Developing Strategies for Academic and Financial Sustainability: the Brescia Legal Clinic's Experience

This paper deals with two main issues: first, the academic and financial sustainability of a legal clinical program. This first topic faces the problem of raising clinical education in traditional schools of law belonging to the civil law tradition, not only having regards to the practical difficulties Brescia law school’s teachers had to face and overcome, but also having in mind the problems intimately related to the legal teaching techniques in a Civil Law country. The second issue deals with the challenges faced by a clinical legal teaching, in a context that even at a European level is quickly changing. The main challenges related to the starting of a clinic teaching concern the professional role of a clinical teacher. Because the clinical teaching is not (yet) recognized as different from traditional courses, within the next few years it shall be vital to assess the ‘scientific branch’ of clinical courses, the relationship with the Bar apprenticeship, and the acquisition of new new pedagogical skills. The final challenge for a legal clinic experience is to put its effort in using new pedagogical methods in order to achieve higher educational goals, not limited to provide students with knowledge, skills and competences (in compliance with the European Union and the Bologna process), but also with values.