Lesson Learned from the First Year of Environmental Legal Clinic Operation at CMU

Speakers

Nuthamon Kongcharoen, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law at Chiang Mai University

Session Description

After establishing the Environmental Legal Clinic (ELC) at the Law Faculty, Chiang Mai University, Thailand, we have completed our first year. Our experience has yielded valuable lessons that we believe would be of interest to other law schools. The ELC’s mission, to cultivate environmental lawyers in a field where environmental law is not a compulsory course, is of utmost importance in a society that is in dire need of such professionals. Furthermore, the ELC is committed to ensuring that public interest lawyers are well-versed in environmental law.

In normal situations for law schools worldwide, the compulsory courses that nurture legal professionals push the burden of study with many courses. After law students are exhausted from their major subjects, a handout is also crucial for clinical legal education; many activities for ELC students would scare students away. Last but not least, the selected case studies for students become challenging. Some cases are not settled yet, and some require a lot of legal skill and time. Finding a suitable case for students’ practice for every semester is also rare.

The experiences of our first year have led the ELC to make adjustments to our practices. We have increased the prerequisite courses for students, providing more opportunities for enrollment. We are also developing handouts and guidelines for the ELC, ensuring that students have access to specific materials. With these changes, we are optimistic that our second year will bring more students and, ultimately, more environmental lawyers.