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Does Clinical Legal Education Can Help Society to Have Well-Ordered Legal Aid System? – (Re)- Interpretation of Rawls’s "Thought Experiment" in Law Clinics

An objective of clinical legal education (CLE) is to stimulate students to take the active part in the learning process to develop legal skills that will be of great aim once they complete the law school and start to work in the practice. The CLE offer students the unique way of learning about the law by analysing the law in a real-life context. With the help of the CLE the students learn that some members of the society do not have equal opportunity to access the justice to protect their subjective right which gives them the knowledge that the law and justice are not the synonyms. Thus, students can learn about the law and its role in society by analysing it through the philosophical theories that can be used not only as of the model for solving legal problems in society but as well as a tool for developing sense of the responsibility toward underprivileged members of society among the students. To achieve that, the student should be exposed to some philosophical knowledge about justice during their CLE, especially knowledge about social justice. The theory that could be a good base for learning about social justice is Rawls’ Theory of Justice that can provide a theoretical framework to enable students to interrogate state approaches to access to justice issues. In the context of the Rawls' Theory of Justice, CLE should create conditions for students to learn in practice about equal opportunities for exercising rights and freedoms. These conditions could be provided by CLE if law clinics become active members of a legal aid system that is supported by the state. If the will of the state to support providing legal aid is absent, students should learn how to initiate some legislative actions and interrogate state approaches to access to justice issues. Thus, clinical legal education could provide students with knowledge on how to take some actions to propose changes to existing law that regulates legal aid. Drawing on Rawls’ arguments, the author will argue that CLE creates conditions for students to critically reflect on equal access to justice that is nowadays facing the global problem of legal aid cuts.

clinical legal education, access to justice, legal aid, Rawls, Theory of Justice

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