engleski

Clinical Legal Education Between the Legal Labor Market Demands and the Need to Contibute to Society

Promotion and attractiveness of the law schools depend on how fast and in which workplaces the students find their jobs once they complete their legal education. Research regarding careers of young lawyers in Croatia shows that young lawyers are lacking general and vocational competencies. Therefore, the labor market in Croatia lacks lawyers who are educated for the challenges that the legal practice puts before them. To increase the competitiveness between young lawyers in the labor market, it is important to bridge the gap between the theory and real-life practice of law. That is possible only if law schools offer to the students program that develops perception, attitudes, skills, and sense of responsibilities that the lawyers are expected to assume when they complete their professional education. On the other hand, clinical legal education encourages students to analyse legal problems of their clients as a part of a wider social context. This favors exposure of students to not only individual legal problems, but also to the collective social problems, which may trigger them to become active in the process of substantive social reform. Therefore, we may say that clinical legal education has two goals – to educate students for labor market demands and to encourage them to be more social (pro) active. As clinical legal education combines above mentioned qualities, the question is whether social activism is in the spirit of the legal profession needs or opposed to them. In the light of this question, the authors will discuss the challenges that Croatian clinical education faces and suggest its improvement.

clinical legal education, labor market, lawyers competencies, social activism

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