Kaye Howells
There is no one definition of Clinical Legal Education but one often cited is that of Grimes who defines Clinical Legal Education as:
“a learning environment where students identify, research and apply knowledge in a setting which replicates, at least in part, the world where is it practiced… It almost inevitably means that the student takes on some aspect of a case and conducts this as it would… be conducted in the real world”
Clinical Legal Education [CLE] enables students to engage with real-world learning. CLE is embedded both curricular and extra-curricular in universities both nationally and internationally. This paper will consider whether the provision of CLE should be curricular as opposed to extracurricular from both a clinic sustainability and student’s perspective. The paper considers the CLE model at the University of Derby’s Law School and the impact of it from a student perspective. The author of the paper has carried out research with student participants and within the paper explores the outcomes of the student perspective, also giving consideration to the positive impact of CLE on employability.
