Clinical Programmes
Legal Aid Clinic
Location
The Legal Aid Clinic is housed in a separate building on the eastern side of the Mona Campus on the Gibraltar Camp Road. It is approximately two miles from the Norman Manley Law School.
Staff
The clinic is headed by:
- Director:
- Mr. Maurice Saunders
- Supported by tutors:
- Mr. George Belnavis
- Miss Fara Brown
- Administrator:
- Mrs. J. Karen Bailey
The Legal Aid Clinic is a department of the Norman Manley Law School and is a training facility for second year students. The Clinic, which deals with a wide range of criminal and civil matters in the Resident Magistrates Courts and the Supreme Court, is under the direction of a Director and full-time faculty staff.
The opening hours of the Clinic are:
Mondays - Thursdays: 9.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.
Fridays: 9.00 a.m. to 3.30 p.m.
Contact the Clinic
- Telephone
- (876) 927-1007/977-2880/927-1660-9 Ext. 2598
- Fax
- (876) 977-3605
- Address
- P.O. Box 231, Mona Campus, University of the West Indies, Kingston 7, Jamaica W.I.
- lac@uwimona.edu.jm
Advocacy
Advocacy is an established part of the Law School programme and is designed to give students practical training in advocacy skills
In Year 1, students are introduced to the general principles of advocacy in lectures and there are also tutorials involving mooting practical exercises. The course complements the Criminal Practice and Procedure, Civil Practice and Procedure and Evidence courses by role play/simulation of topics dealt with in these courses.
In Year 2 students are required to participate in two mock trials - a criminal and a civil trial, one as an advocate and the other as an instructing attorney. Students are videotaped and assessed by the Course Director and the presiding judge and are required to be certified competent.
Year 2 students may also participate in a competition to select a team to represent the Law School in a regional mooting competition, involving all three Council of Legal Education Schools.
In Service Training
All Year 1 students are required to undergo an in-service training programme for a minimum of ten weeks during the summer vacation of each year. They are placed in public and private law offices in a Commonwealth Caribbean territory of their choice.
Where a student chooses to undergo his/her practical training in a territory of which he/she is a non-national, such a student has to conform with the relevant immigration requirements.
Court Attendance
There is a compulsory court attendance programme for students of the Law School. Students are required to attend a number of actual criminal and civil trials in both the Supreme Court and the Resident Magistrates Courts. Attendance must be certified by a court office or an attorney-at-law who is present in court.
American Caribbean Law Initiative Clinic
The Council of Legal Education's Law Schools namely the Norman Manley Law School, Eugene Dupuch Law School (Bahamas) and the Hugh Wooding Law School (Trinidad & Tobago) have established an American Law Initiative (ACLI) with the Florida Coastal School of Law, Nova Southeastern University and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
The purpose of the initiative is to enable the participating institutions to derive the benefits of a collaborative relationship based on the shared goals of providing training in practical skills, partnered learning opportunities, comparative legal experience, and multicultural exposure, all within the framework of learning how to understand and serve the communities of the participating students.
One of the clinic's initiatives is a Caribbean Law Practicum that allows students to work on legal problems identified by an Attorney General selected from one of the participating Caribbean jurisdictions. This faculty-supervised practicum serves as a legal resource for up-to-date information, analysis, and strategies in substantive areas agreed to by the participating institutions. Focal points include international law, constitutional law, criminal law, government and legal ethics, and law and technology.
The Practicum provides students with the opportunity to develop professional skills such as problem-solving, legal analysis and research, factual inquiries, and dispute resolution.
