WHY S.T.A.R.S.?

Skills Transfers in Academia: a Renewed Strategy.
Enhancing Legal Clinics in the European Union.
Erasmus+ S.T.A.R.S. brings together 5 universities, from 4 EU countries, in order to enhance and support the legal clinics development

CONTACT INFO

Who are we

We are a consortium, composed by 5 Universities (Luxembourg, Roma Tre, Brescia, Palackeho V Olomouci, Romano-Americana) that have granted the Erasmus Plus Programme (the European Commission's Programme for education, training, youth and sport), which aims to develop innovation in higher education, especially regarding to the innovative teaching methods (i.e. legal clinics).

Our project (which lasts 36 months, from 1-09-2017 to 31-08-2020), named "Skills Transfers In Academia : A Renewed Strategy Enhancing legal clinics in the European Union (STARS) aims to achieve relevant and high quality of students' knowledge, skills and competences, draw up a set of formalized criteria to evaluate legal clinics quality, promote transnational learning, teaching and training activities in the field of consumer law.
The target groups of dissemination activities outside the partnership:
Civil society: Future employers (local), consumers (local), pro bono organizations (local, regional, European), legislatures (local and European).

Legal clinics provide "community service" which is an extension of university expertise to the world outside the university, the community, in the service of improving the quality of life of the community and which is effected through a university model in which community service is integral to all aspects of the university: mission, structure and organization, hiring and promotion, curriculum and teaching, research and publications (the so called third mission of universities).
Our project, bringing together Universities from all over the EU -which already run legal clinics and are willing to reflect on their structure, organisation and methods- has the ambition to develop the presence of legal clinics in most European law schools by providing scientific material on this issue, notably through the creation of a online platform accessible to the public and by disseminating this information as well as the outcomes of the project through other digital canals.
The project will provide newsletters, platforms and database (the database on clinical case outcomes is an innovative product) through which students, researchers and teaching staff may transfer their knowledge and skills for the benefit of their community, while at the same time ensuring their learning, teaching and research activities benefit from real-life cases and interactions in a digital context. In fact, by twinning with partner institutions, universities will share knowledge, innovation and best practices with each other with the goal of teaching law students how to apply knowledge learned in the classroom to real life problems of consumers and partners within civil society.

The STARS project brings together Universities, which already have legal clinics and are willing to reflect on their structure, organisation and methods.
The choices were made on the ground of quality criteria as well as on pre –existing formal and informal partnership (the involved legal clinics are members of the European Network on Clinical Legal Education – ENCLE, the universities of Luxembourg and Rome 3 have already entered a formal partnership to allow exchange of students and best practices). The Romanian American University of Bucharest has expressed its interest in establishing a consumer law clinic, which led it to join the project in order to directly benefit from the outcomes and to participate in the formalization of the methods already existing as the outsider's standpoint is a very efficient way to improve a project. All STARS partners are already running legal clinics (the Romanian American University of Bucharest has already an experience in the field of clinics, but not a consumer clinic.

Objectives

The model of legal clinic which will be proposed is that of a rigorous service open to the community (consumers in need of legal help) under academic control and within university premises (which increases the credibility of the service). The European Network on Clinical Education (ENCLE) will be closely associated to the project by taking part to conferences and summer schools. ENCLE is committed to achieving justice through education. It aims to bring together persons from different countries, who exchange perspectives and work collaboratively from a variety of legal, educational and organizational settings in order to promote justice and increase the quality of law teaching through Clinical Legal Education (CLE).

Project's outcome

The main objective of the project is to promote a culture of legal clinics in Europe in order to foster through the educational methods clinics apply the growth of knowledge, personal skills and values, as well as the promotion of social justice at the same time.

All project results and objectives achieved were qualitatively assessed by the independent agency in charge of the final evaluation of the project "Learning avenue" (see the Final Evaluation Report of the STARS project). The final evaluation report was conducted according to a qualitative approach (FESP, p. 16): "The resources used include the following: universities' self-assessment (specifically completed for this evaluation), interviews with various stakeholders of each university (academics and professionals), surveys on the summer and winter schools, and other accessible resources, such as websites."

As observed by the independent agency: "Overall, the STARS project met its numerous goals with flying colours: the Guidelines were developed and drafted, the RAU Consumer Clinic was established, and the activities scheduled (summer/white schools, conferences, website) took place on time, when not disturbed by the pandemic."

Download

[.pdf] Final Evaluation Report of the STARS project

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