The Centre for Clinical Legal Education () is an institute of Palacký University Faculty of Law, which focuses on practical ways of teaching prospective lawyers. While most of the syllabus in the Faculty's five-year Master program of Law and Jurisprudence comprises the Law in Books (taught at the university since 1679), the Centre focuses on Law in Action.
In 1996 Palacký University Faculty of Law was the first law school in Central Europe to introduce legal clinics and today it is still the only law faculty in the Czech Republic that provides its students with a wide-ranging clinic-based education. The clinics were swiftly expanded and improved, especially after 2006, thanks to a project for the advancement of practical education, which received financial support from both the Czech national budget and the European Social Fund. At the same time the newly established Centre for Clinical Legal Education took responsibility for running clinics.
Today the Centre provides methodical aids for innovation in current school subjects as well as for the implementation of new school subjects in the taught Master's degree in Law, while it also runs the clinics.
Clinics
As of 2011 there are over 15 clinical subjects at Olomouc Faculty of Law. The Student Legal Aid Office is a live-client clinic, and the other clinics are hybrid clinics combining both theoretical lectures and practical legal experience. Participation in the two semesters long Juristic Skills Workshop is compulsory for 2nd year students of the 5-year-long Law degree; the other clinics are optional.
In addition to the clinics listed below, Law Faculty students may also undertake a one-month internship at one of the Czech courts. A participating student is awarded 3 ECTS-credits, subject to confirmation by a presiding judge.
Student Legal Aid Office
The Student Legal Aid Office provides pro bono legal support and advice to socially, economically or otherwise disadvantaged individuals. The clinic is divided into sections (Civil Law, Family Law, Labour Law, etc.) with no more than ten students in each. Each section has a guarantor, who is the Faculty's lecturer specializing in the appropriate field. During office hours the students interview new clients seeking legal help from the Clinic in greater detail and, on the basis of the interview, prepare a document file. The document file is then given to the section's guarantor: the guarantor assigns it to particular students of his section (usually not the same ones who first interviewed the client) to solve the legal issues and propose further steps (e.g. legal remedies, drafting of a contract, and so on). If the need arises, the assigned students may contact the client for further information or documents. Subject to guarantor's authorization of the legal advice, the client is invited for another meeting, in which the assigned students hand him over the legal advice in writing and orally explain its content.
Students must learn how to manage the paperwork concerning the clients and cases. Prior to starting at the Aid Office, the students undergo two one-day workshops, the first aimed at work organisation and the second aimed at practical legal skills. Successful participation in the Student Legal Aid Office is rewarded by 6 ECTS-credits (in one semester).
The clinic takes one semester and is run every semester, but students can participate only once (because there are too many students chasing too few cases).
Clients are obliged to consent that the university takes no liability; students are forbidden to give legal advice at the first meeting, and a guarantor's authorization is obligatory before giving any advice (which usually takes a couple of weeks, except in urgent cases).
Matters concerning criminal law are excluded from the legal aid office.
The laws of the Czech Republic don't allow the law students to represent the clients in front of the courts.
Address of the office: Právnická fakulta Univerzity Palackého v Olomouci, Třída 17. listopadu 8, Olomouc, building A
Hybrid clinics
Thy hybrid clinics combine theoretical lectures (especially in areas which are not taught with sufficient detail in the theoretical subjects), followed by simulations in order to strengthen the knowledge and are crowned by providing legal aid to real clients.