1.4 What is a Clinic?

A legal clinic can take on many  different forms. There is no settled definition of what constitutes a “legal clinics” or clinic program in Canada. In some provinces and territories, there are many legal clinics. In others, there is only one (or none, in a few cases).

Australian clinician and academic Jeff Giddings notes that: “[t]he key differentiators in understandings of CLE are the involvement of real clients, the supervision arrangements, links to classroom-based activities, focus on social justice and structured reflective practice.”

He further notes that there is

“limited value in prescriptive definitions that exclude worthy opportunities for law students to learn while serving their communities. But, equally, it is unhelpful to enable law schools and governments to opportunistically describe activities as clinical that involve no active engagement with colleagues, clients and communities”.

Jeff Giddings, ed, Global Clinical Legal Education  (New York: Routledge, 2025) at 11.

Richard Wilson adopts what he identifies as an “idealized” definition of clinical legal education involving five elements:

“1) provision by students of real legal services to actual clients with real legal problems; 2) students are responsible for their decisions in the cases, but are closely supervised, with carefully controlled workloads, by an attorney licensed to practice law in the relevant jurisdiction, preferably a professor who shares the pedagogical objectives of clinical legal education; 3) clients services by the program are generally people, groups, or organizations that are not able to afford the cost of legal representation or they come from traditionally disadvantaged, marginal, or otherwise underserved communities; 4) academic credit commensurate with effort is awarded for clinic casework; and 5) casework by students is preceded or accompanied by a law school course, for credit, on the skills, ethics, and values of practice, as well as the necessary predicate doctrinal knowledge for the area of practice of the clinic.”

Richard J Wilson, The Global Evolution of Clinical Legal Education: More Than a Method (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018).

In a Canadian context, Giddings’ comment is helpful, given the wide diversity of experiences that are defined as “clinical”. In Canada, a legal clinic is usually an entity that provides legal and other services to clients. Some of these clinics accept students to work, volunteer, or take credits as part of a work informed experience. Some clinics are founded specifically around student learning, while others host students as an important but not foundational part of their operations. Usually, legal clinics provide services to populations that otherwise could not afford legal services, although that is not always the case. Some clinics are funded by government. Others are foundation funded. Others rely on fundraising, grants, and other sources of funding. Some clinics have full time paid staff. Others rely on pro bono services from local lawyers. Clinics provide services in many areas of law. Some specialize in certain areas and some provide more generalized services.