The AUCA Legal Clinic: bridging the gap between theory and practice

June 15, 2015

Launched in 2003, the Legal Clinic at AUCA is an integral part of the academic curriculum for senior students in international and business law. In a fully functioning law office, future legal practitioners receive professional training while providing legal counseling to the population.

Generally, citizens with low-income cannot afford to pay for highly qualified lawyers’ services. For many, free legal counseling is the only means to assert their rights and access justice. At the AUCA Legal Clinic, enough time is given for detailed discussions with clients, regardless of financial resources.

Nurilya Isaeva, Director of the AUCA Legal Clinic and Sagyn Omuraliev, assistant professor, arbitrator at the International Arbitrary Court and one of the experts advising students, answered our questions.

Why the Legal Clinic was opened at AUCA?

Nurilya Isaeva: The clinic aims at bridging the gap between the theory of law and legal practice, thus improving education methodologies. At the same, it aims at developing professional skills and competences of students while providing legal support to the local population.

What is your main target group?

Nurilya Isaeva: The main clients of the Legal Clinic are socially vulnerable groups of the population, meaning low income families, elderly, unemployed, disabled individuals. The Clinic is also open to AUCA students and faculty members.

What kind of services do you provide?

Nurilya Isaeva: In the Legal Clinic, law students provide citizens with legal counseling services free of charge under the oversight of practicing lawyers. The Clinic provides assistance in civil, labor, family, administrative, business, social security and international private law. Our services are not limited to popularizing the country’s legislation. Our students can also represent clients in court.

Each student is under the supervision of an academic adviser. Students collect data, examine the legal problem in details, seek possible solution and draft legal memos. The academic adviser gets involved to correct students’ activities. They do not instruct them on what to do and how to do it. Students must understand the problem and find the solution by themselves . Ultimately, they will rely on legal experts to check whether the suggested legal aid is appropriate.

What are the schedules of students working at the Legal Clinic?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Once a week students take a “Legal Clinic” class conducted by a practicing lawyer with legal experience in a law firm. From Monday to Friday, during their free time, students learn about the legal profession by practicing at the Clinic.

In the afternoon, each student is on duty during 40 or 80 minutes depending academic load. Simultaneously, every day, the appointed advisor oversees how his advisee student is working with clients and carries out his/her duties. Student on duty receives client, preliminary interviews him/her, finds out the problem and registers client in computer data base. After that, student gives a report form for client to file in order to make him/her get familiarized with working conditions and principles of the Legal Clinic and takes it with client’s signature. The management team of the Legal Clinic examines the case and puts it into a student’s hands, but not necessarily the same student who registered this case. In average, each student conducts two to four cases, depending on the complexity and the duration of the case, documents preparation and feasible participation to the legal processes.

Your students do not work on criminal cases, why?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Our students can advocate only in civil proceedings. Until they become qualified lawyers, they aren’t able to advise and represent clients in criminal proceedings.

But do students represent clients on the hearings in a court?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Yes. When it is necessary and at the instance of client on certain cases students can take notarized power of attorney and defend clients’ interests both from the outset of a lawsuit or during hearings. We already have cases, when our students have participated in all three degrees of jurisdiction instances (district or city court, regional court, Supreme Court) and have won all cases.

Please, tell us about the responsibilities of students under your patronage.

Sagyn Omuraliev: Firstly, all students deliver legal services free of charge, mainly for the lowest income sections of the population who apply for legal aid. Free legal aid is essential for these people. Secondly, at the end of semester, faculty advisors give marks for mastering theoretical materials and practical active or inactive participation in activities of the Legal Clinic’s front line, as well as performance quality for case conduct. Marks are a great stimulus for students.

How many cases have been taken by your students?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Since the beginning of the semester, the Legal Clinic has held 30 cases in proceedings, including several still ongoing complicated cases. A few cases are already completed and reports have been submitted.

Please, tell us about your clients.

Sagyn Omuraliev: As already mentioned, generally, low-income groups of the population ask for our legal advice. They don’t have sufficient funds to hire lawyers. But we had several cases where well-to-do businessmen came to us, and students provided legal counseling to these clients too. There is a number of “black attorneys” amongst practicing lawyers, who are just swindling money from clients and intentionally dragging cases out. There are also apology-for-lawyers who are working on both fronts, trying to straddle the fence, and taking bribe from both parties.

Are clients sometimes aggressive?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Lawyer is a difficult profession. By inviting students to the Legal Clinic, we make it clear that they will have to work with different clients – rich and poor, with different psychology, physiology, education and upbringing. All clients can’t be the same, so to speak “as mild as lambs”, we have seen these clients too. Within the last several years, we have seen mentally ill individuals who were registered in psychiatric dispensary; they were aggressive, ready to attack students and advisor, and complainants to AUCA President. In each case of these cases, we, faculty, have thoroughly analyzed the situation, and drew the appropriate conclusions.

Would you say your students are able to deliver professional consultations?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Senior students are prepared lawyers. Most of them are honest, pro-active and scrupulously, frequently solving their clients’ legal problems with great professionalism. Good technical equipment, library, comprehensive database of normative legal acts of Kyrgyzstan and other countries are playing a large part in this work. But most importantly, it is a very progressive system of education excluding corruption among students and faculty.

How do you evaluate the work of students in the legal clinic?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Students write interim (if the case is “ongoing”) or final conclusion after their work with client. Instructors examine it and give final grades according to theoretical and practical classes, practical work with the clients of the Clinic.

How far students are interested in their works?

Sagyn Omuraliev: As in any professional environment, there are “pacemakers” and “weaklings”, but the overwhelming majority of students understands that a difficult life is waiting ahead of them, and poor knowledge do not take you to the top of subdued mountain. Plus, all of them are paying large amounts of money for education, so they have to study well. Education and knowledge are also merchandise. We see weaklings at once – on their treatment to the Clinic’s client, defending their interests, preparing legal documents. These students are not successful in other disciplines either. But the major part of students is very good!

What plans do you have about the legal clinic?

Sagyn Omuraliev: Our Clinic works in different fields of civil law. I took an internship in several universities in the United-States, including four months last year at Columbia University in New York, Great Britain, Hungary, and Turkey. These universities have opened a few independent clinics. Each of them is specialized in one legal field, whether human rights, family and marital relations, underage problems and others. For instance, law students at the Washington University in St. Louis, MO, provide clients with legal aid even on criminal cases and officially participate in trial proceedings. I dare to say that our university soon will create the same legal clinics too.

What is your opinion about law education in the country?

Sagyn Omuraliev: There are about fifty universities for a population of 5 million people. Most of them have law departments. Too often, teaching standards are poor. Also, it is not a secret to anyone – corruption is prospering inside faculties. We can imagine what kind of lawyers will graduate from such universities – prospective “black lawyers”.

What are the achievements AUCA can be proud of?

Sagyn Omuraliev: AUCA is a unique university in Central Asia. For 20 years, it has prepared highly qualified specialists, and alumni employment is like hot cakes sales in all sectors of politics and economics of Kyrgyzstan and overseas. The whole thing is in modern, civilized system of education, high quality faculty, and high technical equipment. Everything in the university is made for students, and the most important thing is: there is no corruption.

How do you see the future of AUCA?

Sagyn Omuraliev: AUCA has a great future ahead. It is the most called-for and prestigious university in Central Asia. Soon, the new campus of AUCA will be operational. All of these have raised hopes of our international staff, faculty, current and future students, because AUCA is their alma mater. Graduates who worked as consultants easily manage to get a job and demonstrate their practical qualifications to employers.

Nurilya Isaeva, director of the AUCA Legal Clinic has noted that the Legal Clinic made good progress.

Nurilya Isaeva: In 10 years, the Legal Clinic has successfully coped with its missions. And this is due to the peculiarity of the Clinic’s modus operandus, which allows law students to deal with real clients with real life situations. Students get the opportunity to acquire practical interviewing, negotiating, representing, legal writing and critical thinking skills needed for their future professions. One way to evaluate the efficiency of our work is when our clients use our services again or recommend us to their friends and family. Moreover, many of local state authorities and courts send citizens to our Clinic for legal aid. And we are planning to keep improving the quality of our services.

Interviewed by Dinara Orozbaeva

Source: http://www.vb.kg/doc/316447_uridicheskaia_klinika_pri_ayca:_kak_stydenty_stanoviatsia_professionalami.html

<< go to news list