The UIB Legal Clinic is a space for theoretical and practical training in which a service is provided to the community. Live cases are worked on in which both the student and the professional tutor, who is a lawyer, get personally involved knowing the work of the collaborating entity and the social and, sometimes, personal context of each case. The student works on real cases, in progress or already resolved; conducts interviews, interacts with other parts of the process and works within the team of the collaborating entity. As in the methodology applicable to internships, in general, “you learn by doing”, but here, in addition, values and experiences are learned that are not always found in most professional fields for which students are prepared at the university. It is based on clinical legal education, a training model in Law based on the connection with the social and legal reality that has a great academic and social implementation, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries and that in Spain began to be implemented in the first 2000s. Currently, legal clinics in Spain are coordinated within the Spanish Network of Legal Clinics Red Española de Clínicas Jurídicas, to which the UIB Legal Clinic belongs and participates.
With the Legal Clinic of the UIB, the aim is for students of higher Law courses to access practice in such a way that, while expanding their theoretical knowledge, they acquire the professional skills necessary for legal practice, and receive direct awareness towards groups that are discriminated against or vulnerable, that they hardly forget and that they probably will not find in their professional career. Through this program, the work of awareness and social responsibility that corresponds to the University is also carried out, getting involved in the problems that our society is experiencing and, in particular, people at risk of social exclusion.
This training model was implemented at the University of the Balearic Islands in 2012 as an external internship program for the Faculty of Law. Four legal clinics are currently operating: “Food and Solidarity” at the NGO Solidarios de Montision, “Foreigners and Immigration” at Cáritas, “Asil y Refugio” at the Red Cross and “Courts” at the Courts of Sa Gerreria and Avenidas de Palma . The UIB has signed two collaboration agreements with the Col·legi d’Advocats de les Illes Balears (ICAIB) (ICAIB) and with the entities Cáritas and Montision Solidària, so that volunteer lawyers can participate in this program as tutors for students in practice at legal clinics. Internships in the Courts are carried out under an agreement with the Courts and the ICAIB of Palma in 2021. Internships at the Red Cross (Balearic Islands) are carried out within the framework of a general collaboration agreement between this entity and the UIB.
Since 2021, places are also offered for internships in Menorca and Eivissa at Caritas, with the collaboration of the Bar Association.
The UIB Legal Clinic has also had projects in MÉDICOS DEL MUNDO (right to health, attention to prostituted women) and with ARCA (historical heritage protection) that are not currently active.
The external practices of the Legal Clinic have a duration of four to six months, depending on the program. At the end of this period, students must deliver a report with a summary of all the cases treated and the resolution of each case and, if accepted, the practices have a recognition of 6 ECTS credits equivalent to an optional subject. These external internships cannot be added to other internships already carried out.