Legal aid and clinical legal education in Europe and the USA: Are they compatible?

Abstract

The history of legal aid in the USA differs greatly from that of the Nordic countries. The right to counsel in criminal matters is constitutionally recognised, thus requiring the state to provide funding for legal aid in virtually any criminal proceeding. No such rule applies, however, to civil legal services to the poor, which were established in 1974 through federal legislation to create a national Legal Services Corporation (LSC), and which continues to operate today, totally separate from all criminal legal aid. When Ronald Reagan won the presidency in 1980, his administration attempted to abolish the LSC, arguing that law students and legal clinics could pick up much of the burden of legal services to the poor in civil matters. His efforts provoked backlash from much of the legal community, including the American Bar Association and the growing clinical movement, which had become stronger, more independent, and more supported within law schools before and during the 1980s. This chapter addresses the ways in which the clinical community within US law schools successfully fought to avoid assuming a significant role in the provision of civil legal aid. It also compares resistance in the USA with European efforts to provide significant legal aid through clinics, using Poland’s robust clinical programmes, developed after the fall of the Soviet Union, as an example of such programmes.