In 2020, the organizational changes ac complished at the Faculty of Law at UPJŠ also affected clinical legal education in that it shifted its focus on the advancement of clinical courses that have practical application, are based on cooperation with the non-academic environment and are of interdisciplinary nature. In this avenue, the Law Clinics Department currently conducts three clinical courses; elective courses designed for students of the second and third year of bachelor’s studies and students of the first and second year of master’s studies.
The first clinical course is the Street Law Clinic with the longest tradition at UPJŠ Law Faculty; the primary aim of this Law Clinic is to develop legal competences of law students with an additional benefit of raising legal awareness of selected communities. Street Law Clinic centres on the improvement of practical skills of students inevitable for legal practice (for example, oral communication, prompt argumentation, clarification of the legal issue in layman’s terms, searching for case-law and in law books, self-presentation skills), wherein law students are sent to teach law lessons to secondary school students and convicted persons serving their prison sentences.
The second clinical course is Internship Clinic targeted at law students to work as interns at collaborating institutions, such as law offices, public authorities, the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Košice, the Legal Aid Centre, the Office of the Košice Self-Governing Region, the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights, etc.
The youngest Law Clinic implemented under the auspices of the Law Clinics Department is the Student legal assistance for the residents of Košice. This clinical course is designed for law students to experience legal work in direct contact with real clients under the guidance of their supervisors (cooperating lawyers). Above that, the Law Clinic Student legal assistance for the residents of Košice provides the residents of Košice who are unable to afford legal representation/access to justice the opportunity to obtain legal advice on their legal matter.
Taking into consideration the specific nature of activities of the Law Clinics Department primarily aimed at legal practical education of future legal practitioners, all projects the Law Clinics Department has implemented or participated in were fully compliant to meet these aspirations.
