1、1Practical Exploration and Thoughts on Model of “Clinical Legal EducationLegal Aid”（School of Politics and Law,Chongqing Three Gorges University,Wanzhou, Chongqing 404100 China） Abstract. It is the common target for Clinical Legal Education and legal aid to provide legal service for the society and
2、maintain the fairness and justice of the society governed by law. The implementation of legal aid works can be promoted through Clinical Legal Education and the Clinical Legal Education can be carried out through legal aid. In this way, the complementary advantages of both can be realized in a relat
3、ively good manner and mutual development can be promoted. In recent years, our school has implemented the courses of Clinical Legal Education, and made active explorations and practices on the interaction with public welfare legal aid organizations. It has made arranged the existing problems in the
4、interaction model of “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” and put forward corresponding countermeasures. Key words: Clinical Legal Education; professional skills; legal aid 2Clinical Legal Education is a kind of legal science education model originated from the law schools in the United States since
5、the 1960s. The “legal clinic” was established, meaning any private, nonprofit law practice serving the public interest. In the academic context, these law school clinics provide hands-on experience to law school students and services to various clients. Academic Clinics are usually directed by clini
6、cal professors. Many legal clinics offer pro bono work in one or more particular areas, providing free legal services to clients. The remainder of this article will discuss clinical legal education. Students typically provide assistance with research, drafting legal arguments, and meeting with clien
7、ts. In many cases, one of the clinics professors will show up for oral argument before the Court. However, many jurisdictions have student practice rules that allow law-clinic students to appear and argue in court. There have been 118 legal departments in universities in our country becoming the mem
8、bers of the Clinical Legal Education professional committee in China from September 2009 to 6th September 2011. The Clinical Legal Education is implemented 1. Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid
9、is 3regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial. A number of delivery models for legal aid have emerged, including duty lawyers, community legal clinics and the payment of lawyers to deal with cases for in
10、dividuals who are entitled to legal aid. It was generated in Britain in the 15th century. Legal aid has a close relationship with the welfare state and the provision of legal aid by a state is influenced by attitudes towards welfare. Legal aid is a welfare provision by the state to people who could
11、otherwise not afford access to the legal system. Legal aid also helps to ensure that welfare provisions are enforced by providing people entitled to welfare provisions, such as social housing, with access to legal advice and the courts. Historically legal aid has played a strong role in ensuring res
12、pect for economic, social and cultural rights which are engaged in relation to social security, housing, social care, health and education service provision, which may be provided publicly or privately, as well as employment law and anti-discrimination legislation. According to estimates, our countr
13、y needs to provide more than 740 thousand cases of legal aid. However, the actual cases that have been handled are merely 170 thousand 2. As for the 4students majoring the legal profession in universities and colleges, they do not have strong abilities to connect theories with practices. It terms of
14、 the clinical legal education, there are usually too few university teachers, who are qualified to practice, and very few of these had actually worked as lawyers for any period of time. The students must be individually supervised, making the clinical education much more expensive compared to the tr
15、aditional classes of large groups. Extra resources must therefore be allocated to the teaching and running of the clinic. On the other hand, clinics are usually very popular among students, therefore the issue arises, how to choose those who can attend them. In May, 2008, School of Politics and Law
16、in Chongqing Three Gorges University have carried out the “legal clinic” coordinately with the Chongqing Layers Association. Their objective is to explore the model of “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” through the connection between universities and public welfare legal aid associations. It has or
17、ganically connected the legal aid and the law education, trying to enlarge the legal aid teams as well as providing the opportunity for the students to improve their abilities of relating theories to practice. Our school has implemented the courses of Clinical Legal Education, and 5made active explo
18、rations and practices on the interaction with public welfare legal aid organizations. It has made arranged the existing problems in the interaction model of “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” and put forward corresponding countermeasures. 1.Our Practices on Model of “Clinical Legal EducationLegal A
19、id” Our school has implemented the courses of Clinical Legal Education, and made active explorations and practices on the interaction with public welfare legal aid organizations. The implementation process has included such content as the theoretical knowledge learning and actual cases implementatio
20、n as well as the implementation of other legal aid volunteer services and so on. 1.1Implement Theoretical Courses for “Clinical Legal EducationLegal Aid” and Improve Students Theoretical Levels of Legal Aid The theoretical courses of “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” have included the prerequisite
21、 courses and the legal aid courses. Prerequisite courses have included the substantive law. Substantive law is the statutory or written law that defines rights and duties, such as crimes and punishments, civil rights and responsibilities in civil law. It 6is codified in legislated statutes or can be
22、 enacted through the initiative process. The prerequisite have also included the procedure law. Procedural law or adjective law comprises the rules by which a court hears and determines what happens in civil lawsuit, criminal or administrative proceedings. The rules are designed to ensure a fair and
23、 consistent application of due process or fundamental justice to all cases that come before a court. The substantive law, which refers to the actual claims and defenses whose validity is tested through the procedures of procedural law, is different than procedural law. Through the theoretical educat
24、ion, the students are able to learn systematically the basic theoretical knowledge of legal science, the language expression, and debate and communication abilities. The relevant courses of legal aid have included the systematical learning of the relevant laws and regulations of the legal aid in our
25、 country. They should have relevant professional morality and rules on legal aid cases treatment. 1.2 Divide Students into Case Handling Group and Deal with Actual Legal Aid Cases After systematic learning on the clinical education theoretical course, 4 to 5 students are divided into a group and 1 o
26、r 2 instructors are assigned to help each group. 7Mechanisms emerged through which citizens could legally enforce their economic, social and cultural rights and welfare lawyers used legal aid to advice those on low income when dealing with state officials. Legal aid was extended from family law to a
27、 wide range of economic, social and cultural rights. From May 2008 to 2011, School of Politics and Law in Chongqing Three Gorges University have carried out the “legal clinic” co-ordinately with the Chongqing Layers Association. Their objective is to explore the model of “Clinical Legal Educationleg
28、al aid” through the connection between universities and public welfare legal aid associations. During this period, 12 cases have been undertaken and they have achieved good social effects. 1.3 Guide Students in Legal Consults and Propaganda Where it was not possible to provide such a choice citizens
29、 were given the right to voice their dissatisfaction through administrative complaints processes. This resulted in tension, as legal aid was not designed to offer advice to those seeking redress through administrative complaints processes. Tensions also began to emerge as states which emphasized ind
30、ividual enforcement of economic, social and cultural rights, rather than collective enforcement through polices, reduced funding 8for legal aid as a welfare state provision. There have been 70 consultant cases. At the same time, from May 2008 to the present, the student volunteers have been organize
31、d to directly communicate with the local residents in the rural areas such as Wanzhou District, counties and districts that near Chengkou and Fengdu, making use of the 3.15 International Day for Consumers Rights and Interests and 12.4 Law Publicity Day as well as the opportunity of “Three into the C
32、ountry”. They offer free services like legal consultants and drafting of legal instruments and so on. 2.Existing Problems and Countermeasures in “Clinical Legal EducationLegal Aid” Model Practice Process School of Politics and Law in Chongqing Three Gorges University have carried out the “legal clin
33、ic” coordinately with the Chongqing Layers Association for four times. Their objective is to explore the model of “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” through the connection between universities and public welfare legal aid associations. The clinical legal education contains important value to assist
34、 students in achieving judicatory by uplifting their operational ability, training the legal devoted spirit and strengthening the innovation consciousness. There are still many obstacles on 9the path of Humanization of clinical legal education, such as the backward teaching evaluation system, the qu
35、alities of the teachers and templar and the lack of the resource of finance, cases and regulations, etc. The clinical legal education is life in our country if we clean off these obstacles, adjust our legal education orientation and explore and make full use of our local resource. During this period
36、, 219 students have been cultivated. Students have acquired cases treatment experiences and the techniques of treating cases have been improved. Their social responsibility has been strengthened and some of the students have already got the ability to handle cases independently. However, we have fou
37、nd some problems as well. In addition, solutions and countermeasures have been put forward. 2.1Problems in Teaching Content Legal assistance is a system of legal remedy adopted by many countries in the world. Under this system, the state, throughout the legal process and at all levels, provides lega
38、l assistance, through reduction or exemption of fees, to the underprivileged of society who have difficulty safeguarding their own rights through the normal legal means, because of economic problems or otherwise. As a major safeguard to realize social justice and judicial parity and to protect civil
39、 rights, 10legal assistance occupies a very important position in a countrys judicial system. Legal-aid centers have also been established in provinces to supervise and coordinate legal-aid work in their respective jurisdiction. Our school has implemented the courses of Clinical Legal Education, and
40、 made active explorations and practices on the interaction with public welfare legal aid organizations. It has made arranged the existing problems in the interaction model of “Clinical Legal Education-legal aid” and put forward corresponding countermeasures. Therefore, the teaching content stresses
41、on the knowledge education of labor law. 2.2 Problems in Cases Connection for Students In the “Clinical Legal Educationlegal aid” held by our department, the students participating the activity are mainly from sophomore year or third year. Legal assistance is rendered by three groups of people; lawy
42、ers, public notaries and grassroots legal professionals. Lawyers provide procedural aid and non-procedural aid; public notaries provide notarization assistance; grassroots legal professionals provide legal counseling, document drafting and general non-procedural aid. In our country, legal aid is funded by three sources: government, social donations and volunteering. Though still in
