in effective and innovative practice around the world.
This edited volume addresses the different methods professionals use to promote a critical reflective and reflexive stance among practitioners, leading to both a reconceptualization of practice and its subsequent change. The goal of increased reflection in professional education is intended to expand approaches for professionals to work with diverse others. It is also intended to increase their levels of cognitive differentiation and depth of professional consciousness about themselves alongside diverse others in a rapidly changing world. This is an important issue in a range of applied professional programs, from education to medicine, social work to psychology, business to criminal justice, in nearly every country in the world.
Clinical legal education has revolutionized legal education, from its deepest origins in the nineteenth century to its now-global reach.