Clinical Legal Education—A Bare Necessity in the Scientific Era
| Author | Madhubrata Mohanty,Jayadev Pati |
| Published date | 01 January 2016 |
| Date | 01 January 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2322005815607143 |
| Subject Matter | Commentary |
Clinical Legal Education—A Bare
Asian Journal of Legal Education
3(1) 117–123
Necessity in the Scientific Era
© 2016 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2322005815607143
http://ale.sagepub.com
Jayadev Pati1
Madhubrata Mohanty2
Abstract
This is an attempt by the authors to justify the necessity of clinical legal education with a humanistic
approach in this scientific era so as to enhance human sensibility. As law is considered as the most
flexible instrument of social order that not only influences, but also regulates almost all activities
of human being, thus in order to provide social justice in true sense, there is a need for imparting
value-based pragmatic legal education so as to make them competent enough to identify social
problems in their future properly and to find solutions for eradicating social evils like corruption,
injustice, nepotism and poverty etc. Legal education, like medical education, also needs to be
imparted as a clinical method so as to cope with modern-day complexities of society. The objective
of clinical legal education is to develop the perception, the attitudes, the responsibility and the
skills to become a lawyer after completion of the course from law schools. Acquiring knowledge
in non-clinical subjects like language, history, economics, political science, sociology, philosophy
etc., would motivate a student of law to undertake the responsibility to face complicated problems
and to analyze facts with the help of studies in literature, arts, science, economics, commerce and other
relevant subjects. Clinical legal education not only requires students to take active part in the learning
process, but also assume a degree of control over their own education and analyze law in real-life
context.
Introduction
In any civilized society, the only instrument that has the power to influence as well as regulate every
activity of the human being is ‘Law’, which is considered as the most flexible instrument of social order.
For this reason, everywhere around the globe, maximum importance is being given to value-based
pragmatic legal education as a tool to ensure and foster economic development and to provide social
justice to the people in real sense. However, in order to make the legal education more humanistic,
modern, contemporary and socially relevant, the methodologies and curricula used by the legal fraternity
1 Professor of Law and Director, SOA National Institute of Law, Odisha, India.
2 Associate Professor, SOA National Institute of Law, Odisha, India.
Corresponding author
Madhubrata Moahanty, SOA National Institute of Law (SNIL), Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan University, Kalinga Nagar,
SUM Hospital Road, Ghatikia, Bhubaneswar 751 003, Odisha, India.
E-mail: madhubratamohanty@soauniversity.ac.in
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Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(1)
in the world are to be revamped completely, the reason being that in this era of science and technology,
law is not to be studied in its traditional form, rather it is to be considered as a branch of science and has
to be tested through a method by formulating a hypothesis either to be proved or disproved.
Human sensibility can be enhanced and enriched only when the modern legal education will have a
humanistic approach. At the same time, to train the law students to develop their skill and competence,
a pragmatic value-oriented legal education is to be provided, so that it would be easier for these students
to identify the social problems in future properly and to find out solution for eradicating corruption,
injustice, nepotism and poverty from the world at large. The basis of legal education in most of the
countries is based on Western theories of right and justice because of the fact that these countries have
to maintain the scientific temper to protect and preserve their culture, heritage, custom and historical
conditions. In order to create and maintain the basic philosophies and ideologies of just society, they
have to develop their legal science for justice and fair play.
Different researchers, while undergoing their research study in the field of legal education, have
adopted different theoretical methods. If it is to be considered in the present-day context, it has to be
viewed from the social prospective. It is to be noted here that most of the law schools in the world follow
the British pattern of legal education. Towards the last part of nineteenth century, under the patronization
of Christopher...
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