Law Professor Trains Turkish Academics on Clinical Law and Street Law Programmes

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Professor David McQuoid-Mason, the Acting Director, UKZN Centre for Socio-Legal Studies conducted a four day Clinical Law and Street Law Teaching Programme for Turkish Law teachers from five universities in Ankara, Turkey from 12 to 15 October 2017. He was assisted by two Turkish Law teachers whom he had previously trained and who had been hosted by him in South Africa as part of a visiting academic delegation.

During the first three days the training programme covered the following that were taught interactively: (a) an introduction to clinical legal education; (b) different models of clinical legal education; (c) demonstrations of interactive teaching methods used in live client clinic and Street law programmes; (d) the elements of a good interactive clinical law lesson; and (e) how to prepare a lesson plan.  Thereafter the Law teachers were divided into small groups and required to prepare and teach a 30 minute segment of a live client or Street law lesson. The lessons were then double-debriefed, first by the participants and then the instructors, to give the presenters feedback.

The last day was spent guiding the Law teachers on how to design a Clinical Law programme for their universities. The groups presented the syllabi outlines for their clinical law programmes and were again given feedback by the other participants and the instructors.

The programme was very well received by all the participants. It is hoped that in future a training programme will be presented to assist Turkish academics in developing materials for their clinical law programmes. McQuoid-Mason’s experiences in establishing the UKZN Campus Law Clinic in 1973, and the Street Law programme in 1985, on the then University of Natal Durban Campus during the Apartheid era, resonated strongly with the Turkish Law teachers.

Words: Ndabaonline