Law Clinics and Access to Justice in Kenya: Bridging the Legal Divide

Abstract

Despite the existence of law schools in Kenya, there has been a low uptake of clinical legal education generally and the setting up of law clinics in particular. Given the critical role that law clinics play in clinical legal education, the lack of well-established law clinics has negative implications of clinical legal education as well as the role that law schools, through law clinics, play in promoting access to justice. While the various law schools in Kenya undertake various activities that ideally fall under a law clinic, there has been a lack of institutionalization of law clinics. This has in turn limited the scope end effectiveness of the law clinics both in terms of their efforts to promote access to justice and clinical legal education. The paper argues that in order for this to be rectified, there is need to institutionalise law clinics within the various law schools in the country. Only then will they be more effective in promoting access to justice as well as clinical legal education.