Developing ethics, professional skills and competencies through clinical legal education

Abstract

Clinical Legal Education (CLE) is a significant teaching and learning method widely practised and implemented in America, United Kingdom and other countries but relatively new in Malaysia. This method will enable students to experience the law in action where knowledge gained inside the lecture hall is applied outside in real world and in simulation set up. Researches have shown that CLE increases commitment level as it engages full range of abilities, builds ethical awareness, improve the spirit of voluntariness, encourage students to become active learners and further develop other generic skills, professional skills and competencies and thus enhance their employability. This paper will explore this method; its theory and practice, its advantages and pitfalls, benefit and challenges of CLE. Discussion will focus on the model of clinical activities and student assessment. It will also come up with suggestion on how we should adopt CLE in Malaysian setting. To endeavour applying CLE will require extra costs and resources and demand full commitment from higher learning institution but the benefit is endless.