The Policy Clinic at Northumbria University: Influencing Policy/Law Reform as an Effective Educational Tool for Students

Abstract

The Student Law Office (SLO) at Northumbria University has recently incorporated a Policy Clinic (PC) into its existing, and well established, clinical legal education (CLE) programme. This innovative PC model was introduced in order to broaden the reach of the CLE programme, appealing to those students who want to focus on law reform and/or who are unsure about whether they wish to enter the legal profession. This teaching method aims to deepen a student’s understanding of the law as they learn not just about the legal framework but also how laws are actually made and influenced.