Abstract
Legal Clinical Education is experiencing a great development in the Spanish and the Italian university context. Nevertheless, it comes with new challenges that professors have not faced until now: students working in the field with people in situations of vulnerability or in complex realities. Given that one of the major goals of CLE is the preparation not only of professionals for the practice of law, but also people concerned about social justice and social diversity, this piece of research looks into the significance of working with students about the key role that empathy plays in the development of their relation with the people they assist. Moreover, we will suggest some activities to be introduced in the clinical training plan with this purpose, and lastly, we will construct some final thoughts about this research and the feedback we obtain from our clinical colleagues.
Highlights
Legal Clinical Education is experiencing a great development in the Spanish and the Italian university context
Law professors are not used to manage challenging pedagogical situations, such as the ones introduced by legal clinics, derived from students working directly with the society in different scenarios
Since legal clinics are a program of study aimed at teaching law through direct experience, it has always been clear to us the importance to reflect on what we teach and how we teach, and to reflect on the resources we can use to enhance students legal and non-legal skills, such as empathy, as it has proved as a backbone concept in our work
Summary
The relation lawyers (and students) adopt when working with clients might be pretty different depending on the case and its features. Reviewed Article: Teaching and Learning in Clinic handling the casework Given this scenario we, as supervisors, should facilitate a process of self-awareness, helping students to 1) identity their feelings and 2) learn how to manage the emotional aspect of their legal work[27]. In order to maintain a receptive environment, essential in the learning process, teacher may choose if addressing the student in a one to one meeting or, alternatively, in class In both cases, should be adopt a problem-centred approach to the matter, locating the issue outside the student’s personality[29] and highlighting how it affected the relationship with the client and, consequentially, the casework
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