Article

Legal Assistance by Clinical Law Asian Journal of Legal Education

3(2) 160–173
Students: A Nigerian Experience © 2016 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
in Increasing Access to Justice SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
for the Unrepresented DOI: 10.1177/2322005816640335
http://ale.sagepub.com

Sam Erugo1

Abstract
Access to justice is assured for all in principle, and the concept closely associated with rule of law.
The technicality of law itself compels the role of legal practitioners in ensuring access to justice.
Consequently, human rights instruments, including the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria, guarantee the right to legal assistance and representation. But do the provisions guarantee the
freedoms in practical terms to all, including the poor and unrepresented citizens? This article argues
that sections 35(2) and 36(6) of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution and similar provisions elsewhere have
nothing to offer the poor in terms of legal representation. In essence, the rights ‘to remain silent or …
until after consultation with a legal practitioner’ and to defend ‘by a legal practitioner of’ one’s choice
have no useful application to the poor. A poor man arrested, detained or charged cannot exercise
stated rights without legal representation. Few may be lucky to have free legal practitioner assigned
to represent them, yet the assigned cannot be ‘his choice’. Others are left unrepresented in any form
whatsoever. Clinical law students now offer limited legal assistance to poor unrepresented persons in
Nigeria. There is no claim that these students can take the place of legal practitioners to satisfy the
guarantees, but in the absence of any legal assistance, this is welcome development. But how does this
legal assistance work? This is illustrated by a Nigerian experience of this exciting practice. The scope is
restricted to Nigeria, and specifically ABSU Law Clinic.

Introduction
The concept of access to justice is a legal requisite and its ambit is incredibly misconstrued and exploited
by many stakeholders. The pursuit of access to justice for all in Nigeria seems essentially rhetoric,
academic and elusive in practical reality. The quest for this ideal access has led to several permutations,
calculations and formulations. One of such formulations is the recent use of clinical law students to
provide legal assistance to the indigent and underrepresented members of some communities. This
practice is gradually becoming an acceptable global practice. As part of their legal training, clinical law
students in many jurisdictions have been specially prepared and inspired in social justice setting to

1
  ABSU Law Clinic, Faculty of Law, Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria.

Corresponding author:
Sam Erugo, ABSU Law Clinic, Faculty of Law, Abia State University, Uturu, Nigeria.
E-mails: sam.erugo@yahoo.com; erugo.si@absu.edu.ng

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Erugo 161

render services to the indigent and underrepresented people. This article examines this growing practice,
explores the institutional framework and nature of the services rendered from the perspective of the
successful Nigerian experience and concludes that this is a worthy practice with potential of increasing
the realm of access to justice in less developing countries. The ABSU Prison Pre-trial Detainee Law
Clinic2 is our case study guide.
This article is divided into nine parts. The first part is the introduction, while the second and third
parts respectively provide the conceptual and institutional frameworks of the students’ offer of legal
assistance. The fourth part treats the law clinic as the hub of subject legal assistance, while the fifth one
deals with the students’ mission to the prisons. The sixth and seventh parts discuss the nature and
limitations and best practices of students’ legal assistance to prisoners respectively, while the next part
discusses the potentials. The last part is the conclusion.

Conceptual Framework
This section provides working definitions for legal concepts and expressions commonly used in this
essay, particularly those of legal assistance, paralegal, clinical law student, clinical legal education and
access to justice.
‘Legal assistance’ relates to assistance provided to persons in need of legal services or legal aid by
those knowledgeable enough to do so. Legal aid is defined as ‘free or inexpensive legal services pro-
vided to those who cannot afford to pay full price’.3 The gamut of legal assistance is very wide and
depends upon the level of development of societies. Such legal assistance is usually provided by lawyers
licensed to practice law, but it could also be provided by paralegals. A ‘paralegal’ is defined as a person
who assists a lawyer in duties related to the practice of law but who is not a licensed attorney.4 A law
student easily fits into this definition when engaged in a clinical legal education assignment and while
providing legal assistance to an indigent prior to referring such client to a licensed attorney for further
assistance.
A ‘clinical law student’ is a person who is engaged in a clinical legal education programme as part of
legal training. ‘Clinical legal education’ itself is simply an experiential method of learning that enables
law students to learn practice skills while in the same learning process providing legal assistance in
circumstances where justice so demands.5 According to Peter A. Joy,6 ‘Clinical legal education is
experiential learning, or hands-on learning through experience. Many educators believe that experiential
learning is one of the most effective means of adult learning, and this is particularly true for learning
most professions….’ The objective of such legal education is usually to teach practical legal skills to law
students in a social justice setting.7 In such a setting, the concern is usually the poor and unrepresented
persons, and this learning method has been very useful.

2
  Large Val, Workshop on Freedom of Information for B.A.N.A Secondary School, Okigwe, IMO State, ABSU Law Clinic, 2 July
2015, available at http://absulawclinic.blogspot.in (last visited 15 July 2015).
3
  Bryan A. Garner (Ed.), Legal Aid, Black’s Law Dictionary (7th ed. 1999), at 903.
4
  Id.
5
  See David J. McQuid-Mason & Robin Palmer, African Law Clinicians’ Manual, 10 (2007).
6
  A. Joy, Learning by Doing, The MacCrate Report: Moving Toward Integrated Learning Experiences, 1 Clinical L. Rev. 401, 405
(1994).
7
  Supra note 5; see also David J. McQuid-Mason, Teaching Social Justice to Law Students through Community Service: The South
African Experience, in Transforming South African Universities: Capacity Building for Historically Black Universities
89–203 (P.F. Iya, N.S. Rembe & J. Baloro eds, 2000).

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162 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

‘Access to justice’ defies a precise definition. While a broad definition of the expression usually
identifies wider issues evincing deprivation of access in social, economic, political and environmental
contexts, the narrow conception basically refers to affording access to legal assistance and other state-
provided service.8 But in the context of a rules-based society, a working definition of ‘access to justice’
is offered by Jody Kollapen9 when he explains that in the framework of a state governed by the
Constitution as the grundnorm (basic or fundamental law) of the people, the people are aware of the rules
and the context within which they exist, they are able to use the rules when needed in order to advance
the objectives of the Constitution and ultimately have proper, substantive and meaningful access to the
various institutions that interpret the rules and deal with the various contestations that inevitably arise.
As Kollapen10 further demonstrates, socio-economic factors and actuality inhibit adherence to the
requirement of access to justice.11 However, access to justice is one of the cardinal values central to
the rule of law. It is this all-important principle that could guarantee equality before the law or equal
justice under law, if ever it was possible.12

The Institutional Framework of Students’ Legal Assistance

The institutional framework that implicates and enables the provision of legal assistance by clinical
law students varies from law to socio-economic. Some of the specific institutions highlighted in this
work include: poverty, constitutional or human rights and the clinical legal education programmes of
the universities or other legal training institutions, for example, the law school. These different forms
of institutions contribute different perspectives on the trend of students’ assistance in Nigeria.
The social institution of poverty connotes exclusion of the poor in the enjoyment of basic life, and
this phenomenon has always challenged legal pundit, especially in the assertion of equality before the
law. Curiously, the rule of law proposed as a panacea for justice assumes equality of citizens before
the law, including access to justice. This is a false assumption of equality vis-à-vis the practical reality,
and as canvassed elsewhere.13
This is probably the greatest deceit of the concept in developing countries like Nigeria with the
overwhelming poor majority. This deceit is manifested further in access to justice when considered from
the broad perspectives of knowledge, environment and quality. How could the law, in practical reality,
meet the needs of the poor in these terms? In Nigeria, the poor are deprived in terms of knowledge,
disadvantaged by the hostile environment and quality of services.
Constitutional and human rights norms constitute the most important institutional and ostensible
legal framework of legal assistance, generally. However, this framework of legal assistance to the
poor is deficient in addressing its peculiar and practical needs. For illustration, § 35(1) of the Nigerian
Constitution, which guarantees the right to personal liberty, provides that ‘Every person shall be entitled
to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in
accordance with a procedure permitted by law.’

8
  Open Society Foundation for South Africa, Access to Justice Roundtable Discussion, Johannesburg, Human Rights and
Governance Programme at the Open Society Foundation for South Africa, 22 July 2003, available at http://osf.org.za/wp/
publications/Access_to_Justice_Roundtable_July_2003.pdf (last visited 25 August 2010).
9
  Id. Keynote Address.
10
  Id.
11
  See also Sam Erugo, Revisiting the Legal Framework of Access to Justice for the Poor in Nigeria, in Law and Social
Development—Essays in Honour of Chief Echeme Emole CFR 86–87 (Ernest Ojukwu & C.K. Nwankwo eds, 2012)
12
  Id. at 85.
13
  Id. at 95.

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Erugo 163

Significantly, subsection (2) of § 35 provides that ‘Any person who is arrested or detained shall
have the right to remain silent or avoid answering any question until after consultation with a legal practi-
tioner or any other person of his own choice.’ From the language of this subsection, it can be concluded
that the consultation need not be with a legal practitioner: it could be with ‘any other person of his
choice’ and this will include a paralegal or law clinician conversant with the legal process. Accordingly,
a law clinician could assist by providing legal advice, where the person arrested or detained cannot
afford to pay for a legal practitioner.
§ 36 of the Constitution, which guarantees the all-important right to fair hearing and right to be
defended, prescribes:

In the determination of his civil rights and obligations, including any question or determination by or against
any government or authority, a person shall be entitled to a fair hearing within a reasonable time by a court or
other tribunal established by law and constituted in such manner as to secure its independence and impartiality.

This right to fair hearing is further guaranteed by § 36(6) which provides that

Every person who is charged with a criminal offence shall be entitled to—
…
(c) defend himself in person or by legal practitioners of his own choice;
(d) examine, in person or by his legal practitioners, the witnesses called by the prosecution before any court or
tribunal and….

In principle, these are noble provisions, but implementation of the same could be challenging. Where an
accused person has no legal practitioner to represent him, as demonstrated later, in defending himself he
could avail some legal tips from some paralegals, including law students. Generally, the freedom
guaranteed under § 36 of the Constitution is an attempt to provide every citizen access to justice
demonstrable in the form of an independent and impartial court and the opportunity to receive a fair and
just trial. The composite right lies at the root of enforcement of freedoms generally and forms the
foundation of every society ruled by law. Thus, provisions of legal assistance and representation make
the rights meaningful while stimulating values central to the rule of law and justice.14 Again, it has been
rightly observed that rule of law is deficient if it is not just, understandable and responsive to the needs
of the people and society.15
It is always difficult to demonstrate that rule of law accords equal access and opportunities to all,
hence the challenge of the poor, the underrepresented and the indigent. Rule of law and policy that dis-
criminate against these categories of people raise social justice issues that ought to be of concern to all.
Both § 35(2) and § 36(6) of the Constitution make allusion to the right to legal representation for all
citizens at specified stages in a criminal process where their civil rights could be in jeopardy. However,
the institutional failure of this right vis-à-vis the poor has been appropriately described as ‘the absence
of legal oversight, advice, and assistance’.16 Where the parties are of full capacity, the only legal
obligation is to afford reasonable opportunity for the legal practitioner of their choice to appear to assist

14
  Deborah Rhode, Access to Justice 9 (2004).
15
  Mizanur Rahman, Addressing Poverty and Lawyering for Justice 22–25 (African Legal Clinics Roundtable Meeting, Working
Paper No. 80, November 2007); see, generally, Erugo, supra note 11.
16
  The Governance and Justice Group (GJG), Lack of Political Will, available at http://www.governancejustice.org/index.
php?option=com (last visited 11 July 2010).

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164 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

or represent them17 at all levels of judicial or quasi-judicial process where such assistance is required.
However, the right to legal practitioner of one’s choice is limited by certain indeterminate capacities
and relative deprivations. Although the poor or indigent person is entitled to the guaranteed legal
representation, the practice of that representation could be an affront to justice.18 Essentially, access to
a legal practitioner is generally at a cost, and the poor cannot afford such a luxury. What sense will
this right make to a poor person who cannot afford to pay for a legal practitioner at all? In practice, this
right works for the rich, and the extent of enjoyment of this right could depend on capacity to engage
a reputable and respectable legal practitioner.
The formal legal framework that provides assistance for the poor and indigent fails to recognize the
full implication of economic and other considerations that determine whether there is legal representation
or not and the nature or standard of legal assistance or representation available to persons in the pursuit
of legal rights. For those who can afford to pay for legal representation, the choice in terms of quality of
legal service may depend largely on capacity to pay, among other factors. However, where a person lacks
the capacity to pay for legal services, the constitutional right to representation or legal assistance becomes
worthless. Thus, it is argued that the poor are not empowered by the dominant traditions of constitutional
guarantees of equality of all, nor are they liberated from the desperate conditions of poverty. It is only
legal assistance that provides underrepresented people and ideas with a voice in the legal arena.19 Since
the ordinary citizen may not appreciate the law fully to assist him or herself, and may have to consult a
lawyer, the position of power of the lawyer in society must be appraised. Mizanur Rahman20 notes that
‘…in contemporary society, the lawyer holds a position of power partly because the law has drawn away
from regular people and become a system unto itself, un-accessible to a non-lawyer, with its own
language, and its own liturgies of practice…’. As far back as 1932, the Supreme Court of the United
States had observed that the ‘...right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not
comprehend the right to be heard by counsel…’.21 The right was later expanded, as suggested. This
position formed the foundation for judges’ later recognition entrenched in the right to lawyers for the
indigent.22
Besides poverty and constitutional/human rights, clinical legal education programme is another
institutional background for students’ legal assistance. From the foregoing discussion of poverty and
constitutional issues, some of the many critical questions include: how the poor can actually engage a
legal practitioner of his choice, in view of his lack of capacity to pay for the lawyer of his choice and
whether the pro bono or other lawyer appointed for him could actually be said to be his choice. These are
ethical and moral questions for the law itself. But more critical is the issue of whether there is any lawyer
or paralegal at all to attend to even minute legal needs of the poor in Nigeria and other developing
countries. The virtual non-existence of legal assistance of any sort for a majority of poor and under-
represented Nigerians constitutes a social problem requiring intervention, such as that law students can
provide. A good concentration of such unrepresented persons is found in prisons. The introduction and
institutionalization of clinical legal education provided an enabling environment for law students to
volunteer supplemental legal assistance to the unrepresented people in Nigeria. Clinical legal education
programme as a global legal education reform movement was embraced by dynamic legal scholars in

17
  Nigeria Const. § 36(6)(c), to ‘…defend himself in person or by legal practitioners of his own Choice’.
18
  Erugo, supra note 11, at 94–95.
19
  Rahman, supra note 15, at 80.
20
  Id. at 82.
21
  Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45 (1932); see also Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
22
  Rhode, supra note 14.

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Erugo 165

Nigeria starting around 2003. It was a welcome reform programme following a period of widespread
condemnation of the falling standard of legal education and lawyers produced by the universities.
The drive was momentous, and in record time, many clinical law programmes were established in
universities and the law school with ambitious programmes, incorporating law clinics.
The ‘Clinical Legal Education’ programme of the Abia State University (ABSU) was established in
2004 as a teaching method23 and legal education reform programme of the Faculty of Law (‘Faculty’).
This was a pilot clinical law programme with a law clinic (ABSU Law Clinic)24 and formed a part of
necessary change of approach to legal education in Nigeria. In line with best global practices, the clinical
legal education programme comprises educational and service components. The education component
consists of specially designed subjects hitherto not part of the curriculum of Nigerian universities.
In the service component,25 an attempt is made to provide measurable social services in the course of
students’ learning26 which are delivered through the law clinic. This is the academic institutional setting
for the use of students to provide legal assistance where the official legal aid has woefully failed to
address the legal needs of the poor and unrepresented mass of the population. As the clinic history will
show later, the ABSU Prison Pre-trial Legal Clinic was born in 2008 as a child of necessity to engage
a large number of clinical law students in a practical learning exercise, which proved instructive as
serving the needs of the prisoners. Both the prisoners as well as the prison officials called for more of
such visits. So, while the law students needed the prison to learn practical legal and ethical skills, both
the social and criminal justice systems needed the consequential supplemental legal assistance.
To conclude, it can be said that there is a discernible inequality in the practical application of
the concept of rule of law in general and access to justice in particular. This situation, coupled with
overarching poverty in Nigeria and the failure of formal institutional guarantee of legal assistance,
constitutes the institutional background for the opportunity offered by the law clinic students’ legal skills
in a practical justice milieu where they learn while providing legal assistance.

The Law Clinic as Hub for Legal Assistance

A law clinic is the experiential or service hub of a clinical legal education programme serving as a
teaching method with educational27 and service components.28 The law clinic is at the core of both the
learning and service deliveries associated with clinical legal education, and vice versa. The learning is
experiential from the clinical work, while the service delivery constitutes much of the experiential
learning exercise. This course of students’ learning requires vital social education for the future lawyer
and dictates purposeful service in social development. This social education identifies major social
problems of the environment or community for necessary intervention by student clinicians.

23
  See Ernest Ojukwu, Odi Lagi & Sam Erugo, Impact Assessment of Clinical Legal Education in Nigeria, NULAI Nigeria
Abuja 5 (2013). The term ‘clinical legal education in its broadest sense refers to any kind of experiential, practical or active
training for the legal profession which has as its primary pedagogical focus the teaching of the craft of lawyering’.
24
  It was in collaboration with the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI Nigeria) and financial support from the
Open Society Justice Initiative, available at www.nulai.org (last visited 23 March 2015); see also, Ernest Ojukwu, Sam Erugo, &
Charles Adekoya, Clinical Legal Education: Curriculum Lessons and Materials, NULAI Nigeria Abuja 5 (2013).
25
  Supra note 23, at 6. ‘Law faculties established law clinics where law students provide free legal services to indigent members’.
26
  Id. at 5 ‘…any kind of experiential, practical or active training…’
27
  The courses taught include interviewing and counselling, access to justice, public interest lawyering, file management, ethics and
professional responsibility, alternative dispute resolution, legal research and legal writing, etc.; see Ojukwu, Erugo & Adekoya,
supra note 24, at 12–13.
28
  See, generally, Ernest Ojukwu et al., Handbook on Prison Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic, NULAI Nigeria Abuja (2012).

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166 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

An important social problem of the average Nigerian community is the obvious lack of access to
justice. This problem was well recognized at inception, and through a general service law clinic, the
ABSU Law Clinic attended to several cases concerning the indigent, bordering on access to justice.
Subsequently, the clinic has progressed to a specialized Prison Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic.29
The need for such a specialized law clinic arises out of two major concerns relevant to the objective
of clinical legal education: first, the inadequate training of lawyers, and second, the limited or near
absence of access to justice for indigent prisoners and pre-trial detainees in Nigeria. This has resulted in
unnecessary and unhealthy prison congestion and failed attempts at decongestion. Unfortunately, the
State institutions for legal assistance appear not to be working.

The Mission to the Prisons

The mission of a law clinic at the prisons is comprehensible from the identified objective of clinical legal
education generally, that is, the twin purposes of education and service. The twin purposes translate to a
clinical project in the provision of supplemental legal assistance to some pre-trial detainees and improve-
ment in training of future lawyers.30 It is an experiential learning trip, and, at the same time, a social
development and intervention project. The mission has been succinctly explained as ‘the provision of
access to justice for the indigent pre-trial detainees and the equipment of law students with the requisite
knowledge, skills and value to facilitate the process of this access to justice’.31
For the ABSU Law Clinic, the initial experience at the prisons was inspiring. In its 2007–08 session,
the Senate of the University reviewed the clinical legal education curriculum submitted to it by the
faculty for approval. It appreciated the importance of the programme in the training of future lawyers
and made the programme compulsory for 400 and 500 level students. This posed immediate challenges,
and to make the programme available to over 100 students of the fifth-year class, we were compelled to
launch the first ever Nigerian Law Faculty full-fledged Prisons’ Service Clinic.32
The modest objectives set for that first prisons’ visit were:

1. to use the student-clinicians to supplement the existing legal aid and

2. to provide the much needed opportunity for the student-clinicians to be exposed to live clients
with all the benefits derivable there from and…to learn/be tested on interviewing/counselling,
how to write legal opinions, how to manage clients/files, letter writing to seek help for deserving
cases, etc.33

29
  See www.nulai.org (last visited 23 March 2015).
30
  See Ernest Ojukwu & Odi Lagi, Manual on Prison Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic, NULAI Nigeria Abuja 96 (2012); see also
Sam Erugo, The Need and Mission/Objectives of Prisons/Pre-trial Detention Law Clinics, paper presented at the NULAI Nigeria
Prison/Pre-trial Detention Law Clinics Teachers’ Training and Curriculum Development Workshop, 21–23 August 2011,
Port Harcourt.
31
  Id. at 97; see also www.nulai.org (last visited 23 March 2015).
32
  ABSU Prisons’ Service Clinic established in February 2008. The first Pre-Prisons visit workshop held at Uturu on 11 February
2009, available at http://absulawclinic.blogspot.com/2009/02/1st-pre-fieldprisons-visit-workshop-11_23.html (last visited
21 April 2014).
33
  See Sam Erugo, ABSU Prisons Services Legal Clinic Report of the 2007/2008 Session, 8 February 2009, available at
http://absulawclinic.blogspot.com/search/label/Report%20No.%201 (last visited 21 April 2014).

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Erugo 167

The field project was a huge success and revealing.34 It took that very first prisons’ visit by the clinicians
for the faculty to realize the enormity of the prison congestion concern at Okigwe, Umuahia and
Aba prisons. It equally exposed our potential. Although the clinic had proposed to visit Umuahia and
Okigwe prisons only, it was persuaded to help at Aba as well. The situation at these prisons was such
that the student-clinicians represented much hope to the prisoners who had no idea of other free legal
assistance.
While ‘provision of access to justice for the indigent pre-trial detainees’35 is social service dictated by
the special need of the clinic’s environment, the ‘equipment of law students with the requisite knowledge,
skills and value to facilitate the process’36 is the expected learning outcome of the exercise. Inculcating
the pro bono culture and ethics of community service are additional outcomes or impact of the project.
These objectives have been achieved by the law clinic in the past few years of the students’ practice at
the prisons. The student-clinicians have provided extensive though limited legal assistance to several
pre-trial detainees37 and, in fact, continue to release lucky indigent detainees from long incarceration.
Till the date of writing, the clinic has released over 20 indigent pre-trial detainees from the prisons.38
However, the real test of success lies in the student-clinicians conducting the prisons visit the right way
and learning through the process.
With the successes recorded by the students over the years in conducting prison visits, there is no
doubt that participating students have imbibed very vital knowledge, skills and values relevant to legal
practice generally and criminal justice administration in particular. Notable among the learning out-
comes of a Prison Pre-trial Detainee Clinic Project are knowledge of relevant law and legal instruments,
skills in interviewing and counselling, legal writing/drafting, advocacy/problem-solving, report writing,
research/fact finding, time management and file management, among others;39 these also include values
in public service/pro bono, confidentiality, teamwork, confidence, etc.40 Our recent graduates attest to
this success.

Nature and Limitations of Legal Assistance in the Law Clinic

Experience has shown that law students in Nigeria can render virtually all legal assistance required by
the indigent and underrepresented people, with the exception of representation by appearance in court.

34
  The success of that effort contributed in no small measure in the widespread adoption of the prisons’ work by other law clinics
in Nigeria. The work of law clinics at the prisons have subsequently been reviewed, modified and harmonized over the years by
NULAI Nigeria. Currently, well-researched and helpful materials containing a full course on Prison/Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic
are available for student and faculty engaged in prisons work. See Ojukwu & Lagi, supra note 30.
35
  Id., see also www.nulai.org (last visited 23 March 2015).
36
  See www.nulai.org (last visited 23 March 2015).
37
  See Sam Erugo, ABSU Prisons Services Legal Clinic—Report of the 2007/2008 Session, loc. cit., showing that in 2007/2008
session, clinic attended to 107 prisoners at Okigwe and Umuahia Prisons. In 2008/2009, it attended to 151 prisoners at Okigwe,
Aba and Umuahia Prisons. The service has improved since then: between 2011 and 2013, the clinic has assisted in the release of
over 20 pre-trial detainees from the prisons. See http://absulawclinic.blogspot.com/ (last visited 21 April 2014).
38
  A record release of 10 pre-trial detainees was recorded by the clinic in 2011. See http://absulawclinic.blogspot.com/
search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=20 (last visited 21
April 2014).
39
  Ojukwu & Lagi, supra note 30, at 100.
40
  Id. at 101.

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168 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

In the last six years, students of ABSU Law Clinic have rendered various legal assistance to the indigent
and underrepresented people, and the services include:41

1. Counselling
2. Prison monitoring—observing, assessing and reporting on prison conditions and violations
3. Filing, processing and following up bail applications
4. Contacting detainees’ family
5. Participating in jail delivery advocacy with the Chief Judge
6. Interventions with Director of Public Prosecutions, Legal Aid and non-governmental organization
(NGO) offices
7. Interventions with private practitioners for assistance
8. Assisting in categorizing cases
9. Obtaining clients’ details for further action
10. Conducting research, writing legal opinions and preparing relevant court processes
11. Court monitoring
12. Acting as clearing house for other legal aid organizations.

There are obvious institutional and practical limitations to the students’ assistance in Nigeria; and this is
a global phenomenon. Edwin Rekosh observes the trend in Europe:

While there are limits to what a student is permitted to do on behalf of clients according to national legislation,
students can do a lot to fulfill the unmet legal needs in society. Students can provide legal information; clarify
legal issues for individuals with legal problems, conduct legal research, counsel and in some cases represent
individuals before administrative or other instances.42

In Nigeria, there are no legal provisions on legal representation: law students are not allowed any
form of representation in the courts and the rules of legal practice have no place for paralegals. But the
students do prepare court processes and write legal opinion under supervision. The students are super-
vised by qualified legal practitioners, mostly law teachers, with whom they can go to court to observe
relevant proceedings where the clinic is involved. This student practice under supervision ensures that
the student can learn to do virtually all in the litigation process, except court appearance. The Nigerian
student does much more than that listed by erudite researcher, Edwin Rekosh, in view of the peculiar
legal needs of the community.
Again, there is an apparent lack of expertise: certain areas of law that students are exposed to may
not be covered in the curriculum.43 This limitation is easily addressed by specialization which will
allow the clinics to concentrate on specific areas where the students are competent and where the vital
resources are available, for instance, the Prison Pre-trial Detention Law Clinics. The students are not
professionally responsible, though they may be imbued with professional responsibility ideals.

41
  See, generally, Ojukwu, Akinseye-George, Chiroma, Erugo, Eyo, Nwankwo, et al., supra note 28, at 158–68; see also http://
absulawclinic.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2011-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:
00&max-results=20 (last visited 21 April 2014).
42
  The Development of Legal Clinic Teaching: A Global Perspective-International Experience, the History of Legal Clinics, in
The Legal Clinic: The Idea, Organisation, Methodology 44–45 (Dariusz Lomowski ed., 2005), available at http://www.fupp.
org.pl/down/legal_clinic.pdf (last visited 20 March 2015).
43
  McQuid-Mason & Palmer, supra note 5, at 40.

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Erugo 169

There is a challenge to continuity of legal assistance as the students may not be able to pursue all cases
to logical conclusion. This limitation is closely related to time constraints. There is a need for a referral
mechanism44 to ensure that some clients are not abandoned halfway. The clinics could easily identify and
work with governmental organizations and NGOs to whom difficult or uncompleted files are referred for
completion. An attempt by the Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI Nigeria) to
establish such partnerships between affiliated Nigerian law clinics and the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria
has not materialized.
Arguably, the standard of service offered by students may not match those of fully trained practition-
ers. Admittedly, the benefit of years of practical experience of legal practice could make some difference.
Again, a legal practitioner could exude more confidence. But much depends on the knowledge of law,
practical legal skills and experience of a student in doing the paralegal work. There is also the element of
passion. The passion with which the law student wants to show he/she can do it and achieve result cannot
be ignored. Much more important is the all-pervasive legal assistance offered by law students to meet
several legal needs of the indigent and underrepresented segment of the community where they serve.
Finally, there is the constraint in balancing the academic work required of students to graduate from
the institution with their social service assignment to offer legal assistance to the indigent and marginal-
ized members of the university community seeking assistance of the law clinic.45 Again, there are
obvious time constraints. The students can only work for the clinic and its clients during time allocated
for such project while the faculty is in session. Generally, there is apparent conflict of interest vis-à-vis
the educational purpose and students’ time especially.

Best Practices
Best practice is to see legal assistance as a social development intervention project. There is no argument
that the Nigerian clinical legal education programme is a social development interventionist project with
the objective of social change in learning and social service delivery.46 The social intervention adopts
a project cycle carefully designed from intellectually-driven baseline studies or survey of the average
Nigerian community. Such studies, writings and other works reveal intolerable, limited or absence of
access to justice to indigent prisoners as a social problem or concern. The planning identified the need to
provide supplemental legal assistance as the purpose or objective of the project.47 Consequently, to lay a
good foundation beginning with a project design, comprising appraisal, evaluation, monitoring and
concluding with impact assessment are pivotal to a successful project. This will inform the lesson plan
incorporating further learning outcomes and activities.
The pre-trial detention practice is simplified by the teaching method. A simple approach to effective
prisons visit planning will include:48

1. Project design in line with best practices in social development intervention: The first stage of
any such development project is appraisal. It is vitally important to appraise the project and to be

44
  Id. at 43.
45
  Id. at 12.
46
  See Ojukwu, Akinseye-George, et al., supra note 28, at 153, available at www.nulai.org/.../2-bookpublications?...prison-pre-
trial-detainee-law-clinic (last visited 23 March 2015).
47
  See Ojukwu, Lagi & Erugo, supra note 23, at 10.
48
  See Ojukwu, Akinseye-George et al., supra note 28, at 168; see also Ojukwu & Lagi, supra note 30, at 1–4.

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170 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

sure of the desired objectives. A good foundation for any project is achieved by having clearly
considered fixed objective or mission with specific reference to an established social need. It is
usual sometimes to do baseline studies, surveys or other preliminary projects affording relevant
data and general information necessary to establish a social need and isolate the specific objective
of a social intervention. Such baseline studies or other preliminary projects are intellectual inputs
or exercises and, therefore, part of the learning process. They are necessary not just in identifying
social problems or concern, but also in suggesting strategic interventions.49
2. Lesson plan: A lesson plan specifying learning activities leading to the visit, including pre-visit
assignments, workshop and seminars, interviewing and counselling sessions and sessions on
relevant laws, skills and values. It has been rightly observed that ‘lesson plans with set outcomes
and objectives are a sine qua non to activities programmed to achieve the outcomes’.50
3. Prison visit: This is the main activity for observation, data collection, interviews and counselling
sessions. The students can observe the general prison conditions and collect vital data to assist
and assess compliance with standard treatment of prisoners. Interviews and counselling sessions
help elicit necessary information for further legal assistance to the prisoner by the students or
other legal service providers.
4. Report and opinion writing: After each prison visit, the students will usually write a report of the
visit and submit legal opinion based on data collected. These are very vital in pursuing further
the objectives of the project.
5. Follow-up activities, including repeat visits and interventions: The report and opinion written
by students will determine the next line of action. This action will include repeat visits to the
prisons to elicit more information or collect additional data. If all necessary information is
available, the relevant intervention will start.

The foregoing procedure is simple and has been adopted by the ABSU Law Clinic and is modifiable to
suit set learning and/or service objectives.

Potentials
The reports and outcomes of the ABSU Law Clinic practice of the past few years have confirmed the
potentials of clinical work providing learning platform for effective skills-based legal training and
paralegal services for the indigent prisoners.51 The latter promise of paralegal service has been profound
in Nigeria with the realization that most of the target prisoners have no other choice or opportunity of
assistance.52 There is no doubt that an average law student can effectively provide a number of paralegal
services listed earlier, and this fact is demonstrated by the ABSU Law Clinic experience. Where the
student is well trained and knowledgeable, the quality of such service could match those of an average
legal practitioner.
Perhaps the greater potential is the outcome of the process in the moulding of future lawyers, consider-
ing the need to have competent lawyers and the role of lawyers in societal development generally.

49
  Ojukwu, Lagi & Erugo, supra note 23, at 9.
50
  Id. at 8.
51
  Id. at 31–39.
52
  Id. at 48.

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Erugo 171

There is no doubt that the outcome of social change envisaged in the design of the clinical programme
at inception has been achieved. The NULAI impact assessment of clinical legal education in Nigeria53
reports of graduated clinical law students interviewed as follows: ‘90% admitted that “the clinical pro-
gramme played significant role in making them acquire skills and competencies not provided for at
the Faculty before now…and in raising consciousness for social justice and awakening the urge to do
something about it”’.
To achieve the quality of legal education capable of meeting the needs of the society in terms
of competence, the programme aims at producing lawyers with necessary skills as genuine advocates
of change. Reviewing the change in legal training, the Nigerian Attorney General and Minister of
Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, SAN, insists that

The Council…is expected to constantly review and update the curricula, teaching methods and evolve an efficient
filtration process that ensures…produce lawyers equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century…lawyers
capable of providing manpower needs of the country in the emerging fields of law and technology such as….54

Above all, the Attorney General posits:

[O]ur legal training should also equip lawyers with the necessary skills and high sense of social consciousness
and patriotism necessary to transform them to genuine advocates of change in our society. The training should
equally…imbue our new wigs with a sense of responsibility and the willingness to contribute to the resolution
of societal problems and empathy for the less privileged members of society.55

To achieve the level of legal training capable of bringing social change in Nigeria is an objective of
the clinical legal education programme. This is a global reform and not peculiar to Nigeria. The
same concept resonated at the 4th Global Alliance for Justice Education conference which was held
in Cordoba, Argentina from 27 November to 2 December 2006, with the conference theme being
‘Educating Lawyers for Social Justice: Law, Poverty and Social Change’. The conference56 identified
and thoroughly discussed the following strands of the subject:

1. Addressing unmet legal need and legal service alongside legal education.
2. Professional responsibility: Educating lawyers in social justice.
3. Socially relevant legal education: Matching the curriculum with social needs.
4. Poverty, reform and education: Effecting change through education and research.
5. Public legal education: The role of law schools in improving legal literacy.57

These threads of discourse comprise areas of learning that the two components of the clinical legal
education programmes encompass and which the present programme represents.58 Analyzed in the
specific societal context, the ambit of the strands represents the content of a reformed curriculum and
teaching for social justice and change. Social change implicates recognizable difference in social issues,

53
  Id. at 31.
54
  Address at the inauguration of the Council of Legal Education in Abuja on 19 March 2012.
55
  Adoke, supra note 40, at 2–3.
56
  See, GAJE 2006 Conference Report, available at http://www.gaje.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GAJE-2006-Conference-
Report-Cordoba.pdf (last visited 26 March 2015).
57
  Id. See also, GAJE, Draft Report, 4th GAJE Conference (2006).
58
  Id.

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172 Asian Journal of Legal Education 3(2)

problems or reforms. The expression ‘social change’ is closely associated with and often erroneously
used almost synonymous with the concept of ‘social justice’. In this sense, the latter expression is seen
as recognition of societal need for justice in the tangible sense, as opposed to justice according to the law
in view of obvious inequalities that may make justice seem unreal. Social change, however, appears
to have a wider conceptual meaning incorporating change in attitudes towards social issues, problems
or reforms and, hence, includes social justice which is a desired change in law. Social change refers to
‘an alteration in the social order of a society….Accordingly it may also refer to social revolution, such
as…presented in Marxism, or to other social movements, such as…the Civil rights movement….’59
Social change builds community-based responses that address underlying social problems on an
individual, institutional, community, national and/or international level.60
In comparison, social justice looks at ‘justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and
privileges within a society’.61 In other words, the focal point of social justice is the fairness or justness
of distribution or allocation of societal benefits to constituent individuals and groups. This may not
equate with justice according to law, but is usually associated with notions of human rights and
equal opportunity.62 This is a desired social change. Thus, while social change refers to any significant
alteration over time in behaviour patterns and cultural values and norms,63 social justice is one of those
desired changes.
Regarding the role of lawyers in society, Honourable Justice Onalaja64 observes:

The role of lawyers is a pervasive one, straddling the political, economic as well as social life of the society.
After all, lawyers are instrumental to whatever situation any country may find itself in. Lawyers, as Judges,
in private or corporate practice, in the academics or in government, shape the society and the lives of their
fellow human beings.

According to Newton D. Baker in an address at the Columbia University as far back as 1933, ‘One of
my deepest convictions is that so far as the institutional progress of a people is concerned, its salvation
lies in the hands of the profession of the Bar.’65
However, a lawyer can only be as good as the system of legal education that produced him. Legal
education—academic as well as vocational—is a vital ingredient that affects the quality of our justice
system and the role of lawyers in the political, economic and social development of our country. We see
this daily in relation to litigation where the role of lawyers is most visible. The quality of judicial
decisions and the coherence of the reasoning underlying a judgment depend upon the quality of the

59
  See, Social Change, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_changehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_change (last
visited 16 June 2012).
60
  Leadership Paradigm Inc., Social Change, Leadership Paradigms, available at http://www.leadershipparadigms.com/docs/
SOCIAL.pdf (last visited 16 June 2012).
61
  Social Justice, Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press, available at http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/
english/social-justice (last visited 20 March 2015).
62
  Cf. Supra note 60.
63
  Social Change defined: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Social-Change-Defined.topicArticleId- 26957,articleId- 26951.
html (last visited 16 June 2012).
64
  M.O. Onolaja, Problem of Legal Education in Nigeria, Alimi & Co., available at http://www.alimiandco.com/publications/
ACCREDITATION%20AND%20LEGAL%20EDUCATION%20IN%20NIGERIA.pdf (last visited 23 March 2015).
65
  Id.

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Erugo 173

argument presented to the court and upon the ability of the judge. All these depend upon the quality of
our legal education.66
There is no doubt that a clinical legal education programme has the potential of improving the quality
of future lawyers while also improving access to justice. This desired change is already discernible for
the current practice of the clinics.67

Conclusion
Access to justice and rule of law are seemingly rhetoric concepts in the practical reality of the unrepre-
sented people in Nigeria. Although rights that guarantee access to justice, including the right to legal
representation, are enshrined in the Constitution, these are illusory to the poor who cannot afford the
services of a legal practitioner. Clinical programmes in Nigeria and other developing states have started
to provide legal assistance to this unrepresented group. This programme was initially propelled in
Nigeria by the inadequacy of legal training hitherto offered to trained lawyers. But the service compo-
nent epitomized by the specialized Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic has provided the much needed
learning and service opportunity for the student-clinicians. Using the prisoners, the students learn
various lawyering skills and values while also rendering supplemental legal assistance to pre-trial
detainees. The Pre-trial Detainee Law Clinic is a well-designed, purpose-driven social development
intervention model.68 The objective is to improve access to justice for the unrepresented people
while future lawyers learn to become competent lawyers. In this process, the Nigerian experience
has revealed a sustainable teaching and service practice. The service has proved quite useful in increas-
ing access to justice. The model is recommended to jurisdictions with provisions and legal environment
like Nigeria.

66
  JtMorenkejiOnalaja, supra note 64. See also O. Ojo, Chairman’s Welcome Address, 5th Distinguished Jurist Lecture, National
Association of Democratic Lawyers NADL (2003), as cited in MorenkejiOnalaja, supra note 64.
67
  Ojukwu, Lagi & Erugo, supra note 23, at 40.
68
  Ojukwu & Lagi, supra note 30, at 7, 10 and 11.

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