The Protection Project is proud to partner with experts on clinical legal education all over the world to reform legal education and promote the establishment of legal clinics globally.

Clinical legal education aims to teach law students lawyering skills through practical experience in the provision of legal aid to disadvantaged and vulnerable members of society and advocacy for social justice issues. Law clinics are based at universities where students work under the supervision of their professors on solving real-life legal cases for people in need or on conducting advocacy activities to bring awareness to issues of public interest. Clients can find legal advice on a broad range of issues, ranging from domestic violence to wrongful dismissal cases to establishment of small businesses. Students can also be engaged in projects on legislative change such as researching pressing public policy issues and drafting legal memoranda. Law clinics are an increasingly global means for advancing access to justice for poor and vulnerable members of society as well as for imparting in law students a sense of volunteerism and community service.

About our Clinical Legal Education Work

While law clinics have been operating on a large scale in the United States since the 1950s, in Great Britain and Australia since the 1960s, in several African countries since the 1970s, and in Eastern Europe since the 1990s, the concept of clinical legal education is still fairly new in countries of the Middle East. Teaching methods at universities generally comprise traditional lectures reaching up to 3000 students per class. Below is a list of activities The Protection Project has conducted in the Middle East to promote Clinical Legal Education:

Field Programs: Since 2010, The Protection Project has been working to assist universities in the Middle East on the establishment of law clinics. In particular, in 2010, The Protection Project assisted its longstanding partner, Alexandria University Faculty of Law in the establishment of the first legal clinic in Egypt. Students in the legal clinic receive small group instruction on practical cases and provide legal aid by assisting pro-bono lawyers in the Alexandria community to victims of domestic violence and human trafficking. Students are also engaged in legislative drafting, including model laws on legal aid and the rights of domestic workers, and other policy-oriented projects, including research on the rights of Egyptian migrant workers abroad and access to justice for women. Based on the successful Alexandria model, seven additional Egyptian law faculties have established legal clinics and two are in the process of doing so by the fall semester 2013.  Similar initiatives have been conducted in Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Iraq.

The International Human Rights Clinic: Since 2009, The Protection Project runs an International Human Rights Clinic which offers graduate students from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the opportunity to participate in practical programs aimed at promoting human rights around the world, in addition to learning about the international human rights legal framework. Past projects include the drafting of a model law on the rights of the elderly, field research and publication of a report on domestic work in the Phillippines and Kuwait, and field research on labor rights and corporate social responsibility in Turkey. The Clinic also comprises the Clinical Legal Education Network and the Expert Group on Clinical Legal Education.

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