Attitude of Students to Clinical Legal Education: A Case Study of Faculty of Law,University of Ibadan

Introduction

Education is a process that is not confined within the four walls of a classroom. Every human activity and the environment in its totality serve the purpose of education. ³ As Onyechere Anyiam-Osigwe succinctly puts it:

Education is a process that is existent in everything we see, all we hear, all we say, all we do, either in commencing an action, concluding an action or just by being a conscious part of the natural environment. ⁴

In another article he says:

The primordial essence of education is to reawaken the moral order inherent in the human essence: that is, mold the individual in a manner that ensures that he or she becomes a good member of his tribe or community. ⁵

This article addresses the issue of legal education from the clinical perspective. Specifically, the article considers the attitude of a major stakeholder in legal education, which is the students engaged and involved in the clinical legal education (CLE) mode of teaching in the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Nigeria (hereinafter referred to in this article as UI Law). In the course of the study, there was an interaction with a very insignificant number of staff using the CLE method of teaching. Their comments are included in this work.

Clarification of Concept

For the purpose of clarification, this article is considered purely from the legal perspective. The concept of attitude will, therefore, be addressed using the English dictionary. The discussion in this article is not considered from a psychological angle. ‘Attitude’, for the purpose of this article, refers to a predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person or situation. ⁶

Brief Overview of Legal Education in Nigeria

Taking a cue from Anyiam-Osigwe’s statement above on the essence of education and relating it to education under the traditional African setting, informal and formal education under this system was undertaken by practice. Quoting Kimble ⁸ on the mode of education under the traditional African setting, he said

Whatever proficiency a person wanted to attain in a vocation, craft, or trade, he or she had to undergo varying periods of practical instruction and training within the complexities of his or her own familial and social system.

Prior to colonization in most African countries and Nigeria in particular, there was no formal system of legal education as there is presently. Generally, in the traditional societies, members learn the customary laws informally, by subtle indoctrination from childhood. However, Ayittey ⁹ states that traditional rulers in those societies were given a form of formal education of the customary law of their communities.

With colonization, formal legal education was introduced in Nigeria. This was done in a systematic manner. Firstly, persons who were to be trained as lawyers were sent to England for their legal education. However, after independence, law faculties were established in Nigeria. The establishment of law faculties in Nigeria for the training of lawyers was one of the recommendations of the Unsworth committee established by the Federal Government. ¹⁰ The committee was set up to examine legal education in Africa as a whole and make recommendations. ¹¹

With the introduction of law faculties in Nigeria, the law curriculum was developed. This curriculum included the teaching of core compulsory courses and some elective courses. At that time, like many other countries colonized by the British, ¹² the teaching method adopted in Nigeria was similar to the method then applied in England. The Nigerian legal system is based on the English common law tradition by virtue of colonization and the attendant incidence of reception of the teaching method. ¹³ This was the traditional teacher-centred method focused on rote learning and over reliance on lecture pedagogy, without any emphasis on lawyering skills. The method involves conveying knowledge to a passive audience and does not encourage dialogue between students and lecturers.

Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan

The Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan started in October 1981 as a Department of Law within the Faculty of the Social Sciences. On 28 May 1984, the Senate of the University approved that the Department of Law be converted into a Faculty of Law, thus satisfying the Nigerian Council of Legal Education’s condition precedent for the admission of UI Law graduates to the Nigerian Law School for the mandatory one-year professional training. The UI Law programme started as a post graduate course but was later changed to an undergraduate course. This is similar to what happened in South Africa. ¹⁴

At inception, the UI Law programme adopted the traditional method of teaching common to all other established law faculties in Nigeria. In 2007, it adopted the CLE method of teaching and went further to establish a specialized law clinic for indigent women. This development led to the accomplishment of UI Law’s third mission statement, thus, ‘to contribute to the transformation of the society through legal creativity, research and clinical legal education’. ¹⁵

The Women’s Law Clinic (WLC) ¹⁶ was formally inaugurated on the 18 July 2007, and is based within the premises of the UI Law. It emphasizes the use of interactive teaching methodology, development of practice and practical skills such as interviewing, counselling, negotiating and oral advocacy, while also placing emphasis on the ethical dimensions of legal practice, thereby exposing law teachers and students to wider experiences in professional skills and legal practice. ¹⁷

The teaching aspect of CLE takes place in the classroom. The students are made to learn through role play and assignments. The students in the final year of study are made to undergo practical training by attending to and handling cases of women that come to the clinic for legal assistance. By doing so, they are introduced to the eccentricities of the work environment and legal profession, thereby enriching their basic knowledge and psychomotor skills useful for managing cases that deviate from the conventional ones.

Essence of Clinical Legal Education

Clinical legal education brings to fore the fundamental role of education which is the all-round development of an individual (i.e., combining the moral, intellectual and technical components of development). It focuses on the use of activity-based methods as opposed to learning by rote, which is the traditional way of teaching employed by law lecturers. Clinical education forms the pivot of students’ educational experiences by fusing theory with practice. The clinical educators/clinicians are to serve as role models for the students in influencing which area of legal practice they will finally want to be involved in. ¹⁹

CLE is any kind of experiential, practical or active training for legal professionals to impact such skills as the ability to solve legal problems through the use of various dispute resolution mechanisms, providing legal representation, the recognition and resolution of ethical dilemmas, promoting justice, fairness and morality. ²⁰

CLE has different models. ²¹

Pincus ²² has succinctly stated:

The purpose of Clinical Legal Education at its inception, as it is today, is to extract the educational benefits only available in the service relationship between lawyer and client. This requires real service to a client. By providing service of the highest calibre in the educational process and by being responsible to the clients being served, clinical teaching drives home for students a sense of responsibility to the client as one of the educational objectives of law schools effort, began at the inception of the Clinical Legal Education.

Attitude of Students to Legal Education in UI Law

Attitude has to do with the complex mental state involving a feeling or disposition and values to act in certain ways. ²³

It is a predisposition or a tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object, person or situation. ²⁴ One of the components of attitude is evaluation.

For a clear understanding of the attitude of students to CLE in UI Law, it is important to know the general disposition of students to legal education under the traditional method of teaching and the attitude under the CLE.

Attitude of Students to Clinical Legal Education

With the introduction of CLE in the faculty, there appeared to be a change in the attitude of the students. In the unstructured interview that was carried out, the findings showed that different students had different attitude to the introduction of CLE. Of the third-year students, 91.8 per cent, and 100 per cent of the fifth-year students showed positive attitude to CLE. Of the students in fifth year, 91.9 per cent held the view that the clinical method is better than the traditional method of teaching because ‘…there is interaction between the students and teachers. Both contribute and share knowledge’. ²⁶

Of fifth-year students, 62.9 per cent, and of the third-year students, 87.7 per cent stated that the clinical method leads to better grades as students tend to attend classes and study more. ²⁷ In the past four years, the withdrawal rate due to failure in course work has been 0 per cent in UI Law.

This high rate is due to the fact that though they found it stressful at first, ²⁸ they were prepared for every class and thereby became better students. ²⁹ The method was perceived as being ‘very educative, entertaining and completely student friendly’. ³⁰ Gudo ³¹ said her ‘legal horizon has not only been tested but broadened’.

On the other hand, Patrick ³² says:

… it appears to deprive me of my own personal study-time as my attention is drawn squarely to the task at hand. CLE does not yield the sort of benefit I would prefer to have.

Of the total number involved in this study, 1.37 per cent of the third-year students had this negative attitude while 0 per cent in the fifth year had a negative attitude to CLE.

On enquiry whether the clinical method makes lecturers dull and boring, only 8.1 per cent of the students in the fifth year affirmed to this view. A student, therefore, said ‘… the method is novel, almost empty of “teaching” or “dictation of notes” and clearly a nightmare for the absentee student’.

A large number of students accept that CLE ‘builds everyone’s confidence and develops public speaking skills’ ³³ as it creates no room for anyone to hide. According to the students, the ‘method has helped the introvert students to be bold, confident and assertive ³⁴ in and outside the walls of the lecture room’. ³⁵

Findings also show that the students no longer feel caged because the instructors guide them and give them ample scope to develop their talents unlike ‘…the primordial or orthodox means of teaching where only the teacher does the teaching, powering everything’. ³⁶

With this new method of teaching, the students learn from the social laboratory, in the sense that they have a feel of the complex world by attending to real-life situations within the four walls of the university. Of the fifth-year students in the study, 90.3 per cent attested to the fact that CLE prepares students for real-life cases and builds in them a culture of identifying with the less privileged people in the society through rendering humanitarian services, popularly called pro-bono services in Law practice—a criteria to become a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. ³⁷

With the CLE, students’ zeal for the profession has increased as they are able to appreciate the beauty of the legal profession and are eager to learn fast, acquire more knowledge and complete their courses on time so as to get actively involved in practice. Of the third year students, 90.4 per cent and of the fifth year students, 88.7 per cent opined that the clinical method helps students to acquire more knowledge. Olafuyi says:

Complex legal issues were tackled and explained using a practical approach and the benefit of this for me as a student of law, went beyond ensuring a thorough understanding of the legal principles but extended to giving me an understanding of the interplay of these principles with the realities of life and living in society. ³⁸

Attitude of Non-law Students to Clinical Legal Education

On the application of the CLE method in a geography-related course, Bukola ³⁹ discovered risks, she never knew existed in one of the halls of residence where she had been residing for about four years, while carrying out her assignment of assessing the risk in halls of residence in the university.

Arimokwu ⁴⁰ views the CLE method of teaching as an interactive one, which exposes students to many issues and prevents them from sleeping in class after a very busy work schedule. Abiodun-Ojo ⁴¹ is of the opinion that this method is preferable to any other as it is difficult to forget the things taught through this method in class.

Aderibigbe ⁴² has stated that three years after graduation, he can still remember some of the illustrations used in class and it is only students who do not attend classes that will not gain from this method of teaching.

Faleti ⁴³ refers to the CLE method as a feedback method and calls for a paradigm shift from the traditional method. Imitini ⁴⁴ views CLE as a person-to-person approach which he has adopted in his consultancy firm and would recommend other teachers to follow. Odunmbaku ⁴⁵ acknowledged the fact that the CLE teaching method made it possible for her to bridge the gap between theory and practice.

Comparing the attitude of law students and that of non-law students exposed to both the CLE method and the traditional teaching method, the findings show that 91.8 per cent of the third-year law students, 100 per cent of the fifth-year law students and 100 per cent of the non-law students have a positive attitude to the CLE method as a mode of receiving instructions. The explanations for the very positive attitude of non-law students exposed to the CLE method are diverse and this is outside the scope of this article.

Benefits of Clinical Legal Education for the Students of UI Law

The benefits derived by UI Law students from CLE and the establishment of a clinic in the UI Law programme could be summarized as follows:

Extensive reform and rich curricula: 91.8 per cent of the third-year students agreed that the CLE method enriches the curricula.

From the discussions above and the findings from the students, to a large extent, it can be said that the UI Law programme has been able to achieve the aims for adopting CLE into the programme of the faculty.

Comments of Law Staff to CLE in UI Law

The comments of law staff, adopting the CLE method, have been both positive and negative.

A staff clinician at UI Law initially found adopting this new style of teaching, in her 300 level torts class, a bit intimidating and challenging. ⁵⁸ Another lecturer found the method odd and thought it could only be adopted in some courses and not in an abstract course like Jurisprudence. After adopting the method, he discovered that it has demystified the abstract nature usually attributed to Jurisprudence and has made the class more interesting and practical. ⁵⁹

In this method of learning, instructors have learnt from the students. This has been attributed to the fact that students have been found to have the ability to reason and bring in new dimensions that the instructor never averted his/her mind to in handling legal issues. A clinician said

Since I adopted CLE in my teaching, I have learnt more from my students than I think I would have if I did not adopt it. ⁶⁰

There is no doubt that CLE improves the teaching skills of instructors. Instructors also gain new knowledge which is introduced into research work.

It has been observed that more lecturers are getting interested in the clinical method of education and some have expressed interest and look forward to the many opportunities of sponsored trainings and workshops to build capacity. The zeal of the instructors to facilitate has also increased as the classes, now, are interactive. The instructors equally ensure they keep abreast with developments in their field so as not to be seen by the students as archaic, outdated and incompetent.

It should be noted that not all members of staff in UI Law have imbibed the CLE method. The attitude of some lecturers towards CLE has been negative. This has its effects on the students and the faculty as a whole. Some of the members of staff find it difficult to adapt to change in their teaching methods, thus preferring to stick to the traditional method of lectures, inherited from the colonial period. This has made it difficult for such lecturers to reach out to the needs of the present generation of students.

Some members of staff, who do not fully understand the CLE method, see it as a distraction from normal conventional academic activities. Members of staff who are not positively inclined to the clinical method of teaching see it as time consuming and also hold the view that it is not the job of law faculties to train students in communication, litigation, negotiation or counselling skills or for law students to give clients advice or counsel, or to even deal at all with live clients. They equally feel that by adopting the clinical method, the faculty is going beyond its bounds by usurping the role of the Nigerian Law School which should be in charge of professional training.

The argument against those who have this attitude about training law students on ethical issues is that the issue of ethics, if not addressed during the few years spent in the university, would be too late to inculcate in one year, during the professional training in the law school, as is the case in Nigeria.

Factors That May Affect the Attitude of Staff and Students to CLE in UI Law

Many factors affect the attitude of staff and students to CLE. Some of these are discussed below.

Conclusion

The introduction of CLE in UI Law in 2008 was a very good decision and it has definitely enhanced teaching, learning and research. If the activity-based methods of CLE are continuously utilized in the teaching at UI Law and outside it, with time, it will be generally accepted as a better method of teaching in the university.