A permanent element of teaching and legal assistance

The idea of ​​the ranking and the methodology for calculating the position in the ranking of law clinics was developed in such a way that clinics do not compete with each other. Each clinic, by gaining maximum points in a given category, can improve its position in the ranking without moving another clinic to a lower place.

The ranking is developed based on statistical data and information collected by the University Legal Clinics Foundation in annual statistical summaries. At the same time, the numerical data and achievements that underlie the ranking are based on data from the previous academic year, not the one that has not yet ended and has not been summed up.

After several difficult years related to the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, it was time to build stability and a certain "good routine" in action. The pandemic severely limited access to services provided by clinics. However, many clinics have coped with this problem by launching remote assistance - whether using remote communication tools, traditional letters, or even e-mail.

- In addition, the war in Ukraine caused an avalanche of refugees. I am proud that almost every student clinic immediately organized legal consultations for refugees. Ukrainian students themselves came to help, helping to communicate in Ukrainian with clients - says Filip Czernicki, president of the University Legal Clinics Foundation.

– I have no doubt that student clinics have become a permanent part not only of the curricula at law faculties, but also constitute a permanent element of the system of access to legal aid in Poland – concludes Filip Czernicki.

The ranking of student university legal clinics (also known as law clinics) was developed based on a methodology that takes into account four key criteria in the operation of law clinics. These include: the ratio of the number of students participating in the clinics to the number of supervisors, the place of the clinics in the university structures, operation in accordance with the standards set by the University Legal Clinics Foundation, and activity that goes beyond the basic tasks of the clinics.

– Each of these categories has the same importance, because for each of them one could receive a maximum of 25 points – Filip Czernicki points out.

However, it should be immediately explained that the above criteria have been classified into two groups. The first group includes those that are "binary", i.e. they either occur or they do not - which means that one could receive either 25 points or 0. This results primarily from the nature of these criteria and their significance for the future and further development of the idea of ​​practical law teaching in clinics. This group includes the place of clinics in the structures of universities and the implementation of standards defined by the Foundation. In the case of standards, the matter is obvious - they can either be met or not.

– Verification of the compliance of the clinic's activities with the standards is carried out, at the request of the clinic itself, by the Foundation's Management Board, which is then confirmed by a resolution of the Foundation's Council. The recognized compliance of the activities with the standards is subject to periodic verification by the Foundation's Management Board – Filip Czernicki points out.

The second category, i.e. the place of the clinic in the university structure, is a more complex criterion. Today, almost all law faculties have decided to include clinical classes in their study programs, and therefore awarding ECTS points for passing such a course alone is not enough to award 25 points in this category. In order to motivate the deans of law faculties to regulate the status of law clinics in the university structure, we decided to award points on the basis of a "zero-one" assessment (which automatically means awarding either 25 points or 0), provided that the law clinic at a given university has the status of a unit in the faculty structure (e.g. department, department, workshop, laboratory). Thus, this criterion is considered one of the most important differentiating factors in the position of a given clinic in the ranking.

The remaining two criteria, i.e. the student-to-supervisor ratio and additional activities, were assessed differently. The student-to-supervisor ratio in a given clinic was developed based on annual reports sent to the Foundation. On this basis, we determined how many students there were per supervisor in a given clinic, with the number of students per supervisor being recalculated in the next step according to the following brackets: if one supervisor supervises more than the group of 16 students provided for in the standards, then 5 points are awarded, while if they supervise a group of fewer than 8 students, they receive the maximum score of 25 points, and if they are between 9 and 15 students, then a score of 15 points is awarded. Thanks to this methodology, we were able to appreciate primarily those clinics where supervision over students is most effective, regardless of whether it is a large or small clinic.

Another important criterion for evaluation is the issue of so-called additional activities. Within this criterion, we have developed five categories that we consider the most important, i.e.:

Information on additional activities was taken from the annual reports of individual clinics and from the knowledge of the Foundation Board on the activities of all student legal clinics in Poland. For activity within each of these subcategories, a maximum of 5 points could be obtained, which gives a total of 25 points. In this way, we were able to reward the best, who do not limit themselves to their basic activities, but also do something more, which aims to either improve the competences of students working in clinics or promote the idea of ​​legal aid and legal awareness of citizens.

By using three different methods of evaluating law clinics, we obtained the most objective ranking, which thus takes into account all aspects of the activities of student university legal clinics.