Clinical legal education : interviewing skills

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• DOI: 10.10520/EJC-1070d23d92
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Record Number: dejure_v51_n1_a10
• Pages: 140-162
• Author: M.A. (Riëtte) Du Plessis
• Published By: University of Pretoria

140

Clinical legal education: Interviewing skills

M A (Riëtte) du Plessis

BA LLB LLM PhD

Associate Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

OPSOMMING

Kliniese regsopleiding: Vaardighede in onderhoudsvoering

Vaardigheidsopleiding, wat onderhoudsvoering insluit, is aanvullend tot ’n

kliniek se oogmerk van sosiale geregtigheid, aangesien dit studente

bemagtig om uitspraak uit te stel, om vanoor ’n verskeidenheid te

kommunikeer en oplossings te soek. Onderhoudsvoeringvaardighede is ’n

basis van kliniese regsopleiding, ’n leermetode in ’n lewende-kliënt kliniek.

Aangesien studente oor die algemeen sonder kliniese toesig onderhoude

voer, is hul opleiding in die verband noodsaaklik. In die bespreking van

onderhoudsvoeringopleiding, val die klem op die voorbereiding van

studente, wat die taking van vooropgestelde idees en aannames insluit,

asook beradingsvaardighede. ’n Verskeidenheid van ondervragings-

tegnieke word bespreek en daar word aangedui dat onderrigliteratuur die

veronderstelling ondersteun dat die manier waarop vrae gestapel word

belangriker mag wees vir die bevordering van begrip as die kognitiewe

vlak van die vraag. Periodieke opsommings help die studente om ’n beter

begrip van die sake te vorm. ’n Bondeling van optredes wat binne konteks

geïnterpreteer moet word, is nie-verbale aanduidings, gedrag wat

obstuksies tussen die studente en hul kliënte mag vorm, spieëlgedrag en

prosedie. Regsanalise en strategieë met potensiële oplossings waarvoor

studente verantwoordelikheid moet aanvaar, aangesien hulle handelinge

andere mag beïnvloed, word bespreek. Die doelstellings van kliniese

regsopleiding, soos van toepassing op onderhoudsvoering, word aangedui.

1Introduction

In live-client university law clinics students interview and advise clients.

Clinical legal education (CLE) is the teaching methodology applied in

clinical courses.1 Client interviewing forms part of the main goals or

outcomes identified for CLE.2 Interviewing skills were identified as an

1 Quigley ‘Introduction to clinical teaching for the new clinical law professor:

a view from the first floor’ (1995) Akron Law Review 463.

2 Steenhuisen in De Klerk et al Clinical law in SA (2006) 266-279. Seven main

goals (outcomes), each with their own sub-goals were identified. The

following are associated with the sub-goal of consultation skills:

professional responsibility, legal ethics, personal norms/morality,

professionalism, social awareness, judgment and analytical abilities,

recognition of relevant facts and applicable law, understanding strategy,

tactics, decision making, process, procedure, substantive law, client

counselling, legal research, factual investigation and legal services to the

community.

How to cite: Du Plessis ‘Clinical legal education: Interviewing skills’ 2018 De Jure 140-162

http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2225-7160/2018/v51n1a9

Clinical legal education: Interviewing skills 141

essential skill across a number of jurisdictions,3 including South Africa.4

Although clinicians are present or generally available in the clinic

whilst students are conducting interviews with clients,5 they are seldom

a party to such interviews.6 The majority of scholars opine that students

should conduct client interviews without clinician supervision.7 Input by

the clinician is however required before clients are advised.8 As students

generally start interviewing clients early on in their clinical course,9 it is

essential that students are trained and instructed in this essential skill,

which must meet the CLE course outcomes.10

In the law clinic students need to have conversations with clients to

learn the facts relating to their legal problems. Only then substantive law

will be analysed and applied to the legal problem. When students are

preparing for interviews, they have to be cognisant of any

preconceptions and assumptions they may have about their clients.11

In discussing the interview, the focus will be on note-taking,

questioning techniques and non-verbal cues as clusters of behaviours to

be interpreted within context.12 Legal analysis and strategy will be

3 Du Plessis Clinical legal education: Law Clinic Curriculum design and

assessment tools (2016) 47, 48.

4Ibid; Haupt in De Klerk et al Clinical law in SA (2006) 55 – 71.

5 Clinicians are focused on directing all the attending students on how clients

are to be serviced after students relay clients’ legal problems to them. Du

Plessis 123.

6 Du Plessis supra n3 at 122, 41-44. It is impossible for clinicians to attend all

interviews.

7 ACLE 2017 (Australian Clinical Legal Education), available at http://press.

anu.edu.au/publications/australian-clinical-legal-education 144 (accessed

2018-06-01). They however cautioned that the best model no doubt

depends on the individuals involved, that is, both the supervisor and the

student. ‘Students should be prepared for their work with real clients by

observing and discussing interviews, advocacy activities and other client

work conducted by practitioners’.

8 Interviews are also conducted without direct supervision in e.g. England

and Australia. Du Plessis supra n3 at 128, 129 ; Brayne in Webb and

Maughan Teaching Lawyers’ Skills (1996) 173.

9 As in South Africa from the early 1970s, see De Klerk et al Clinical law in SA

(2006) 264. Students at Monash, Australia consult independently within a

few weeks from the start of their clinical course, see Evans & Hyams

‘Independent evaluations of clinical education programs: Appropriate

objectives and processes in an Australian setting’ 2008 Griffith Law Review

60. See Du Plessis supra n3 at 16, 17 for current statistics at South African

law clinics.

10 Schrag ‘Constructing a clinic’ 1996 Clinical Law Review 175, 180–85; see

also Babich ‘The Apolitical Clinic’ 2004 Tulane Lawyer 10; Du Plessis supra

n3 at 32, 33.

11 S a l i n a s Effective client interviewing and counselling (2016) 21, 175; UWE

supra n11 at Bristol (University of West England, Bristol) 2012–2013. Legal

Practice Course, available at www2.uwe.ac.uk/services/Marketing/students/

Newstudents/Ch2-Lawyers-Skills.pdf (accessed 2014-06-02) 8; Tremblay

‘Interviewing and counseling across cultures: Heuristics and biases’ Clinical

Law Review 2002 373.

12 UWE supra n11 at 7. This will include a discussion on prosody.