Bridging legal education and access to justice

A conversation on law clinics

Klara BOURDIN

Vice-President and Partnerships Manager - Rennes Law Clinic

Foreword

This interview brings together two generations of clinical legal education. Professor Donald Nicolson’s career – from his first steps as a student clinician in apartheid-era South Africa to founding and directing law clinics across the United Kingdom – offers a rare, first-hand account of how such initiatives take shape, why they matter, and what tensions arise as they mature.

Conducted by Klara Bourdin, Vice-President and Partnerships Manager at the Rennes Law Clinic (Clinique du Droit de Rennes), the conversation traces the practical origins of this work, the pedagogical and social-justice arguments that sustain it, and the institutional challenges – funding, independence, professional ethics, etc. – that shape its everyday practice. Centred on Anglo-Saxon experiences (South Africa, England and Scotland), it nonetheless invites broader reflection on the purpose and organisation of legal clinics, including in continental contexts such as France.

We are deeply grateful to Donald Nicolson for his generosity with his time and for the candour of his reflections.

Klara Bourdin: We would be grateful if you could trace the broad contours of your background, your origins, the intellectual and familial milieu in which you were raised, and the circumstances which first led you to read law.

Donald Nicolson: I was born in Cape Town, South Africa in June 1961 – the day after South Africa became a Republic independent of Britain! My parents were South African, but both had Scottish fathers and first-generation South African mothers descended from English immigrants. I grew up in small seaside town with two younger sisters and went to the local school, surfing and playing a lot of sport, rather than bothering with schoolwork. I only put some effort into studying right at the end and obtained acceptable enough grades to go to university to study law.

Both my parents were liberal and rejected the racism of the apartheid state. My mother had joined a politic party that was banned and my father canvassed for the most progressive of the non-banned parties. My growing political conscience was very influenced by this and his refusal to attend any segregated state entertainment venues, but it was only at university that I put my developing values into practice.

Klara Bourdin: What first drew you to the law – a longstanding vocation, a deeply held intellectual conviction, or perhaps the influence of a defining encounter?

David Nicolson: None of the above! I studied law because I did not know what else to do and I was not attracted to any non-law alternatives. My parents always assumed I would go to university (they had both started university but had to leave for financial reasons). My mother used to jokingly refer to me as her “son the lawyer” as I argued with everyone. Later, career guidance tests suggested I pursue law or teaching so it was perhaps inevitable that I became a legal academic, especially after spending two months interning in a commercial law firm in Johannesburg which put me off a legal career (and living in Johannesburg). Had the firm not been dominated by rich white men displaying such dominant masculinity and arrogance, things might have been different. Years later I was offered a badly paid para-legal job in a small family run London commercial law firm but decided to take up my first academic job instead, even though it was part-time and temporary, and I have never regretted it.

Klara Bourdin: At which institutions did you pursue your legal studies, and to what extent were those choices the fruit of deliberate consideration?

Donald Nicolson: I studied first at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and then at Cambridge University. Universities in South Africa were at the time effectively, though not legally, segregated – not just terms of race (in effect class and location) but in terms of language. Consequently, I never contemplated any other university other than UCT as I was English speaking and could not afford to live anywhere other than the family home which was a train journey away from the campus – I had to work part-time in any event just to afford spending money. At UCT, I first gained a BA in 1981, majoring in African politics, as law is a postgraduate degree, and then a LLB in 1983. The decision to go to Cambridge was more complicated. I was conscripted for military service at school, but was exempted until my studies were completed, so it was an obvious decision to do a PhD to continue avoiding being part of the apartheid war machine which was fighting against everything I believed in and killing those who wanted democracy, fairness and justice. One option to avoid this altogether was to leave South Africa and so part of the reason for studying abroad was to explore this possibility. I chose the UK because of my family background. My parents wanted me to go to Edinburgh because of their closer affiliation with Scotland, but I chose Cambridge because most UCT academics went there (rather than Oxford which was the choice of its rival (Afrikaans-speaking) University). Indeed, one of my lecturers persuaded me to apply to Trinity Hall, the college I joined, because he had been there (and had the photos!).

Klara Bourdin: Did you have occasion to serve as a law clinician during your studies? If so, what reflections does that formative experience prompt in you today?

Donald Nicolson: I joined UCT Legal Aid in my second year and was involved for four years, including nine months after graduation in December 1983, when I was waiting for the new academic year to start in England. I waited until my second year to join as I was unsure whether I could cope with studying at university, given that, unlike most of my peers, I had not gone to a private school. I joined the clinic because I knew I had to do something to give back to society and provide some small redress for the privileges I had gained and continue gain from the oppression, discrimination and exploitation of most South Africans. The other alternative was student politics, but it seemed to be dominated by the wealthy posing as radicals. I was probably wrong as it least some of my colleagues went onto play a very meaningful role in resisting apartheid.

The clinic had no staff except for a part-time administrator. Students not only gave advice and some further legal services but also ran the clinic itself. Supervision was provided by pro bono attorneys at evening clinics mostly in black townships or on campus where they checked the advice given by students who would interview on their own in separate rooms, or sometimes just the corners of church or school halls. My training involved one evening shadowing a more experienced student after which I was on my own. But from that moment, I was hooked. Within a year I ran a clinic closer to where I lived in an area designated for Cape Coloureds (the South African term of those who were mixed-race or descended from slaves imported from Indonesia but usually called Cape Malays). Then, for the last two years, I served on the committee which ran the clinic. This was certainly the most formative experience of my university life and left me with a belief in what can be done by students – not only in terms of direct legal services, but also in term of clinic management – a model which I imported into the three UK clinics I either set up or took over running, though as partnership between staff and students rather than just students alone. Otherwise, I would not have got the satisfaction of helping the community that I had at UCT!

Looking back, my years in UCT Legal Aid probably also sowed the seeds of the realisation – later expressed in print (1) – that being involved as a student can have a lasting effect on what one does to serve the community after graduation. But, at the time I was just felt incredibly fulfilled by helping others – mostly through advice but also be ensuring that clients obtained state legal aid or negotiating on their behalf. My most memorable occasion was forcing the police to drop charges on technical grounds for a client arrested for lacking the right licence for street trading. I also learnt some new Afrikaans swearwords when overhearing the sergeant berating the constable for making the technical mistake. But most of the clients were extremely vulnerable and most of the time there was little one could to do make improvements to their lives – a realisation that chimed with the lesson I was learning from my studies that law is not very often the solution to people’s problems rather than the cause of these problems in the first place.

Klara Bourdin: Were there, during your formation, particular teachers or intellectual figures whose influence proved lasting in shaping your understanding of law and of justice?

Donald Nicolson: Many of my lecturers were hugely influential in shaping my insights on law and its relationship to justice and the society in which it is embedded. Perhaps most eye-opening was being exposed to Marxist and feminist theory in the final year of my BA when studying African politics. I had always thought of myself as liberal and objected to the racism and injustices of apartheid, but through lectures and reading came to realise that the oppression of the majority of South Africans was as much, if not more, about economics and the logic of capitalism as raw prejudice and racism. I also learnt how gender oppression was intertwined with racial and class oppression (and had some insight into why I found working in a large law firm dominated by hegemonic masculinity so alienating). It also led me to introduce feminism into all legal theory classes I have taught, as well as to write on feminism and various areas of law (1, 3, 6, 7).

My other main influence was a number of Marxist law lecturers and in particular one who lectured legal theory and introduced me to both sophisticated Marxist legal theory and the more simplistic but equally eye-opening insights of American Realism. In addition to this twofold attack on liberal legalism and perhaps influenced by my practical experience at UCT Legal Aid,

I was introduced to the idea that uncertainty about the facts in cases is far more widespread than that over law and that learning to deal with evidence is at least as important as learning to deal with the law for a legal career. This was partly one reason why I have devoted a lot of time to writing about evidence and proof (2,4,7,11 19). Even more directly, I wrote a Marxist account of judicial decisions involving issues of race, human rights and property for my PhD.

Klara Bourdin: Having come of age in South Africa under the apartheid regime, to what degree did that political and social order shape your conception of the law and of its place in society?

Donald Nicolson: As might already be clear, living in such a society shaped my theoretical understanding of law in any society – civilized or not – whatever that might mean (I have also been influenced by postmodernism (2,11) !). It clearly also gave me the desire to always ensure that I make some contribution to redressing those injustices and to repaying the benefits I have gained as a white, heterosexual male member of the middle class. As has often been said, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Klara Bourdin: How did law clinics comport themselves – or find themselves obliged to comport themselves – in relation to a system built upon institutional inequality?

Donald Nicolson: UCT Legal Aid was the first South African law clinic, having been established in 1972, and while before many others were launched shortly afterwards (14 by 1981), we worked largely on our own, so I cannot speak for the others. However, I do not recall any direct constraints placed on our activities by the apartheid state. We had, of course, to work within a context of segregation and poverty, so had to travel at night into black townships which were little more than shanty towns, and this was somewhat daunting but hugely enlightening. But, as far as I know, the state was not concerned about our activities, and I do not recall any attempt to restrain our activities. This is probably not that surprising – our work was not overtly political. We never took on big political cases but confined ourselves to what is sometimes called “private plight” cases – housing and family issues and, as already seen, occasional minor crimes. In fact, if the state was aware of our activities they might well have approved since we were going some way to ameliorate the conditions of the victims of discrimination and thus helped support the myth that apartheid involved a “separate but equal”, rather than grossly discriminatory and oppressive, society. Indeed, the authorities liked to claim that they adhered to the rule of law and having clinics provide access to the law must have helped this image (and saved the state’s legal aid budget). But even realising that then (in fact, it is only now that this has crossed my mind) I do not think I would have acted differently. To do so would have meant turning my back on so many who were desperate for help. I could have of course joined the armed struggle against apartheid but have to admit I never had the courage for that. On the other hand, I am rather proud for being on the editorial board and writing for a student law magazine that was banned by the government for its criticism of apartheid law.

Klara Bourdin: Is there a particular case, episode, or moment from that period which left an enduring mark and proved, in some measure, decisive in the course your life subsequently took?

Donald Nicolson: No, I do not think so. It was more the combination of my parents’ influence and what I learnt at university, both in terms of theory and seeing first-hand the impact apartheid and capitalism had on people’s lives, which led to the growing realisation that I could not remain in South Africa and do military service. One thing that did stay with me was the knowledge that the regime was executing its enemies for crimes where no one lost their lives or even where there was no proof of culpability. Ever since, I have had a visceral objection to capital punishment. I also remember lying awake at night when it was raining, thinking of those living in accommodation which leaked or flooded, I cannot be sure, but this sense of guilt brought on insomnia which lasted throughout university in South Africa but immediately lifted once I left. Returning twice before being becoming an asylum applicant made entering South Africa impossible also made me realise how much tension everyone in South Africa was experiencing on a day-to-day basis – an anxiety which was palpably absent when I was able to visit again after the end of apartheid.

Klara Bourdin: How was the law regarded by those communities who bore the full weight of apartheid – as an instrument of subjugation, a potential avenue of redress, or an uneasy combination of both? And from the opposite perspective, how were law clinics perceived by supporters of the apartheid regime? Did these contrasting views shape your subsequent thinking on access to justice?

Donald Nicolson: As already alluded to, I am not sure how the apartheid regime itself viewed law clinics as we had no direct contact with their officials. I would imagine that its supporters would either not care one or another about our activities or regard us as misguided do-gooders, if not “kafir boeties” – a very derogatory term for those sympathetic to black, Indian and Coloured people. At my hockey club I was known as a “bomb thrower” for simply calling out racism and attending UCT (also known as the University of Communists and Terrorists or Moscow on the Hill!). It is even more difficult to know how the victims of apartheid saw the law – certainly some must have seen it – or at least its promise or underlying values – as worth invoking. Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo were after all in practice together as lawyers and Mahatma Ghandhi also practised law in South Africa for a while. But I do not recall those with whom I came into contact thinking of law as having any value – or indeed as being anything other than a cause of repression. Many seem resigned to being at the wrong end of the law and simply wanted to mitigate its use against them. At the same time, justice under the law was an important rallying cry for those fighting apartheid. While I am not sure that I was aware of it at the time, their views echoed EP Thompson’s message which I was exposed to by my influential Jurisprudence lecturer, Dennis Davis who was later appointed a judge, that while the law can and always has been an instrument of the ruling class, the rule of law as an element of justice is an “unqualified human good.” In retrospect, my work in law clinics can be said to be about exploiting this gap between the rhetoric and reality of law to ensure that the law meets at least some of its claims to equality and fairness. And, in helping those in need gain access to justice, I can often remember telling them that justice and law are things that occasionally coincide, but that I will seek to ensure that this is something that happens in their case.

Klara Bourdin: Did the dismantling of apartheid alter, in any fundamental respect, your sense of what the law might achieve in the service of justice?

Donald Nicolson: Not really. Apartheid was dismantled because it threatened the profits of capitalists who hitherto had benefitted from it. While arguments about law and justice were, as I have said, important rallying cries for those calling for change and certainly motivated a lot of the protests, I do not think apartheid would have ended when it did without the armed struggle and other factors like economic and sports boycotts, and to some extent the flight of many graduates and those with other skills (I am far too modest to use the usual expression of “brain drain”!). In general, the constant unrest in the country undermined the certainty and investment that capitalists desire. In other words, apartheid had simply become too costly. So its dismantling did not really change my view about the limits of law to deliver justice, even though I have devoted a lot of my life to trying to do so!

Klara Bourdin: Was your departure from South Africa a painful wrench, or a step long foreseen as inevitable? What considerations – personal, professional, or political – ultimately drew you to settle in the United Kingdom?

Donald Nicolson: It was undoubtedly a huge wrench. The emotional scars (if that is not too dramatic a phrase) remain with me today after decades of living apart from family and friends, and they are brought to the fore every now and then, such as when I obtained British citizenship and when my father died. While finishing my studies at Cambridge I began the process of applying for asylum, which made me feel as if I was turning my back on my family and country (or at least those inhabitants who had suffered under apartheid). For years, I could not, as a political refugee, return to South Africa, so I only saw my family sporadically. Fortunately, my father travelled to the UK twice a year to negotiate sales of canned fruit, which ironically as a member of anti-apartheid groups I was involved in boycotting! But leaving South Africa was not inevitable. Given the pull to return even if this meant a six-year jail sentence for conscientious objection, it took me a while to decide to leave and it was only while holidaying in Yorkshire and visiting family in Scotland that I thought I would do so. Admittedly, when I applied for asylum my career was starting to take off and I was in the process of setting up a law clinic, but the motivation for applying was purely my unwillingness to return to do military service. So, it was ironic that shortly after gaining citizenship six or so years after been given asylum, Nelson Mandela’ was released and I realised that I could return home. By then, however, I was in the throes of running a new clinic, had bought a house with a partner and was being told that SA universities were, quite rightly, not hiring white men. So, I bided my time, visited regularly, and in the meantime moved to Scotland, set up an even more successful clinic and fathered two children. Perhaps I should have been more incisive and moved back immediately, but once my children came along, I was well and truly committed to staying in what I hope will become an independent Scotland. But I still feel I owe my country of birth something for all the privileges I have gained from being a white South African.

Klara Bourdin: As you were pursuing further legal study upon arriving in Britain, what essential similarities and differences did you discern between English law and the legal tradition as you had known it in South Africa?

Donald Nicolson: I started a PhD at Cambridge on an esoteric area of private law but soon changed to attempting a Marxist analysis of the South African judiciary’s record in dealing with race, property and human rights in administrative law cases. As a result, I did not study English law as such. But as an academic I did gain a knowledge of a wide range of areas of English law and later a few Scottish areas of law, so was able to make comparisons between the various legal traditions. To my surprise, I found that the South African common (i.e. non-statutory) law had far more respect for the rule of law and basic human rights than English and Scots Law. True, the recent obscenities of statute law under apartheid were abhorrent, but they overlaid a legal system influenced by early Dutch lawyers like Grotius who was one of the fathers of human rights law. Indeed, in areas like criminal law judges imported from England brought in English law ideas which undermined some of this human rights protection. Ironically, it was the Afrikaans-speaking legal academics whose programme of “purifying” the law returned Roman-Dutch law to its original roots which compared so disfavourably with the human right violations in apartheid statutory law – though, as my thesis showed, the judges did not nearly enough to challenge this. One exception was the father of an ex-colleague at UCT Legal Aid who once he was promoted to the highest South African court made a number of brave judgments against the apartheid regime. Of course, the new South African constitution is now world-leading in human rights protection and ironically Roman-Dutch law may well provide protection to property owners and business resisting state attempts at wealth redistribution.

Klara Bourdin: Whether being formed as a jurist in a country scarred by institutional injustice lends a particular sensibility when working within an altogether different legal tradition is a question worth raising – how would you reflect upon it in your own case?

Donald Nicolson: It is probably already clear that, compared to many of my academic colleagues, I am much more sceptical about the value of law per se and more inclined to seek out injustice and seek to redress it. Before running law clinics started to take up most of my career, I wrote and campaigned on issues of domestic violence and gender oppression more widely (1,3,6,7) and worked with students to run one of the many student critical law groups which became prevalent in the 1990s. We brought in many well-known speakers and victims of injustice to speak to students and even hosted a conference attended by hundreds of students and many speakers, including Keir Starmer! Later, my efforts at redressing justice were channelled into clinical work, but even here I ensured that it involved the issues of gender violence and miscarriages of justice and, as a way of acknowledging my privilege in gaining asylum, the plight of those denied refugee status. As well as my research and clinical work, I have always sought to focus on the injustices of the law I teach and ensure that as much attention is given to critical legal theories as those supportive of the liberal status quo (12). No doubt, many students and some of my colleagues have found this emphasis overbearing and preachy, and certainly my insistence that law clinics should prioritise community service over student education (8,16) has ruffled the feathers of many clinicians. In retrospect, I could and should have been more diplomatic, but then I tend to speak from the heart without engaging my brain first! This has been valuable in motivating students, but less effective in building bridges with other clinicians.

Klara Bourdin: What inclined you towards an academic career rather than practice at the Bar or in a firm of solicitors – the wish to educate and transmit, the pursuit of original scholarship, or the preservation of a measure of intellectual independence?

Donald Nicolson: There were pushes and pulls. I have already referred to the push experienced while working in a large law firm in South Africa. Also, going into practice in the UK would have meant two more years study at enormous expense and I was already 28 when I got my Phd and heavily in debt after the South African rand halved in value on my arrival at Cambridge. The first pull came when I had to fill nine months between finishing my LLB and starting my Phd. I did so by teaching about six law subjects at UCT, doing some volunteer tutoring to Coloured law students and charging some white students to help them prepare for their law and accounting examination (I got good marks despite being heavily influence by Marx!). During that time, I learnt that I loved teaching and this was confirmed when I had to take on part-time lecturing at a college in Bath in order to survive financially. At the time, I did not think that research and writing was a central part of an academic career as it was very much a secondary part of the job then, but it soon became an important and rewarding element of being an academic, especially as it has allowed me to learn new areas of knowledge that I find fascinating – ethics, epistemology, psychology, sociology, feminism, postmodernism, rhetoric, narratology and even forensic sciences (5,19). I might have been a better academic had I specialised in one or two areas, but I do not regret the enjoyment gained from exploring ever wider areas of knowledge. I am still at heart a student, learning for learning’s sake.

Klara Bourdin: Under what circumstances did the idea of founding law clinics first take shape, and what aspirations – pedagogical, social, or institutional – animated the enterprise at its inception?

Donald Nicolson: The idea first came to me during my first permanent academic job at the University of Reading. In the early 1990s, I attended a National Critical Law Group conference which included a workshop run by some of the few law clinics established then and it reminded me of how rewarding my clinical experience had been and inspired me to want to do something similar. I went back to Reading and found some students interested in working with me, but the idea was vetoed by the Law School – mostly I think because they were concerned about reputational damage and possible financial liability if things went wrong. Shortly after that – and partly as a result – I moved to the University of Bristol. At first, I had a lot of teaching, was under pressure to write and was very enthused at setting and running the critical law group I have already mentioned. But one day I started talking to a homeless beggar who had legal problems – reading Zygmunt Bauman’s Postmodernist Ethics had encouraged me not just to give money but respond to the “face of the Other”. I helped him get a legal aid lawyer as it was a criminal matter, but it also made me remember that helping those most in need was what had given my student years their main purpose. So, once I again, I floated the idea with students and my Head of Department who, while not terribly enthusiastic, recognised that a clinic would be beneficial to the law school. He and those colleagues who did not actively oppose the idea (again opposition focused on fears about reputation and liability) were probably motivated by the benefit this would bring to students. My goals, however, were focussed solely on assisting the community even though I realised students would benefit, not just from the skills I would have to teach them and their experiences in taking on cases, but also from organisational and other soft skills, for those students (about ten or so) who worked with me to set up and then run the clinic.

Given my social justice aims and own experience as a clinic volunteer, it never crossed my mind to establish the clinic as an academic module and as a result, without formal teaching demands, we were able to recruit around 80 students each year. This meant that we could serve a lot more clients than if I had to spend time teaching and marking. While I have later come round to explicitly embrace the educational value of clinics and at the University of Strathclyde set up clinical classes and even a unique clinical LLB which integrates clinical experience throughout the curriculum (14), I remain convinced that student education should be secondary to community service – not least because the alternative suggests to students that their needs are more important than those who are desperate for their services. As I have often stated in print – we need to practice law for the disadvantaged not on the disadvantaged (15,16,22).

Similarly, my main educational goals have not been so much about developing legal skills or knowledge, but to develop their ethical awareness by being exposed, not only to the myriad ethical issues which arise in practice and to which I have devoted some of my career to writing about (5,9,10,17,18), but also to the idea that the privilege of a legal education and a legal qualification demands that students (and lawyer) help society fill the gaps in the state’s ability to provide for access to justice (14). Indeed, I have come to think that inculcating acceptance of this moral obligation – what I call the indirect social justice mission – is as important as directly providing services to the community (16). It is one thing for students to help a few clients while at university, quite another to go on to a lifetime of doing so. And the more students who have that formative experience and the longer the experience, the more the hope for such an indirect effect. Which brings me back to my preference for voluntary participation which is likely to be longer and available to more students than clinic work tied to formal modules.

Klara Bourdin: In the course of developing and overseeing various clinics, have you observed meaningful differences in their manner of functioning, their ethos, or the ends they set themselves?

Donald Nicolson: Just to clarify, I have been involved in developing from scratch law clinics at the Universities of Bristol and Strathclyde and running already established clinics at the universities of Cape Town and Essex. As already noted, in establishing the former two clinics I took from UCT Legal Aid the idea of volunteerism and student clinic management, which I also introduced into Essex Law Clinic which was purely curricular and staff-led when I arrived. As a result, the biggest differences were between the Essex Law Clinic and the other three at least as at first. The other big difference was that the Essex clinic only provided advice as opposed to also client representation and at the time I arrived at least no non-client facing legal services like public legal education (what I call “project work”). On arrival at Essex, I immediately opened the clinic to volunteers resulting in a tripling of numbers and set up a committee of students involved in clinic management, while also encouraging the launching of various projects and an expansion from advice into representation. Unfortunately, for various reasons largely beyond my control, the last mentioned of these initiatives has not really taken off with the representation of clients being the exception rather than the rule. As a result, many clients are probably unable to act on the advice they receive. Given the access to justice desert in most parts of the UK and especially England, many are left in the same position they were before approaching the clinic, and some potentially worse off in being frustrated at their situation. I also think that this lack of ongoing interaction with clients and engagement with the legal system means that the indirect impact students might have on social justice is lessened in that, as Aristotle suggests, the motivation to help others is significantly enhanced by the satisfaction of getting results for clients or conversely the disappointment of being denied justice. At the very least, students who are confined to giving advice after interviewing clients will learn less about legal injustice, the law and be less likely to develop both legal, interpersonal and other “soft” skills than if they have to draft claims, negotiate and even argue cases, as is possible in employment and housing tribunals throughout the UK and in all but the highest court in Scotland.

Klara Bourdin: What were the principal difficulties encountered in bringing these institutions into being, and by what means were they addressed?

Donald Nicolson: The difficulties faced varied from law school to law school, though a common feature was a lack of awareness of the value for students of clinics and clinical legal education, and a lack of concern with engaging with and giving back to the local community.

As I have already noted, the main objections at Reading and Bristol (overcome in the latter case) were concerns about reputational damage and possible financial liability if things went wrong. Worries about the financial burden probably also played a role at both universities, but were assuaged by showing them that clinics need not cost very much at all (17) – certainly not if run like it was at Bristol: from my office, using my phone and filing cabinets, free classrooms for interviews and with me providing all the training and supervision in addition to a full teaching and administrative burden (I had much more free time then before children came along). Matters were improved by gaining a small (£5000) donation from a law firm which also provided help with training and by being able to place students with a local law centre which took on half of all cases in any one year. Years later the Law School recognised the value of the clinic by providing it with bespoke premises and dedicated staff. Things were different at Strathclyde where more money was available from the outset as I had been recruited with the aim of setting up a law clinic. But even here I started off on my own as the only supervisor (despite, like at Bristol, not having a relevant law degree, never mind professional qualification) before two practitioners were recruited as supervisors and who were initially paid with funds donated by three major law firms before the law school took over salary costs. However, there so there was no opposition to the clinic from colleagues – only to the Clinical LLB I referred to earlier, which some mistakenly thought would involve them doing new teaching rather than just having to mark essays about clinics cases raising issues in in their own subject – which they came to learn was more interesting than the endless repetition of theoretical knowledge by the non-Clinical LLB students.

Klara Bourdin: Does your engagement with law clinics extend beyond their day-to-day direction – into broader networks, contributions to legislative debate, or wider reflection on matters of policy?

Donald Nicolson: In September 2025, together with my co-authors, Richard Grimes and JoNel Newman, I ran a two-day workshop for all existing and prospective law clinic in Armenia based on our book, How to Set Up and Run a Law Clinic: Principles and Practice. At present, most of my non-clinical activities are devoted to research, though I do currently review articles submitted for publication to the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education and non-clinical journals. Earlier, this year after 14 years, I resigned from being a trustee of the Clinical Legal Education Organisation which fosters clinical legal education and clinics in the UK. While still working in Scotland, I sat on the Law Society of Scotland’s Access to Justice Committee from 2011 and from 2010 was one of the founding Director of LawWorks Scotland which was set up to promote pro bono work by Scottish solicitors. I also served on the Friends of the Earth Advisory Group on Access to Environmental Justice Campaign in 2010 and from 2012 the Management Committee of the University of Strathclyde Mediation Clinic For years, I have regularly attended conferences on clinics, pro bono and access to justice more generally. Finally, while I have not personally been involved in policy making, the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic (USLC) prepared a response to Law Commission proposals on consumer law which was quoted frequently in its final report.

Klara Bourdin: By what means is the long-term viability of law clinics ensured within universities increasingly subject to financial pressure and institutional constraint?

Donald Nicolson: This is a very apposite question as I am seeing cutbacks to my current and previous clinics which are drastically affecting their effectiveness. Indeed, I am about to retire partly as a result of the disinvestment in the Clinic with it going from a healthy budget to no budget at all, and from four core academics and one administrator plus at least two other academic associates doing some work in the clinic to only two academics staff, one associate and one administrator. At the same time, the Essex Law Clinic is one of, if not, the main recruiting tools for attracting undergraduates to study law at Essex, and definitely amongst the French students who do a dual English/French law degree, so I am relatively confident that, while clinics might see shrinking budgets and reduced staff, they are not likely to be closed down as this will affect recruitment and the University’s reputation more generally.

Given this, it makes sense for clinics to do what they can to assist in student recruitment and as much as it can to publicise its activities. Equally – and to my mind even more – importantly, it should seek to embed itself into the community by working with other organisations such as by training their workers on the law, and by taking and making clients referrals. In this way, when clinics face existential threats, these external organisations will hopefully come to their aid, along with local lawyers and judges who clinics should always approach, not least because they can help with training, supervision and sitting on advisory committees. And if clinics do face an existential threat, one way to postpone any closure is to offer student modules or even better still a clinical degree whose students will have a contractual as well as a moral right to be allowed to work in a clinic. This will give clinic some time to rally the troops to fight off closure. Finally, while seeking alternative sources of funding is always a good idea – and in my early clinical years close to a necessity – external funding is not as reliable a source as university funding, especially if students are taking clinical classes. I once was told that the funding promised by a law firm was no longer available even though it had been set aside to help fund staffing. There is also the danger that you spend as much if not more time seeking and keeping happy donors than serving the community. While raising money does ensure students can work for clients, it can be soul-destroying as a clinician. But then as the English expression goes, beggars cannot be choosers. I have always been willing to do (almost anything) to ensure some rather than no service to the community. This included subjecting myself to being the object of a “make-over” and participating in fashion shows as reciprocal favours to a funder!

Klara Bourdin: In what respects do law clinics strike you as genuinely indispensable – both to the proper formation of law students and to the wider good of society?

Donald Nicolson: As much as I would love to say that clinics are indispensable both to legal education and to the good of society, this would be an exaggeration. Lawyers have, after all, being trained for centuries without clinical experience and some have even done a good job! Undoubtedly, training for lawyers is considerably improved by clinic involvement but even so it would be hugely expensive to open clinics to all law students. Even if funding is improved, mandatory clinic involvement would reduce the level of immersion for each student and the chances of them being motivated by their experience to carry on fighting for justice after graduation. It might also mean that some clients receive a half-hearted and/or unsympathetic service from students who are forced into clinic participation. So, on utilitarian grounds (and I am mostly a utilitarian when wearing my clinical hat as my forthcoming co-authored book on clinical ethics (23) will show I favour a deeper involvement for fewer students than a more superficial one for all.

As for the wider good for society, there is a strong argument for clinics currently being necessary, but far from sufficient, to ensure access to justice. However, this necessity is only because both the state and the legal profession are failing in their moral responsibility. I do not buy the argument that helping fill the gaps discourages them from stepping up. Even if this could be proved as part of a utilitarian calculus, here I think that the call of the face of the Other overrides a utilitarian calculation about what will best ensure most justice in the long run. So, while I do think clinics should do all they can to fill whatever gaps they can in the provision of access to justice, they might seem indispensable only because the commitment by the state and profession to access to justice is woefully inadequate.

Klara Bourdin: How is the balance between the demands of rigorous legal training and the imperative of pro bono service best conceived? Are the two, in your experience, naturally complementary?

Donald Nicolson: Student education and community service are naturally complementary, but at times inevitably in conflict. They are complementary because, on the one hand, one cannot serve the community without training students in the necessary skills and knowledge.

Moreover, in providing legal services, they will inevitably learn how the law works, how to deal with people and many other aspects of being a lawyer not gained in a theoretical education, and they will do so even if they do not formally reflect on what they are learning. On the other hand, if students learn through clinical experience, they will almost invariably have to serve those who cannot pay for their services. Admittedly, a few clinics charge clients but this is highly controversial in contravening the general pro bono ethos of the clinical movement. It is also, in my view immoral, in prioritising the needs of those who can pay fees over those who are desperate for legal services and undermining any potential message clinics might convey about lawyers’ duties to help enhance access to justice. As already noted, I think it is important to teach students that community needs take precedence over their own, at least while at university.

For this reason, where there is a clash, I am of the strong opinion that clinics should prioritise clients and community over student needs. Many clinicians think that there is no conflict, but tensions can arise in many ways. For instance, should supervisors allow students to make multiple mistakes in their research and draft advice to enhance their learning or just correct first drafts so that clients get advice as soon as possible, thus reducing their stress and allowing for more clients to be served? Should clinics continue with cases which cease to have an educational benefit because of the value to the client or cease representation? Should clinics prioritise legal services with maximum educational benefit even though more mundane or formulaic services will serve those most in need better while also possibly being more educative about the lives of the vulnerable? My co-authored book on setting up and running law clinics (22) is riddled with such conflicts, all of which have to be managed once identified. Indeed, one goal of the book was to help clinicians identify the tensions and guide them on the various considerations relevant to making decisions where both sides of the tension cannot be fully accommodated.

Klara Bourdin: Ought clinicians to confine themselves to the provision of impartial legal information, or is it in order for them to offer considered, personalised advice suited to the particular circumstances of those who seek their assistance?

Donald Nicolson: If you are asking whether clinics should, on the one hand, confine themselves to what is variously called public legal education (PLE), legal literacy or Street Law whereby clinics only provide groups with generic legal information to give them a basis for vindicating their own rights or avoiding getting into trouble legally or whether, on the other hand, clinics should advise individuals clients on how to resolve concrete legal issues, then I have always been far more attracted to the latter. This is probably because that is what I did as a student and because, when I came across Street Law much later, it seemed to me a far less engaging and valuable form of service to the community. However, that was perhaps because it was described in terms of speaking to school pupils whose legal problems are likely to lie in the distant future. Since then, at the request of students and as an adjunct to advice and representation, the Strathclyde clinic became involved in teaching pupils (coincidentally at the school my children attended many years later) about the potential crimes involved in cyberbullying and prisoners about when to disclose convictions to future employers. Somewhat later it also provided generic information on areas of law on its website in the form of Q and As. More recently, the Essex clinic been involved in a very valuable form of PLE which I call capacity building, involving teaching members of other organisations (for example, those working with domestic violence survivors, homeless people, or those with HIV and the LGBTQ+ community) the law relevant to their own advice services so they can help others themselves without always having to refer cases to an already overstretched clinic. Of course, in some jurisdictions (for instance, in Southeast Asia) individual advice to clients is legally prohibited, but unless it is I am strongly of the view that clinics should serve actual clients, if only because this is more engaging and educative for students, not just in terms of the skills they learn, but also in terms of learning of the plight of so many in society less fortunate than them.

However, to really enhance the conscientisation of students and their education, I also think that, where possible, services should go beyond advice to include some forms of representation – be it drafting letters or court documents, negotiations, assisting with mediation, or even court or tribunal advocacy. Not only does this expand the range of legal skills obtained, but it gives students knowledge about “law in action”, the difference between paper and legal rules, and how the legal system operates and the extent to which it just, It also provides an opportunity to experience ethical issues which are unlikely to arise in one-off advice services and to gain an even more in-depth knowledge of social injustice through the eyes of their clients. At the same time, however, as I have discovered at my latest clinic, not all students are capable or confident enough to represent clients even in negotiation. Moreover, there is much value in trying to help people help themselves – both in terms of enhancing their sense of dignity and autonomy, and on utilitarian grounds: as the old proverb goes, it is better to teach people to fish than to give them a fish to eat. Consequently, in an ideal world, clinics would conduct PLE, advice and representation. And, in addition and mentioning only those activities I have been involved in delivering, they can also either on their own or in collaboration with other organisations provide research on miscarriages of justice or the facts supporting the facts to support asylum claims, support complainants in domestic and sexual abuse cases, and assist such organisations cope with the law relevant to them such as by drafting contracts or incorporation documents. Moreover, where clinics do undertake a range of different activities like these, they can structure to allow students to progress from the least to the most demanding and stressful of these activities as they gain experience.

Klara Bourdin: Where personalised advice is deemed permissible, how are the attendant questions of legal liability and professional responsibility on the part of the clinician most appropriately addressed?

Donald Nicolson: I have always found this the easiest question to answer, despite it being the first and often the most pressing issue raised by university authorities and law school colleagues when proposing a law clinic: ensure you are insured! The first port of call should be the university which will itself have some sort of indemnity insurance. Very often, you can add the clinic to this at no further cost. If not, or if this is unaffordable, there are sometimes special schemes for third sector organisations which might not be very expensive. As a last resort you might have to negotiate with a commercial insurer who specialise in professional indemnity insurance. But, even if your university allows you to do so, I would not proceed without insurance. Furthermore, as a back-up to – rather than a substitute for – insurance, at Bristol and Strathclyde I drafted a disclaimer of liability for clients to sign which was intended to take advantage of the legal limitation on suing for negligent advice to those who are professionals, but these will not work if the clinics is supervised by practising or even non-practising qualified lawyers and in any event some clinicians (but not this utilitarian!) might regard this as sending the wrong message to clients. In addition to these “downstream fallbacks, clinics will obviously have to do their best “upstream” to ensure problems do not arise in the first place. This requires effective and comprehensive induction and ongoing training, and supervision which does not fall prey to the temptation to allow students maximum autonomy to enhance their learning “journey” at the expense of quality services. Clinics can also draft rules codifying supervisory expectations and ensuring that clients are treated professionally (for example, responded to within set periods, information is stored securely) and ethically (for example, conflicts of interest are avoided, confidentiality upheld, and client autonomy and dignity is respected).

After some years which the Strathclyde clinic became too big to manage through informal control, we reluctantly decided to introduce a disciplinary code allowing for removal of students for serious breaches of clinic rules (after due process and prior warnings). This has been even more necessary at Essex where the various alternatives to the disciplinary stick in the form of motivational carrots have not worked. As regards the latter, at Essex we took over ideas I developed at Strathclyde involving prizes for student along with appointments to positions of responsibility and added different status levels for students (bronze, silver, gold and platinum), with silver only being attained after a year’s apprenticeship as a reliable and effective bronze student with gold and platinum status being awarded for excellent and exceptional service, respectively. Unfortunately, these carrots have not removed the regular need for disciplinary warnings and, albeit very rarely, removal from the clinic. However, this recent experience has been the exception rather than the rule – at UCT and Bristol students were totally self-motivating and reliable, as were the vast majority at Strathclyde. Moreover, in over forty years of being involved with clinics, I have not experienced even the threat of an action for professional negligence and only heard of one such threat in one of the 80 or so UK law clinics.

Klara Bourdin: By what means is the intellectual and ethical independence of clinicians – whether students or supervisors – best preserved when they are confronted with delicate situations or subject to external pressures?

Donald Nicolson: Let me take ethical independence first as I have been thinking and writing about ethics for almost thirty years both in general and in the clinic context (5,9,17,18). Indeed, I am currently co-authoring a book on the latter subject (23). Here, the first thing to say is that I would not distinguish the ethical independence of students and staff, except to say that, while students ought not to make ethical decisions on their own without consultation and authorisation, they should be able to express their own views which, where possible, should be respected. To give one example, a student of Irish extraction interviewed a client who expressed racist views about Irish people. Having debated with students on the committee which runs the clinic whether we should act for him, we decided to go ahead given that his case was not motivated by racism. At the same time, we issued him with a warning about his future behaviour and allowed the student to withdraw from the case. On the other hand, in another case, a student without consultation concealed the fact that she was representing a client suing the local council to gain information from them by pretending to be studying work-related diseases. Here, even if I would ever regard this as justifiable – and I do not think even my utilitarianism would stretch that far – she was utterly wrong in acting on her own without consolation.

Such cases are, however, rare – as are more serious risks to ethical (and political) independence which come from the university. Fortunately, I have not had the continued existence of any of my clinics being threatened by the university as has occurred elsewhere where clinics have been threatened with closure or in some cases actually closed down because they were taking actions seen as too politically controversial or as threatening university commercial interests. But I have been told to discontinue a case against the husband of a colleague as she was upset by what we are doing. Technically, this involves a conflict of interest in that it might be thought we would “pull our punches” in representing him, but we gained the client’s informed consent to carry on, thus removing the conflict. However, my head of school made it very clear that we should not go ahead because of the upset to the wife. I could have insisted that there was no ethical reason to do so but decided to accede because it would not have been to the benefit of future clients or students seeking clinical experience if standing my ground had led to reductions in clinic funding or my removal from the post – neither which would have been in the clinic’s interest. Perhaps, resorting again to utilitarian reasoning is an ex post facto justification for self-interest, but I do not recall thinking so at the time.

As regards intellectual independence, if by that is meant the ability to give advice and take action based on what is thought to be the correct view of the law and the facts, and the best possible solution for the client, I cannot recall issues caused by external pressures except the one just discussed. Nor do I recall many differences between me and the supervisors on how to proceed in cases and none between the supervisors and the students, given that the latter tend to defer to supervisors. I do, however, remember at least two cases in which students acted without consultation and neither ended well. The student mentioned above who lied to get information was rumbled by the other side which required me to make abject apologies, whereas another student’s decision to sue a landowner without consultation required rescue by a friendly practising lawyer in the form of an appeal.

Admittedly, differences between staff and students may arise more than I am aware of, given that, for the last twenty years, I have stepped back from regular supervision. However, I do not remember problems arising from differences of opinion coming to me as a clinic director. In any event, I suspect my approach would be to support supervisors over students as they are the experts and responsible for maintaining the clinic’s reputation. As already noted, and contrary to some clinicians who believe in giving students as much autonomy as possible even if it means making mistakes, I firmly believe that the clients’ interests come first. By all means, supervisors should listen to student views and be prepared to be persuaded by them – after all students might have a better understanding of the needs and values of clients because they interviewed them or because they share their social background or have had similar experiences to them. But ultimately, I have always thought that the final decision should be that of the supervisor, unless I think that their judgement will harm the clinic either directly or via its impact on the university or law school. I thus usually defer to supervisors as more legally qualified and usually more experienced than and also because they usually have a professional obligation of independence which will be compromised if they take instruction from me. As a result, I have sometimes had to subsume my more optimistic approach to solving client problems to the more risk-averse approach which tends to be taken by those who are legally qualified and have come to the clinic from private practice.

However, while there needs to be a clear position on final decision-making, the process of debate between staff and students, as well as between staff provides useful lessons for students and forms an important part of their learning via supervisory discussions and “case rounds” in which small groups of students discuss cases conducted by their colleagues so that all can learn from a wider range of cases. I first introduced such cases rounds into various forms of formal clinical education, but more recently have set them up for all volunteer legal advisors in the Essex clinic. I have always organised students into “firms” for the purpose of case allocation (for instance, each of four firms takes responsibility for one week’s cases in each month), but now each week “on call” is followed by a case round at which all firm members are encouraged to attend. Staff shortages mean that the case rounds are only attended by students who still seem to value them, but when we have run them as part of clinical modules both students and staff find them hugely beneficial.

Klara Bourdin: In what measure might law clinics, looking beyond the resolution of individual cases, serve to expose systemic failings within the law and lend weight to the case for legislative or judicial reform?

Donald Nicolson: I definitely think clinics should lend their weight to strategic litigation or political campaigns designed to change the law, perhaps by seconding students to work with lawyers and/or other organisations or even conducting their own cases and campaigns. I am not, however, keen on confining all student activities to strategic litigation or law reform campaigns. Admittedly, such activities give them skills and experience not gained by other law students, but if confined in this way they will lose out on skills which are likely to be more useful in a legal career. More importantly to my mind, they are unlikely to gain experience interacting with clients and learning first-hand about the wide range of injustices and hardships they face and, given the long-term nature of strategic litigation and reform campaigns, far less likely to gain satisfaction or experience conscientizing disappointment at failing to redress injustice. This suggests to me that, where possible, clinics should be structured to allow students to take on both so-called “routine”, “simple”’ or “small” cases and also, if they so wish, strategic litigation and reform work. It should also be remembered that victories in small cases against individuals like local landlords or employers can act as a deterrent, if not set a legal precedent, which causes changes in behaviour of others in the same position as the defeated opponent, especially if the victories are well-publicised and/or judicially recorded.

Klara Bourdin: Has clinical practice informed your scholarly output, and has your research, in turn, cast new light upon that practice? Have any of your academic enquiries taken an unexpected direction as a result of what has been witnessed at first hand in the clinic?

Donald Nicolson: I cannot recall the latter happening, but certainly there has been a symbiotic relationship between my scholarship and clinical experience, at least since I started researching into the value, forms and techniques of clinical legal education (CLE) which I decided to introduce a few years after launching the Strathclyde clinic, albeit as way of rewarding students who had given two or sometimes three years of voluntary service to the clinic rather than a direct attempt to improve their education. Before that my research topics had a been a response to my main teaching areas of criminal law, law and gender, evidence and jurisprudence, though I had also become interested in legal ethics after hearing about dilemmas raised by strategic litigation at the same critical law conference which had spurred me to try to set up a law clinic at the University of Reading.

But when I started to read the CLE literature, I was prompted to respond to what seemed to be the dominant assumption that student interests should take precedence over those of clients (8,16); probably making more than a few enemies in my passionate questioning of this assumption. But I was also alerted to the value of clinics for teaching ethics and conscientizing students which lead to devoting lot of the teaching in the clinical classes to ethics and also to begin researching the impact of clinics on the ethical and justice value of my students as evidence in their reflective diaries they wrote for the classes (10,18). Conversely, my research led me to make changes to the clinic, such as introducing prizes – a process recently accelerated when researching for the book on setting up and running law clinics (22). At the same time, it is true to say that my best ideas for clinics came from conferences, especially those run by the Global Alliance for Justice Education. Indeed, from one conference alone I brought back the idea of holistic clinics involving collaboration between law and social workers students, services for disabled people, and teaching both skills and ethics via Augusto Boal’s concept of forum theatre (later written up as an article (20)). But apart from specific ideas, I would say that my research on clinics and clinical legal education has made me much more open to the value of the latter and in particular its function in indirectly prompting justice through creating new cadres of justice warrior by significantly enhancing any “raw” clinical experience serving the community.

Klara Bourdin: What significant theoretical questions has the law clinic movement not yet addressed with sufficient rigour or depth?

Donald Nicolson: Clearly, there have been rigorous (and seemingly never-ending) debates on the most important issues surrounding law clinics and clinical legal education, such as whether to prioritise social justice or student education, the merits of “small” versus “big cases”, how much autonomy to allow students on case work, etc. Another issue which is justifiably starting to attract a lot of attention is the move to delivering services digitally and here there are lot of issues such as whether the convenience for clients or the ability to deliver services like public legal education at scale make up for the loss of personal contact (22). However, there are arguable more peripheral areas which are only starting to be addressed. One of these is the question of how far clinics should seek to prioritise recruitment from those from disadvantaged backgrounds as a means of improving their employability and contributing to professional diversity. Indeed, some of my Essex colleagues and I have started tracking the backgrounds of those who do and not do apply, and those who do and do not get admitted to the clinic to see if any demographical groups are disadvantaged in gaining access to clinical experience. Another issue which I have touched on earlier and which could do with some thought is the question of how clinics can play a role in helping fill the access to justice gap without letting the state and the profession off the hook.

Klara Bourdin: Surveying the ground covered over the course of your career, what counsel would you most wish to offer a young lawyer who aspires to dedicate themselves to the cause of access to justice?

Donald Nicolson: Given the ever-shrinking state funding of legal aid and the problems faced by third sector organisations providing access to justice (or social justice more broadly), there are now only limited routes for, and fierce competition between, prospective “justice warriors”. So, if you now want to pursue such a career, you need to start positioning yourself as soon as possible, even in school, by joining organisations like Greenpeace and Amnesty International, and by doing voluntary work. Then, in addition to continuing with similar activities on campus you should apply as soon as you can to any law clinic or similar organisation, as well as doing as much extra-curricular legal activities as possible (mooting, client interviewing competitions, etc.) and seeking out internments in access to justice/social just organisations and law firms. At the same time, it is imperative to get the best possible academic grades as only the very best graduates are likely to get the jobs they want and, rightly or wrongly, employers are influenced by academic performance, as well as good personal skills and a desire to gain as much experience as possible before graduating. Then, if all of this fails, I would suggest you look for more traditional forms of employment which either offer pro bono opportunities or at least allow you to pursue them in your own time. Ironically, large commercial firms may be able to afford to give you more time for this and may in fact have their own pro bono schemes. At the same time, many idealistic students have had their heads turned by the salary and status of working in such firms whose clients may be the very people making life miserable for those served by law clinics and other social justice organisations! Ideally, you might want to consider a career that involves doing little harm if not some good for less wealthy clients during the day and do as much access to justice work in your spare time. But that is hugely demanding especially if you start a family.

Klara Bourdin: How is the future of law clinics best envisaged in an era in which emerging technologies – artificial intelligence, legal technology platforms and the like – are transforming the very landscape of access to law? Do such developments represent a challenge to be met or an opportunity to be seized?

Donald Nicolson: You are asking a 65-year-old boomer about tech – I have to get my daughter to help with power points! Seriously, it would be nice to say that AI and other forms of legal tech could fill the gaps in access to justice. Certainly, there have been some signs of universities and techies working alone or in collaboration with each other to come up with apps to help people navigate their way through complex laws and legal procedures, as I previously noted in relation to the Strathclyde Clinic and we started doing at Essex in relation to wills and powers of attorneys. But leaving aside the worry that much of this has been done without national co-ordination, with the possibility that some clinics might be re-inventing the wheel by producing what is already out there, there is a need for caution (21). For one thing, those who develop tech solutions need to have experience in any process that they are trying to replicate digitally to make it authentic as possible – law in the books is not necessary the same as law in action as the American Realists teach us. In addition, providing digital means of resolving problems is not going to give students the same experience and feelings of satisfaction at success or regret at failure which, as I have already said, are so important in encouraging them to continue to be “justice warriors” after graduation. More broadly, just as AI and digital platforms may enhance access to justice, we must be wary of the digitalisation of court and administrative procedures which further alienate vulnerable citizens especially the elderly and ill-educated. As Michel Foucault might have said of tech and access to justice in a quote that I often cite (7): “My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous”.

Klara Bourdin: Were one signal advancement to be named which you would hope to see in the field of access to justice, what form would you wish it to take?

Donald Nicolson: A national legal service! Just as all citizens in many countries have free access to necessary medical services provided by practitioners paid by the state, would it not be fantastic for the same thing to be introduced for legal services so that those without funds have the same access to legal help as the richest in society? Of course, this is not going to happen given the strength of the legal lobby (not least because so many legislators are legally trained). Perhaps a more feasible alternative which I have long championed (13) – though still likely to be resisted by the legal profession to – would be require all lawyers to contribute to filling the access to justice gap by either providing pro (or low – i.e. discounted) legal services or help in other ways such as training law clinic students or third sectors agencies. Alternatively, given the dangers that those who are forced to provide legal services only provide the bare minimum or at least behave in an uncaring manner with clients, lawyers could be given the option of paying a financial contribution to access to justice, proportionate to their earnings – a national lawyer tax! – which could be distributed to law clinics and other bodies helping those most in need of legal services.

Klara Bourdin: What are your plans for retirement, and will they involve any clinical or other access to justice work?

Donald Nicolson: I have a lot of writing commitments still to fulfil – finishing a book on clinical legal ethics (to be published by Bristol University Press, co-authored with JoNel Newman and editing a handbook on Clinical legal Education for Edgar Elgar, also co-authored with JoNel). Beyond that, I would love to work with existing clinics on possible ways that they can be improved or those wanting to set one up on how to ensure the best possible offering – especially if this involved visiting new places and making new clinic friends! I am also thinking of offering legal services at my local foodbank and reconnecting with Scottish law clinics and law schools who might be able to use my services. However, writing this in the month before I formally retire, I am not quite sure what the future holds, apart from walking the dog, kayaking and continuing to struggle with learning to play drums. Hopefully, whatever the future does hold, I will stay involved with law clinics throughout the world.

Selected Bibliography:

“Battered Women and Provocation: The Implications of R. v. Ahluwalia” (1993) Criminal Law Review 728 (with Rohit Sanghvi)
“Truth, Reason and Justice: Epistemology and Politics in Evidence Discourse” (1994) 57 Modern Law Review 726
“Telling Tales: Gender Discrimination, Gender Construction and Battered Women who Kill » (1995) Feminist Legal Studies 185
“Facing Facts: The Teaching of Fact Construction in University Law Schools » (1997) Evidence and Proof 132
Professional Legal Ethics: Critical Interrogations, with Julian Webb (Oxford University Press, 1999)
Feminist Perspectives on Criminal Law, edited collection with Lois Bibbings (Cavendish Press, 2000a)
“Feminist Perspectives on Evidence Theory: Gender, Epistemology and Ethics” in Louise Ellison and Mary Childs (eds) Feminist Perspectives on Evidence (Cavendish Press, 2000b)
“Legal Education or Community Service? The Extra-Curricular Student Law Clinic” (2006) 3 Web Journal of Current Legal Issues
“Education, Education, Education: Legal Moral and Clinical” (2008) 42 The Law Teacher 145
“Learning In Justice: Ethical Education in an Extra-Curricular Law Clinic in Michael Robertson, et al (eds) The Ethics Project in Legal Education (Routledge, 2010)
“Taking Epistemology Seriously: ‘Truth, Reason and Justice’ Revisited’ (2012a) 17 Evidence and Proof 1
“Critical Approaches” in S Halliday (ed), An Introduction to the Study of Law (W Green, 2012b), 43
“Access to Justice and the Legal Profession” SCOLAG (2012c) 133
“Calling, Character and Clinical Legal Education: A Cradle to Grave Approach to Inculcating a Love for Justice” (2013) 16 Legal Ethics 36
“Legal Education, Ethics and Access to Justice: Forging Warriors for Justice in a Neo-Liberal World” (2015) 22 International Journal of the Legal Profession 1
“Our Roots Began in (South) Africa”: Modelling Law Clinics To Maximise Social Justice Ends (2016a) 23 International Journal of Clinical Legal Education 87
“Teaching Ethics Clinically without Breaking the Bank” in Mutaz M. Qafisheh and Stephen A. Rosenbaum (eds), Global Legal Education Approaches: The Middle East and Beyond (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016b)
“A Tale of Two Clinics: Similarities and Differences in Evidence of the ‘Clinic Effect’ on the Development of Law Students, Ethical and Altruistic Professional Identities” (with JoNel Newman) (2017) 35 Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal 1
Evidence and Proof in Scotland: Critique and Context (Edinburgh University Press, 2019)
“Theatre and Revolution in Clinical Legal Education” (with JoNel Newman, Fergus Lawrie, and Melissa Swain) (2020a) 26 Clinical Law Review 465
“Legal Advice in the Covid 19 Lockdown: Making Do or Brave New World?’ (with Liz Fisher-Frank) in Carla Ferstman and Andrew Fagan (eds), Covid-19, Law and Human Rights: Essex Dialogues (School of Law and Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, 2020b)
How to Set Up and Run a Law Clinic: Principles and Practice, with JoNel Newman and Richard Grimes (Edgar Elgar, 2023)
Clinical Legal Ethics with JoNel Newman (Bristol University Press, forthcoming 2027)

Prof. David Nicolson & Klara Bourdin
août 17, 2026
10:14 pm
Clinique juridique