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Models of Clinic and 
Their Value to Students, 
Universities and the 
Community in the  
post-2012 Fees Era
Lydia Bleasdale-Hill*

Paul Wragg*

1. Introduction
The number of clinics in existence within higher education institutions has continued to proliferate 
in recent years� The 2011 LawWorks1 report examining the pro bono work undertaken within 
Universities in the United Kingdom found that at least 61 per cent of all Law schools now offer 
pro bono activities to their students,2 with 40 respondents offering clinic� This compares with 53 
per cent of respondents offering pro bono activity and 11 respondents offering clinical activities 
in 2006�3 This evidence suggests that an increasing number of Law Schools recognise the benefits 
of clinic to students� However, the arrival of a new era in higher education funding arguably 
requires some reflection on (and perhaps greater articulation of) those benefits and the priorities 
of clinic activity overall, in order to ensure that the expectations of the key clinic stakeholders 
(the hosting institution, student volunteers and participating members of the public) are met� 
Concerns that the significant reduction in state funding for higher education will impact adversely 
on institutional resources is well-documented and at an institutional level there is likely to be 

* Lecturer in Law, University of Leeds

1 Formerly the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, LawWorks assists those in need of free legal advice and supports 
practitioners, advice organisations and Universities wishing to provide such advice� See http://www�lawworks�
org�uk/ for further information

2 Richard Grimes and Martin Curtis (2011) ‘LawWorks Student Pro Bono Report 2011’ (LawWorks, London) p�4 
http://lawworks�org�uk/tmp_downloads/o2v88f3f137p128g145t70j59f52x27r1z128n57l81z67/lawworks-student-
pro-bono-report-2011�pdf (last accessed 16th August 2012)

3 LawWorks LawWorks Students Project Pro Bono - The Next Generation (2006, London) pp�3 and 8 http://lawworks�
org�uk/tmp_downloads/q101o72i98q12k149j45a111o114o86k44u4e104j98c126r62/student-report-final�pdf (last 
accessed 16th August 2012)



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International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Issue 19

increased scrutiny of the efficiency of devoting scarce resources to clinic activity in a climate of 
lower (or potentially lower) income streams and leaner budgets� Similarly, some students are likely 
to exhibit a heightened sense of wanting value for money in their expectations of clinical education 
and may well demand greater input in the design of clinic activity� Against this, there has been a 
general and significant reduction in funding for the provision of free legal advice and an associated 
increased demand amongst the general public for quality free legal advice and access to justice� 
Therefore, for new and established clinicians alike, the post-2012 era provides the opportunity for, 
if not necessitates, reflection on the expectations and ambitions of the three key clinic stakeholders 
(the host institution, the student volunteers and the general public) and, particularly, the question 
of whether they are sufficiently aligned with each other and the priorities of the clinic activity 
in place� Arguably, the possibility of conflicting priorities for clinic originating from these key 
stakeholders and methods of resolving them has featured little in the academic commentary� This 
paper seeks to contribute to such a debate by offering some insights into resolving these tensions� 
Taking the interests of each stakeholder in turn, this paper discusses methods of maximising the 
efficiency of administering the clinic and managing student expectations� 

2. The Value and Organisation of Clinics

a) Introduction

Clinic offers a variety of benefits to higher education institutions: it allows them to provide a 
valuable service to the local community; it allows them to potentially work alongside local service 
providers, including businesses (some of which might be potential graduate employers, or sponsors 
of other School activities); and – perhaps most crucially – it allows them to demonstrate a concern 
with the future employment prospects of their students� The introduction of up to £9000 per 
year tuition fees in England from August 2012 onwards has been widely linked to an anticipated 
increase in students viewing themselves as ‘consumers’ of their higher educational experience� 
Such consumerism is evidenced by, for example, the increased focus on the employment record of 
University graduates; the expectation that students will become ever-more involved in determining 
how Universities are run and how courses are taught;4 and the expectation on the part of the Office 
of the Independent Adjudicator that the number of complaints about University courses will see a 
further rise in the coming years�5 This paper does not seek to advocate this consumerist approach 
to higher education, or to suggest that this approach should be the sole driver behind institutional 
decisions regarding how to improve the ‘student experience’� However, for those institutions 
seeking to enhance the employability skills of their Law school graduates (and thereby potentially 
enhance their post-graduation employment prospects), as well as to develop a competitive edge 
over institutions with which they are in competition for students, clinic represents an attractive 
way forward� Of course, in an uncertain era in higher education it may also be the case that clinics 

4 See, for example, the QAA’s student engagement chapter within its Quality Code for Higher Education, 
available at http://www�qaa�ac�uk/Publications/InformationAndGuidance/Documents/Quality%20Code%20
-%20Chapter%20B5�pdf, as well as the following article by the President of the National Union of Students: 
http://www�guardian�co�uk/education/2012/jun/12/power-to-students-says-liam-burns?INTCMP=SRCH (last 
accessed 16th August 2012)

5 Office of the Independent Adjudicator Annual Report 2011 p�4 http://www�oiahe�org�uk/media/57882/oia_
annual_report_2011�pdf (last accessed 16th August 2012)



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Models of Clinic and Their Value to Students,  
Universities and the Community in the post-2012 Fees Era

represent a significant financial risk to many institutions, particularly in light of increased funding 
pressures� The benefits offered by clinic do carry with them potentially significant resource 
implications (particularly if the clinic is to be sustainable in the long-term), to which discussion 
will now turn�6 

b) Location and client systems
In the long term any clinic may need its own office and secure storage space� There are examples of 
clinics which have initially started operating from a member of staff’s office for example, but this is 
not a viable long term alternative to having a dedicated, professional space into which clients and 
potentially external supervisors can come� Client documents will need to be stored in a secure area 
(in order to guarantee client confidentiality) which the students can readily access� The students 
will need to be provided with clear training about how to maintain client confidentiality, how to 
ensure paperwork is maintained properly, how to maintain a client file, how to update information 
both in hard form and electronically, how to record information and where to store it� A reliable 
system of recording client contact and appointments needs to be established (assuming the 
clinic operates an appointment system), including all client outcomes (appointment; reasons for 
rejections; referral etc)� 

c) Financial support
Costs of the clinic will vary with the supervision model adopted: if the University or School 
will insure the advice given then the costs will of course be higher than if the advice is insured 
by external supervisors�7 Kerrigan provides further details of the costs which clinics are likely to 
incur, including office equipment, stationary and access to relevant research materials� 8 

d) Staffing
The amount of time initially required to run the clinic very much depends on, for example, the 
number of staff within the School working on the clinic, the number of anticipated clients, the 

6 The discussion within this section is primarily based on the authors’ experience of establishing and managing 
an in-house, advice-only model of clinic, whereby all clients are interviewed face-to-face on an appointment-
only basis, with the advice being given in writing� Alternative models include clinics focused on specific 
areas of law/connected with particular charities or other external partners; advice and advocacy service; 
email-only service; simulated clinics; telephone-only services; face-to-face advice service; and drop-in clinics� 
For information about such models, or about the factors to consider during the process of establishing or 
re-developing a clinic see, for example Lydia Bleasdale-Hill (2011) The Experience of Establishing and Maintaining 
Pro Bono Projects Within an Educational Setting: A Narrative, available at http://lawworks�org�uk/tmp_downloads/
i63n13v72v110l44x131t137b32g146t25l83z115a47j85v135/law-school-pro-bono-case-studies---bleasdale-hill�pdf; 
Frank Dignan (2011) ‘Bridging the Academic/Vocational Divide: The Creation of a Law Clinic in an Academic 
Law School’ 16 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 75; Stacy Caplow (2006) ‘Clinical Legal Education 
in Hong Kong: A Time to Move Forward’ 36 Hong Kong Law Journal 229; Richard Grimes and Hugh Brayne 
(2004) ‘Mapping Best Practice in Clinical Legal Education’ (UKCLE) available at http://www�ukcle�ac�uk/
projects/past-projects/clinic/ (last accessed 16th August 2012); Philip Schrag (1996-97) ‘Constructing a Clinic’ 3 
Clinical Law Review 175; and W� Warren H� Binford (2008-09) ‘Reconstructing a Clinic’ 15 Clinical Law Review 
283

7 See Richard Grimes and Martin Curtis (2011) ‘LawWorks Student Pro Bono Report 2011’ (LawWorks, London) 
pp�15-17 for information about the insurance position of Law Schools surveyed�

8 Kevin Kerrigan ‘Setting up a clinical legal education or pro bono project’ in Kevin Kerrigan and Victoria Murray 
(eds�) (2011) A Student Guide to Clinical Legal Education and Pro Bono (Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke) pp�31-37 



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International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Issue 19

number of student volunteers, whether the clinic will only run in term-time and the number 
of external organisations the clinic will work with� Once a clinic is established the potential for 
growth is highly likely to be linked to staffing� For example, more supervisors and/or additional 
administrative support might be necessary if an expanded clinic service is to be offered� The 
experience of the authors is that one member of academic staff with a nominal workload allowance 
allocated to the clinic can be sufficient to establish and initially run one,9 but that opportunities to 
evolve, develop and expand are most likely to be grasped only once significant staff time is invested 
in the clinic (either through an increased workload allowance, or thought the appointment of 
staff to work specifically on the clinic)� The costs inherent within that model might be easier for 
clinicians or the wider School to justify to those controlling the allocation of a School’s financial 
resources if the clinic exists on an assessed (as opposed to co-curricular) basis, primarily because 
the clinic would thereby be very clearly linked to the educational development of the students�10 

3. Supervision models
Broadly speaking, there are three supervision models which are the most popular within the 
United Kingdom context11:

1� Member(s) of academic staff (non-practising) directing the clinic, with external practitioners 
supervising the advice: under this primarily external supervision model at least one member of 
academic staff oversees the administrative functioning of the clinic as part of a wider job role 
(perhaps with some clerical assistance), while the advice is supervised by external practitioners� 
There are several ways of satisfying the insurance requirements under this model, the most 
common of which is to extend the University’s insurance policy to cover the advice supervised 
by external partners� A rarer approach is for advice to be supervised and insured by the 
external parties in question (this is the model used at the University of Leeds, where the letters 
of advice are supervised, insured, signed and dispatched by partner law firms)� The former 
approach perhaps makes it easier to convince external partners to become involved with the 
clinic (because there are fewer liabilities and costs attached); the latter approach allows the 
University to distance itself from any potential liabilities� 

2� A full-time or part-time clinic or Pro Bono director, either holding a current practising 
certificate or working alongside those with such certificates (with the associated insurance 
models described above)� The attraction of such a post is that it allows for some continuity 
(there are countless examples of clinics disbanding as a result of one particularly enthusiastic 
member of staff who was the main driver behind it departing the institution), and that it allows 
the clinic to be the primary focus of that person’s attention (something which is not always 

9 Although it should be noted that the Leeds model involves advice being supervised by external practitioners; an 
internal practitioner model might require additional support

10 However, the decision has been taken at Leeds for the clinic to remain outside of the curriculum For a discussion 
of the reasons why this decision was taken, see Lydia Bleasdale-Hill (2011) The Experience of Establishing and 
Maintaining Pro Bono Projects Within an Educational Setting: A Narrative pp�11-12�There is also ample literature on 
assessment methods and models; see for example chapter thirteen of Kevin Kerrigan and Victoria Murray (eds�) 
(2011) A Student Guide to Clinical Legal Education and Pro Bono (Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke), and Richard 
Grimes and Hugh Brayne (2004) ‘Mapping Best Practice in Clinical Legal Education’ (UKCLE) pp�78-81

11 Examples of different models and their operation are discussed in Lydia Bleasdale-Hill (2011) The Experience of 
Establishing and Maintaining Pro Bono Projects Within an Educational Setting: A Narrative



261

possible when clinic responsibilities are combined with teaching and research responsibilities)� 
This supervision model does however come with a heavier financial burden to the University 
due to the associated salary and practising certificate costs, and the potential insurance costs�

3� Academic staff with practising certificates supervising the advice: under this internal 
supervision model academic members of staff in possession of current practising certificates 
are allocated time to supervise cases and the students working on them (perhaps in conjunction 
with a dedicated clinic director, or someone for whom that role forms a significant part of their 
workload allocation)� This has the benefit of creating a more sustainable clinic (because the 
clinic is not reliant on external partners for case supervision), as well as allowing the School 
greater control over the areas of law to be advised upon and the advice given� It also ensures the 
students are supervised in a way which enhances their learning opportunities: solicitors might 
not be as willing to refrain from simply giving the students the answer to a particular problem 
as someone with a clearer focus on the students’ development might be, recognising that doing 
so enhances the opportunity for students to actually learn for themselves� As Giddings notes: 

‘The practice-based context of clinical legal education has the potential to offer a very rich 
learning environment� However, the benefits of such an environment may be lost or diluted 
without close supervision or if the supervision is not focused on facilitating student learning as 
well as controlling casework� Developing an environment in which students feel both suitably 
supported and challenged is a key aspect of the work of the clinic supervisor�’12 

However, this model does carry with it significant resource implications: staff time will need to 
be allocated to overseeing the cases, and such time cannot always be distributed in an equitable 
manner (the amount of time staff spend on cases being determined not only by the skills and 
abilities of the student volunteers, but also by the complexity of the case and the areas of law 
accepted cases fall into)�13 There are also further potential insurance and practising certificate costs 
to take into consideration under this model�

Of course, each model has its own merits and each offers value to the key stakeholders associated 
with the clinic; this discussion is not intending to suggest otherwise�14 However, the experience of 
working within an external supervision model at Leeds has provided the authors with an insight 
into the particular difficulties which can arise from that (in spite of an ongoing, supportive and 
mutually beneficial relationship with several partner firms)� While there are difficulties with an 
internal supervision model, based on the evidence available,15 the authors would not presently be 
deterred from recommending such a model to new clinicians (or to existing clinicians wishing to 
re-develop a clinic)� In order to provide further context for the adoption of this position, attention 
will now turn to how the value of the clinic to the students’ employability skills set might be 
enhanced (or otherwise) within any model of clinic� 

12 Jeff Giddings (2008) ‘Contemplating the Future of Clinical Legal Education’ 17 Griffith Law Review 1, at 17� See 
also Angela Macfarlane and Paul McKeown, (2008) ‘10 Lessons for New Clinicians’ 13 International Journal of 
Clinical Legal Education 65, at 68

13 Lydia Bleasdale-Hill (2011) The Experience of Establishing and Maintaining Pro Bono Projects Within an Educational 
Setting: A Narrative pp�29-30

14 Indeed, the success of the Leeds clinic demonstrates that an externally-supervised model can offer real benefit to 
all three key stakeholders�

15 Primarily gained through the experience of interviewing a number of colleagues running Clinics at several 
institutions – see Lydia Bleasdale-Hill (2011) The Experience of Establishing and Maintaining Pro Bono Projects 
Within an Educational Setting: A Narrative

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4. Enhancing the value of Clinic to students

a) Introduction
It is well-documented in the academic literature that participation enhances the student’s 
employability skills profile�16 However, perhaps less discussed is the extent to which the clinic 
director, when establishing the parameters of the clinic, should orchestrate the type and level of 
employability skills gained by participants or, instead, should this development occur organically 
with minimal input by the director? This process is important because it is not inconceivable (it 
may even be likely) that a post-2012 student will be more instrumentally focussed on engaging 
only with those co-curricular activities that enhance career prospects� If the director is to take 
an active role in designing the employability skills outcomes then some decisions will need to be 
taken about the student profile that will inform these outcomes� Designing the profile, however, 
is not straightforward since it raises a number of interrelated issues� For example, if there is a 
choice to be made, should the employability skills ambitions of the clinic be confined to enhancing 
skills peculiar to legal practice or should it cater to a broader market and therefore should there 
be an emphasis on developing generic, transferable skills? Likewise, what kind of legal issue and, 
therefore, potential client should the clinic focus on? The underlying social justice aspects of 
clinical legal education suggest that the clinic should focus on those clients least able to afford 
legal advice,17 for example, by providing a stopgap to the shortfall in legal aid funding and local 
authority funding for CAB�18 However, instrumentally-motivated students may be more interested 
in gaining exposure to the type of commercial disputes that mid- to large-sized law firms are 
involved in if their ambition is to obtain training contracts there� With these questions in mind, it 
becomes clear that there might be conflict between the community-minded ambitions of the clinic 
and the consumer-orientated interests of the student as well as conflict between the student who 
wants to pursue a career in legal practice and the student who wants to follow a non-traditional 
career path�

The following discussion examines these two distinct issues: first, to what extent can potentially 
conflicting community and individual ambitions for the type of clinic work (and therefore 
employability skills arising from it) be resolved? Secondly, to what extent should the formulation 
of employability skills be directed at specific legal practice skills or general transferable graduate 
employability skills? Before considering how these issues might be grappled with, it is worth 
considering the potential range of skills that a clinic might involve�

16 See, for example, the discussion in Ross Hyams (2008) ‘On teaching students to “act like a lawyer”: What sort of 
lawyer?’ 13 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 21-32; Stacy Caplow (2006) ‘Clinical Legal Education 
in Hong Kong: A Time to Move Forward’ 36 Hong Kong Law Journal 229; Frank Dignan (2011) ‘Bridging the 
Academic/Vocational Divide: The Creation of a Law Clinic in an Academic Law School’ 16 International Journal 
of Clinical Legal Education 75

17 See discussion in Stacy Caplow (2006) ‘Clinical Legal Education in Hong Kong: A Time to Move Forward’ 36 
Hong Kong Law Journal 229 on the history and ambitions of Clinical Legal Education in the USA�

18 This concern animates Frank Dignan’s narrative about the legal advice clinic at the University of Hull (Frank 
Dignan (2011) ‘Bridging the Academic/Vocational Divide: The Creation of a Law Clinic in an Academic Law 
School’ 16 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 75)



263

b) Generic Skills and Specific Skills
Arguably, participation in clinic work enhances student employability skills in two distinct ways: 
through the exercise of those skills and, perhaps more importantly from an instrumentalist 
perspective, by evidencing the existence of those skills� This latter point is useful to emphasise 
to the consumer-orientated student because law firms (particularly the larger ones) appear to 
place greater emphasis on co-curricular activities to evidence the type of skills they value than 
similar activities on the degree programme�19 Indeed, it may be useful to bear this point in mind 
when considering whether to subsume clinical legal education within the curriculum� Although 
Hall and Kerrigan for example advocate such a strategy,20 one consequence of this may be to 
devalue the currency of skills gained from the experience� Consequently, employers may not 
value communication and organisational skills gained on a typical LLB programme through active 
participation in a seminar programme, successful completion of a dissertation or participation in 
compulsory mooting or presentations to the same extent as communication and organisational 
skills gained through co-curricular participation in clinic� It may be that this reaction expresses the 
lack of distinctiveness in the claim that regular curricular activities enhance employability skills 
and that clinical education would not suffer in the same way because participation is more unusual 
and, usually, optional�

Participation provides obvious enhancements to the practice specific skill set through exposure to 
legal practitioners and the opportunity of interviewing clients, inputting into decisions on potential 
client suitability for the clinic, collating evidence and drafting legal letters� Likewise, by inputting 
into decisions on a client’s suitability for the clinic and strategy for advice letters, participants 
have the opportunity to develop their ability to exercise personal judgement, independence 
or autonomy,21 skills that are characteristic of practising lawyers�22 As Foley et al report, new 
practitioners often feel vulnerable in this regard for want of an opportunity to exercise those skills 
and the clinic provides an ideal controlled environment in which to take the first tentative steps, 
particularly since the constant oversight of the director (on questions of clinic suitability) and a 
qualified solicitor (on questions of advice strategy) provide an obvious safety net� It also introduces 
students to professional obligations such as preserving confidentiality, treating others with respect 
and dignity, punctuality, politeness and ethics� However, in common with other skills, time 
must be devoted to recognising and explaining the value of clinics in providing students with the 
opportunity to develop an understanding of the ethical demands of being a lawyer (or, indeed, 
working within a professional context)� Kerrigan argues that clinic can be one of the best – if not 
the best – formats in which to teach students about ethics; not simply the ‘relevant professional 
lawyer codes but also a broader and deeper engagement with what it means to be a lawyer and the 

19 See, e.g., ‘What law firms are looking for from new recruits’, The Guardian, 14 February 2012, http://careers�
guardian�co�uk/law-firm-careers-advice last accessed 14 August 2012�

20 Jonny Hall and Kevin Kerrigan (2011) ‘Clinic and the wider law curriculum’ 16 International Journal of Clinical 
Legal Education 25-37�

21 Tony Foley, Margie Rowe, Vivien Holmes and Stephen Tang (2012) ‘Teaching professionalism in legal clinic 
– what new practitioners say is important’ 17 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 5, 18-19; Stacy
Caplow (2006) ‘Clinical Legal Education in Hong Kong: A Time to Move Forward’ 36 Hong Kong Law Journal 
229, at 231�

22 Tony Foley, Margie Rowe, Vivien Holmes and Stephen Tang (2012) ‘Teaching professionalism in legal clinic – 
what new practitioners say is important’ 17 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 5; Ross Hyams (2008) 
‘On teaching students to “act like a lawyer”: What sort of lawyer?’ 13 Int’l J. Clinical Legal Educ. 21-32

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International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Issue 19

moral attitudes, decisions and outcomes implicit in legal practice�’23 Similarly, Joy states that ‘only 
by taking primary responsibility for clients may any law student fully experience the ‘professional 
pulls and choices’ and the ‘balancing of loyalties and professional responsibilities’ of being a 
lawyer’24 However, taking part in clinic cannot, in and of itself, be sufficient to ensure such an 
understanding does develop� Clinic directors should consider how their students will be trained 
to recognise and reflect upon opportunities to develop such an understanding within the clinic� 
Students should have the opportunity to explore ethical issues and dilemmas which might arise 
within a case with their supervisor, and with each other: by doing so, ethical obligations offer a 
learning experience which might not otherwise be grasped�25 

Through exposure to real life legal disputes, by conducting interviews with clients and drafting 
advice letters following discussion with practitioners, participants have the opportunity to gain a 
deeper insight into the nature of legal advice in practice and, therefore, overcome that particular 
conceptual hurdle which plagues students of law: recognising that identification of liability is not 
the end sought by a hypothetical client but rather a means to an end, i�e�, advice on the range 
of options open to the client to resolve their complaint� Once this threshold point is reached, 
participation also allows for an enriched view of the importance of client expectations and 
desired outcomes in framing advice� It is an opportunity for any remaining idealism about the 
operation of law to be tempered and realism instilled� In particular, participants glimpse the real 
world of law: e.g., that establishing liability can depend on any number of imponderables, such 
as witness performance at trial, evidential weaknesses, the commercial viability of the defendant 
and the wealth and/or appetite of the claimant for litigation� Likewise, since outcomes are often 
negotiated prior to trial, solutions are often a product of compromise in which the litigation risks 
and associated legal fees are balanced against accepting a discounted settlement� Also, not every 
litigant is primarily motivated by financial compensation and may attach just as great a weight to an 
apology or promise to change their practice so as to avoid future repetition� These considerations 
are often overlooked by the student of law and achieving an appreciation of them is often not 
helped by the mysterious labelling of them by graduate recruitment managers as ‘commercial 
awareness’ or ‘business acumen’�

Finally, student participants on the Leeds clinic have reported an increase in their perceived 
level of specific transferrable skills, such as general communication and organisational skills (in 
identifying the nature of the potential client’s complaint through initial contact and subsequent 
interview as well as drafting the advice letter); team working skills; and leadership skills (in deciding 
strategy in both the interview and advice letter)� It is likely that working in a team will also provide 
opportunities to exercise negotiation skills, in particular, achieving the delicate balance between 
compromise and resolve� Involvement in determining the suitability of a prospective claim for 
the clinic, requesting particular documents or evidence are brought to interview, researching 

23 Kevin Kerrigan (2007) ‘How do you feel about this client? A Commentary on the Clinical Model as a Vehicle for 
Teaching Ethics to Law Students’ International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 7, at 7

24 Peter Joy (2003-04) ‘The Ethics of Law School Clinic Students as Student-Lawyers’ 45 South Texas Law Review 
815, at 837

25 See further Peter Joy (2003-04) ‘The Ethics of Law School Clinic Students as Student-Lawyers’ 45 South Texas 
Law Review 815, at 840; chapter three of Kevin Kerrigan and Victoria Murray (eds�) (2011) A Student Guide to 
Clinical Legal Education and Pro Bono (Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke); Jeff Giddings (2008) ‘Contemplating the 
Future of Clinical Legal Education’ 17 Griffith Law Review 1, at 13�



265

the law to identify potential claims to suggest to the qualified solicitor and following up missing 
documents or evidence in order to draft the advice may also allow participants to demonstrate 
initiative and creative thinking� 

c) Respecting Specific and Non-Specific Career Ambitions
In determining the parameters of the clinic experience for the participant, the director may draw 
inspiration from the US model(s)� However, in doing so, some caution is advisable in light of 
one significant difference, in particular, between US and UK legal education� Law, in the US, is 
a post-graduate degree and it has been said that ‘most law students expect to practice law upon 
[graduation]’�26 The same cannot be said for UK students� In a recent survey commissioned by UK 
Centre for Legal Education 47 per cent of respondents on a law degree course expressed a desire 
to enter the legal profession�27 In a similar survey conducted at the School of Law, University 
of Leeds, we found that 63�65 per cent of respondent students on the LLB wanted to become a 
solicitor on qualification� The dilemma, therefore, for the director establishing a new clinic (or 
revising an existing one) is the extent to which this should be accounted for in the clinic design and 
recruiting method� Should clinic participation be available only to those interested in becoming a 
lawyer? Even then, there is a question about whether participation is confined to those who will 
practice in the areas of law that the clinic caters for, or whether it is reasonable to expect that there 
will be a natural process of self-selection whereby only those students interested in such a career 
path will apply�

Perhaps the most pressing reason why the clinic might be confined to those with a strong 
preference for a career as a lawyer is the expectation that such students are more likely to commit 
to the programme both in terms of time but also energy� Conversely, those who are indifferent 
(or, even, hostile), to such a career may find the project unfulfilling or dull and there is, thus, a 
risk that this negativity may be transmitted to any partner law firm(s) and/or clients, damaging the 
reputation of the clinic over the longer term� Of course, there is a certain degree of speculation in 
this assessment and these are not absolute reasons why those who do not wish to become lawyers 
should be barred from applying� To some extent, commitment to the clinic might be ensured where 
the participant is dependent on a positive reference from the clinic director afterwards� Even so, it 
is understandable that sensitivities about the longer term success of the clinic (particularly where 
it is newly established) may influence directors to take a more restrictive approach to recruitment 
(and this is another reason why subsuming the clinic within the curriculum might be unattractive)� 
By doing so, however, the clinic is less inclusive and the opportunity to gain broader employability 
skills is lost by a higher number of students (in the case of Leeds, this would mean up to 40 per 
cent of LLB students excluded from consideration)� The consumer-orientated student may object 
to exclusion on this basis� There is also the possibility that students may become interested in a 
career as a lawyer having participated in the clinic, which should be weighed against the possibility 
that participants may lose interest in such a career having gained insights into the practical realities�

26 Stacy Caplow (2006) ‘Clinical Legal Education in Hong Kong: A Time to Move Forward’ 36 Hong Kong Law 
Journal 229, at 231�

27 http://www�heacademy�ac�uk/assets/documents/disciplines/law/Hardee-Report-2012�pdf last accessed 21 June 
2012�

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A further issue for clinic directors to address is whether to restrict clinic involvement to 
undergraduates, or to also allow postgraduate students the opportunity to be involved� If both 
cohorts are allowed onto the clinic then consideration should be given to whether the clinic 
experience will offer the same value to each group� An undergraduate in their second year will 
potentially have fewer relevant skills than a second year postgraduate student, particularly one 
who has returned to education from the workplace� The same is true of mature entrants to an 
undergraduate programme of study� Consideration should therefore be given to whether ‘one 
size fits all’ within the clinic context, or whether specific steps need to be taken to ensure each 
participant gains new employability skills from their involvement� At Leeds both undergraduates 
and postgraduates are eligible for entry onto the clinic and care is taken to ensure the role each 
student is assigned is most likely to enhance their skill set� For example, students applying to 
be part of the 2012-13 clinic at Leeds could apply to be either interviewers or managers� Briefly, 
interviewers conduct interviews and research and draft advice letters whereas managers liaise with 
the clinic director about potential clients, organise interviews and obtain pre- and post-interview 
evidence from clients� Clearly, different skill sets are being exercised in each of the two roles� 
The director might therefore take the decision to allocate a student with extensive administrative 
experience the advising (as opposed to office manager) role, in order to add value to their skills 
set� It is worth noting, however, that most students will gain some new skills from their clinic 
involvement, if only in the form of new legal knowledge� The areas of law covered by the clinic at 
Leeds are such that many students have not studied them (family law and employment law being 
two prime examples)� 

Regardless of whether participation is or becomes more inclusive to allow for participants who 
are not interested in the profession as a career, or whether it is restricted to particular year groups, 
the director may wish to consider whether the participant might specify or else nominate which 
employability skills they would like to develop on the course� By organising the clinic in such a 
way as to allow students to specify their preferred role (office manager/advisor), specific and non-
specific employability skills may be met� As a possible further enhancement of this, it may be 
possible for students to nominate the type of claims they wish to gain experience of� For example, 
those students who want to qualify into a large commercial law firm (at Leeds, this accounts for 
25 per cent of those interested in a career as a solicitor), may wish to avoid housing claims, for 
example, and concentrate on tax or employment on the basis they are unlikely to encounter 
such disputes in practice� Of course, the feasibility of this approach is entirely dependent on the 
prospective disputes that clients bring to the clinic� It may be that a director can do no more than 
promise to give consideration to this preference in allocating files to participant teams�

5. Meeting Community, Client and Individual Ambitions for the Clinic
The prospect of allowing students to decide which types of claims to be involved with raises 
a separate point� If students are keen to participate in the clinic principally to gain practical 
experience in those areas of law they wish to practice in, a conflict may emerge between the 
student’s individual ambitions and the larger social aims of the clinic� To what extent is it, 
therefore, important to resist student-led design of the clinic programme?

To give the discussion context, Frank Dignan, director of the law clinic at the University of Hull, 
in a thoughtful paper on the social aims of clinics, recently commented that in Hull the creation of 



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the clinic had especial significance given the loss of £700,000 of funding for the local CAB�28 The 
loss of financing for CABs as well as diminishing legal aid budgets is a significant contemporary 
problem and has obvious impact on access to justice� As Dignan notes, clinics allow Universities 
to connect with local communities, provide help and support to a broad range of individuals who 
could not otherwise afford it and provide students with the opportunity to gain deeper insights 
into the social and personal issues affecting those local communities�29 Indeed, the benefits of 
law clinics to the local community (and to clients drawn from a wider geographical area) are well-
established in the pedagogical literature30 and the dangers of specialisation to achieving this social 
justice goal have been outlined by Lopez, who argues that the priorities of the community (and, it 
might also be said, client) should be foremost in clinic design�31 Regardless of the type of law that 
the participant wishes to specialise in, an appreciation of these social issues can only be of benefit� 
In providing members of the public with free legal advice, many of whom (or even all of whom, 
depending upon a clinic’s target client base) could not otherwise access legal advice, clinic offers 
an opportunity for students to:

‘…begin to realise the distinction between legal rights and access to what they might perceive to 
be justice…injustice in CLE has a real face, the students develop the skills to inform clients of 
the limits of the redress which they have, and a key skill was highlighted to the student lawyers 
in the necessity to learn to manage their own emotional reactions�’32 

So, not only can participation provide personal satisfaction through helping others33 but it 
also provides valuable insights of benefit in practice of dealing with clients and managing client 
expectations� Often, in larger firms, trainee solicitors may have limited opportunities to interact 
with clients to the same degree� Similarly, since clinic clients are likely to be claimants rather than 
defendants, participation benefits the student by humanising the claimant’s needs and develops 
sensitivity to the claimant’s position, which can be valuable to enhancing negotiation techniques 
in practice� Moreover, participation in a clinic focused on meeting social goals can be beneficial to 
a student’s employability prospects since it allows them to speak to the corporate responsibility 
agenda that many law firms have adopted (often in response to the corporate responsibility policies 
of large multi-national corporations who insist that panel law firms have similar policies in place)�

28 Frank Dignan (2011) ‘Bridging the Academic/Vocational Divide: The Creation of a Law Clinic in an Academic 
Law School’ 16 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 75, at 76�

29 Frank Dignan (2011) ‘Bridging the Academic/Vocational Divide: The Creation of a Law Clinic in an Academic 
Law School’ 16 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 75, at 77�

30 See, e�g�, Stephen Wizner (2001) ‘Beyond Skills Training’ 7 Clinical Law Review 327-340; Antoinette Sedillo
Lopez (2001) ‘Learning through Service in a Clinical Setting: the Effect of Specialization on Social Justice and 
Skills Training’ 7 Clinical Law Review 307-326; James Marson, Adam Wilson and Mark Van Hoorebeek (2005) 
‘The Necessity of Clinical Legal Education in University Law Schools: A UK Perspective’ 7 International Journal 
of Clinical Legal Education 29-42; Jeff Giddings (2008) ‘Contemplating the Future of Clinical Legal Education’ 17 
Griffith Law Review 1; W� Warren H� Binford (2008-09) ‘Reconstructing a Clinic’ 15 Clinical Law Review 283

31 Antoinette Sedillo Lopez (2001) ‘Learning through Service in a Clinical Setting: the Effect of Specialization on 
Social Justice and Skills Training’ 7 Clinical Law Review 307-326

32 James Marson, Adam Wilson and Mark Van Hoorebeek (2005) ‘The Necessity of Clinical Legal Education in 
University Law Schools: A UK Perspective’ 7 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 29-42, at 34�

33 See discussion in James Marson, Adam Wilson and Mark Van Hoorebeek (2005) ‘The Necessity of Clinical 
Legal Education in University Law Schools: A UK Perspective’ 7 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 
29-42, at 38-39�

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6. Conclusion
Clinics hold a number of benefits to participating students, including the opportunity to establish 
preferred career paths and to develop transferrable employability skills within a controlled, 
supervised environment� However, this paper has sought to demonstrate that such benefits to 
students cannot be viewed in isolation, either from the clinical supervision model or from the 
agendas of the other two key stakeholders within a clinic (the institution within which the clinic is 
housed, and the clinic client base)� Potential clinicians, new clinicians and existing clinicians must 
be alive to these competing agendas throughout the establishment and management processes 
and must be conscious of the fact such agendas will not necessarily be resolved once the clinic is 
well-established� The process of establishing a clinic is fraught with practical concerns regarding 
supervision, insurance, office protocols and practices, client confidentiality, client selection and 
recruitment and so on - concerns which can easily override the bigger strategic question of why the 
clinic is being undertaken and who it is intended to benefit� This question applies not only to the 
students involved (what is it the clinic should give them?), but also to clients: what is their position 
relative to the students? Are they equally important, or will the potential educational benefits of a 
case trump the client’s needs for support? 

Equally, once a clinic is well-established sight should not to be lost of why it is being run� All 
clinics are likely to evolve over time in response to internal and external factors (not all of 
which will be within the immediate control of those responsible for the strategic direction of the 
clinic)� This paper has sought to highlight areas in which such competing agendas might emerge 
and to demonstrate how an internal supervision model might provide clinics with the optimum 
opportunity of overcoming the associated challenges� Each model offers specific benefits to the 
three key stakeholders and each carries with it particular drawbacks, but the internal supervision 
model appears to offer the most flexibility to respond to competing (and potentially changing) 
agendas� The model adopted will of course depend upon an institution’s priorities and financial 
circumstances; the size of clinic; the extent to which it is feasible to work with external partners; 
and so on� However, the authors’ observations are that an internal supervision model (where the 
advice is supervised and approved by School staff) offers the most long-term benefits and value 
to key stakeholders� From an institutional perspective, an internal supervisor, although bearing 
extra costs, provides the clinic with more long-term stability than a model whereby the advice is 
approved and insured by external partners� Under the latter model, the decision of a partner agency 
to remove itself from the clinic would have potentially disastrous consequences for the students, 
clients and institution, particularly if the clinic forms part of an assessed module� The internal 
supervision model also provides institutions with greater control over the strategic direction and 
growth of the clinic, allowing as it does the institution to respond to changes in the student and/
or client needs and adapt the clinical model and areas of advice accordingly� Partnerships with 
external practitioners supervising the advice can potentially hinder such change, particularly if 
those external partners have different strategic aims to those of the institution� 



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From a student perspective an internal supervision model provides for more contact with the 
supervising practitioner than an external model (where contact might be limited to a short meeting 
and a few emails), which can in turn enhance the skills gained from clinic involvement� Working 
alongside an internal practitioner provides students with an opportunity to gain more frequent 
and regular feedback on their clinic performances, with such feedback potentially more likely 
to be delivered in a pedagogically sound manner� Should the feedback not be delivered in such a 
manner an institution is better able to provide suitable direction to ensure it is in future: doing so 
in the context of an external supervision model is much more politically sensitive, carrying with it 
a risk of alienation of partners upon which the operation of the clinic might be entirely dependent� 
The value of the clinic to the students is also potentially enhanced through an internal supervision 
model because such a model opens up the opportunity to adapt the manner in which the advice is 
given and the areas of law in which it is given� At Leeds, for example, the clinic has generally been 
restricted to an appointment only, written advice model� Alternative approaches are much more 
difficult to adopt, even if these would offer enhanced value to the clients� To take the example 
of a drop-in service, such as the excellent one provided by London South Bank University:34 
this would, under the Leeds model, be difficult to manage because externally-based supervisors 
are allocated to particular pre-arranged clients on the basis of their areas of expertise - something 
which would be almost impossible to arrange on a drop-in service�

Finally, the client can benefit from the internal supervision model, primarily because of the long-
term sustainability offered by that model, but also because of the flexibility to respond to changing 
client needs such a model can offer� 

Clinicians ought therefore to not be discouraged from developing, or re-developing, a clinic on the 
assumption that the competing agendas of the three key clinic stakeholders are likely to ultimately 
be insurmountable: rather, care must be taken to ensure that the supervision model adopted 
allows for as much flexibility as possible (within the financial parameters determined by the host 
institution), in order to respond to those competing (and potentially changing) demands� 

34 http://www�lsbu�ac�uk/ahs/departments/law/legaladviceclinic�shtml, last accessed 16th August 2012

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