Hebron University Participates in a Workshop on Legal Clinics

Hebron, 14 March 2012—Hebron University participated in a two-day workshop (13-14 March 2012) on legal clinics organized by the United Nations Development Programme (Rule of Law & Access to Justice Programme in the occupied Palestinian territory), in Ramallah, Palestine. Hebron University was represented by its Legal Clinic Director Dr. Mutaz Qafisheh, Legal Clinic Coordinator Rashad Twam, its Legal Researcher Hndam Rajoub, in addition to four law students/volunteers from the University’s Legal Clinic: Arij Idris, EimanSalaimeh, Dua Kwaidir and Mohammad Sos. Participants in the workshop included a number of legal clinics supervisors, staff, students, and volunteers from various Palestinian universities.

 The workshop hosted, as the main resource person, Professor Ferguson Doug, Director of the Community Legal Services Clinic, University of Western Ontario, Canada. The workshop purpose was to expose Palestinian legal clinics to model clinics that exist in the world, on the structure, models, and the system of legal clinics, determining the needs of the community, types of services of legal clinics, qualified clients of clinics and collaboration, relationships, and partnerships of clinics.

The workshop topics included, inter alia, the models of the students’ legal clinic in Canada, sources of funding for legal clinics (from government, university budgets, grants from donors, tuition, fees for services provided by clinics), determine the legal needs of communities and link the work of legal clinics to such particular needs, types of services offered by clinics (representation of clients at courts, awareness raising, advocacy, curricula development, legal research, human rights, providing legal advice and contributing to law reform and governmental policies), the persons qualified to receive clinical services and actions that students can take to support victims, legal clinic’s administrative affairs, employees, faculty, lawyers, and the outreach activities that clinics can undertake in relation to the local community, etc.