ANNUAL REPORT 2003 LEGAL CLINICS AND LEGAL SKILLS TRAINING Legal education in the Soviet Union placed special emphasis on the memorization of copious amounts of legal material to the detriment of practical skills that lawyers need to practise effectively, e.g., advocacy, interviewing, and negotiating skills, as well as professional ethics and practice management. While significant changes have been made to the system of legal education in countries of the former Soviet Union, most law students continue to graduate without any practical experience and without the basic skills they need to be lawyers. This problem is compounded by the fact that legal communities also do not, as a rule, provide opportunities for legal professionals to continue their education: There are no courses where practising lawyers can pick up new skills; there are few qualified lawyers to turn to for advice or mentoring. Lawyers in many of these countries face the added challenge of poor legal structures surrounding the practice of law. This means that lawyers are often not paid or are poorly paid for their legal services. In many states, structural legal reforms need to be made at the national level so that lawyers have the necessary legal incentives and protections to enable them to do their jobs. The consequences of poor legal services can be very harmful for people who, for instance, are entitled to social benefits but do not know how to get them, or who have the right to housing but do not know how to secure that right. The impact is often even more pronounced in criminal cases, where the consequences of poor legal services are severe, including the loss of freedom or, in some cases, the loss of life. Filling the gap The ODIHR's Rule of Law Unit carried out projects in two distinct, though related, programme areas in 2003 as part of an effort to fill this gap, by improving the skills of lawyers, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the services they offer to citizens. The ODIHR provided direct support and technical assistance to developing legal clinics in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan. Legal clinics give law students an opportunity to gain practical experience either by handling legal cases under the supervision of a lawyer or through conducting “streetlaw” or legal-literacy programmes. In "live-client" legal clinics, such as the Legal Clinic at the University of Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, law students, under the supervision of an experienced lawyer, actually represent clients and work to help them resolve their particular problem. This has two important consequences: First, it helps law students learn how to be better lawyers; second, it provides free legal services to people 23 Democratization Rule of Law who would otherwise remain without legal assistance. In "streetlaw" clinics that the ODIHR supports in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, students learn to give interactive lessons on basic legal rights to people in their communities. Various groups are targeted in these programmes, including school students and women. The "streetlaw" lessons are interactive and problemoriented, so that people may find answers to the legal problems relevant to their lives. The result of increasing legal literacy is that, as people learn about their rights, they realize what they can demand and expect from the authorities. Legal skills training The ODIHR also started a new programme in Kazakhstan in the fall of 2003 to provide basic skills training to lawyers. Through this programme, the ODIHR is assisting in a practical way to improve professional legal skills and thereby improve the quality of legal services that people receive. The two training sessions completed in 2003 mark a first step in developing a sustainable programme of continuing training for practising lawyers. The ODIHR plans to train some of the programme participants to become trainers for their colleagues and to work with local partners towards institutionalization of such programmes.