Singing in the rain: making a case for the reform of undergraduate legal education in Uganda

Abstract

The training of lawyers is important because of the vital role they play in ensuring access to justice in society. Law schools were expected to produce lawyers well-suited to provide solutions to address the needs of society. Although lawyers play an essential role in society by representing clients in court, providing legal advice, drafting of legal documents, among others, the current curriculum of law schools in Uganda is not designed to equip students with basic practical skills to enable them improve access to justice for the poor and marginalized people. The study provides a historical analysis of undergraduate legal education as well as examines the potential of clinical legal education (CLE) in providing social justice and equity in society in order to bridge the gap of access to justice. The study highlights the structural challenges that detract from the law serving as tool for the marginalized communities. These include the nature of the law itself, the genesis of establishment of law schools, the style of pedagogy, among others. The study further identified challenges associated with the adoption of clinical methods in the teaching of law. Hence the apparent disconnect between legal education and the justice needs of the society. In view of the above, the study explored the potential of CLE in providing short term solutions to address the above malaise. CLE provides students with an opportunity to acquire basic practical skills while providing free legal services to the society. The study uses the case study of the Public Interest Law Clinic (PILAC) of the School of Law of Makerere University for empirical lessons in improving undergraduate legal education. The study proposes, among others, the training of legal academia in CLE to stimulate individual initiative, making CLE compulsory to all students, improving the policy role of the Law Council and NCHE, as well as improving the resource allocation and discretionary use of allocated resources to improve facilities, student-staff ratio, among others.