good morning everyone i am attorney rigor pascual a member of the sc oversight committee on the implementation of rule 138-8 or the revised student practice room i'm here today to talk about the principles and concepts underlying rule 138-8 or the revised law student practice rule we start our lecture today with a with a very brief introduction i'm going to tell you about riley so here is riley so a little background about riley he graduated second in his class in one of the top five schools in the country he passed the bar exams recently and he
was employed by a big law firm now as a new lawyer he was assigned to work on a case to be filed in the province and to do a case build up involving a negligence case involving minors who were injured unfortunately now for riley as a as a newly uh graduated law student who just passed the bar he immediately knows the procedural loss and the substantive loss that he should know and who would take into consideration in case build up civil procedure the rules and evidence the civil code of the philippines but despite this knowledge
there were problems that he would encounter what are those problems the problems came to him in form of questions questions of more important than what is negligence what is quasi-delic questions involving what will i ask in order for me to get the elements of negligence or how do i elicit the answers that i need for the case buildup or are there questions though relevant of limits what would i do if the miner cries or how do i prevent the parents from answering the questions in behalf of the minor all of these are relevant questions that
bothered riley so what he did he went down to the library and read the books but alas nothing in the books would tell him what to do and how to answer this question one sunday morning he was able to watch a movie and that movie was erin brockovich and we we're going to show you our small clip of that movie okay now if you could walk me through all of the elements of annabelle's illnesses specific details uh when the symptoms began prior to the first medical visit um if you could reserve sentimental embellishments i'd appreciate
it because they're not going to help you in court so i just need facts dates time after watching that particular clip there was a realization by riley and what was that realization well schools have equipped our students with knowledge of substantive and procedural laws some schools were not able to hone the skills necessary for him to be practice ready while he understands that there are subjects like practice court trial technique and the like these are all rehearsed students just planning how to pass the subject without any meaningful take away now rule 138-8 or the revised
law student practice rule introduces to us the broader concept of experiential education now what is this experiential education simply it's learning while doing it's an understanding that while this is learning this is also learning now if you look at the old rules or the old rule 128-a passed in 1986 you would see how limited experiential education is which is showing up in court and litigating in court now there was this understanding that there must be a more comprehensive approach to the study of law that the study of law is not just the socratic method but
an understanding that there should be more in studying law particularly in teachers using other forms of legal pedagogy now with that being said there was a program initiated by the asia foundation together with the inl which sent a group of justices of the supreme court deans of different law schools and different lawyers to do a visit a study visit to different law schools in the united states there they were able to visit different courthouses and saw how law student interns interact with they were able to also see how they coordinate with different agencies of the
local government and the federal government and see how they were able to practice what they learned in the four corners of the room the group also was able to talk to about judges and how they see students able to practice what they learn in the in law schools we also talk to bar associations on how this experiential education in the united states was able to be helpful in making their students practice ready in litigation and in other forms of law we also talked to students teachers supervising lawyers and the like and we learned that we
have a lot to do and a lot to learn and we have to revise and expand our old rule 138 that's why upon the assumption of then as chief justice lucas p bersamin he uh created the committee to technical working group in order to revise the law student practice rule then after months of debate study this group was able to give out recommendations which the court approved on june 25 2019. now the work did not stop there after the passage of rule 138-8 the technical working group rather was able to attend different seminars to capacity
themselves in order to pass on whatever they learned through two different stakeholders in here in the philippines so we start off with the clinical legal education program which is the main thrust of rule 138-8 explained and as defined in section 2a of the rule clinical legal education program is an experiential interactive and reflective credit earning teaching course with the objectives of providing law students with practical knowledge skills and values necessary for the application of the law delivery of legal services and promotion of social justice and public interest especially the marginalized while inculcating in the students
the values of ethical lawyering and public service it consists of learning activities covered by this rule undertaken either in a law clinic or an externship which shall incorporate the teaching of legal theory and doctrines practical skills as well as legal ethics now this particular new rule or revised rule rather introduces us to what we call the limited practice of law of law students what is this how is it limited in this particular sense under section one first one it's limited because the law students can only practice law under the school's clinical legal education program if
you practice outside this particular program then he is illegally practicing law now this practice is always under the supervision of the supervising lawyer third it is limited in a sense that the practice must be credit earning and experiential gone were the days when when experiential learning under the old rules require you to photocopy tons and tons of pleadings and get coffee for your supervising lawyers it is also limited in a sense that the clients are majority majority come from the marginalized and the representative sectors of the society lastly you can only practice law whether law
student practitioners can only practice law within the court within the jurisdiction of the court issuing your certification so section one speaks of limited practice of law of law students because of this five limitations imposed on a law student practitioner now the main purpose of this particular limited practice of law is twofold and this is something that is evident in the whereas process the first one is to provide experiential learning for students to better acquire the skills required of a lawyer and equally important the second purpose is to promote legal and social responsibility now let's talk
about the different responsibilities of stakeholders when we talk about let's say law student practitioners under section 6 law schools under section 9 supervising lawyers under section 11 clinical faculty under section 12 and different means and clinical program heads now let's talk about the responsibility imposed by the rules on law student practitioners since they are practicing law in all for all intents and purposes they are expected to have they should they are expected to do all the things that allah that a lawyer can do in reverse they are all they are also obliged to undergo or
to hold the obligations of a lawyer even if they are still law students so one of the more important obligations is to keep confidentiality of records client uh client uh uh client lawyer relationship is a premium relationship in this particular regard there is also a prohibition against imposing or asking for fees for services of law student practitioners they are also mandated to perform their duties to the best of their abilities to follow the canons of ethics and most importantly they are obliged to take an oath just like we are just like new lawyers who are
mandated to take an oath before practicing law now of course law student practitioners are also allowed under section 7 to uh to sign their names to sign theirs their names and their signatures in their particular pleadings that they work on it shows ownership of their particular pleadings and that would give a boost to their their morale now for law schools there are different obligations imposed on them first and more importantly is for them to develop a clap or a clinical legal education program number two to establish a clinic number three endorse qualified students for certification
and number four to ensure compliance to the code of professional responsibility by students and supervising lawyer now the question here is how do we do a clap how do we choose there are different forms of clap if we do a clinic what kind of clinic if we do an externship what kind of externship how how do we do all of this there are different problems that you will encounter once you do a clinical legal education the european union pinpointed several problems that experiential education will face by different law schools a question of a long standing
and an easy relationship between law as liberal academic study and a legal education as a means of a vocational end they also pinpoint a problem on the focus by educators regulators and legal profession and employers on the content or the what at the expense of the delivery or the how there's also a problem with the historical unwillingness of stakeholders in legal education with the exception of most students to embrace contemporary pedagogic theory and related learning and teaching methods fourthly there is a popularity of law as a study of choice and the attraction of law to
providers there's also a problem with funding the funding model for most law schools and its impact on legal education which requires a heavy reliance on passive instruction through lectures in contrast with the study of medicine applied sciences and the languages lastly there's always this particular tension between education mission of universities and colleges and the needs of wider society and because of this the european union was able to point out solutions that clep can provide in order to solve this six conundrums the first one is to to adapt what you call an in-house in client clinics
now this clinics offer advice or representation under the supervision of a professionally qualified lawyer you can also do an externship with students helping to provide advice or representation for host organization under the supervision of the host you can also do a research clinic or which can either be an in-house one or an externship where assist where student assist in research findings on legal issues that may be used to inform the public and or shape future policy also they can also do a legal literacy clinic where cli where students assist in developing public awareness of legal
and related rights and responsibilities lastly you can always do simulation like case studies and role playing in which students apply theory to practice as an adjunct to or as an integral part of their studies now these particular solutions would give you an idea or would shock you because you will come to a realization that all clinics are not litigation clinics or in other words in other words litigation clinics are not the only kinds of clinic allowed by these rules when we went to the united states we were able to see different clinics that cater to
the different needs of the people like this one they can focus on consumer protection housing tax or you could also go to paternity paternity clinics to ensure that the rights of a child are protected you can also go to clinics that that uh clinics that would cater to veterans and to the rights that they that their rights that should be protected now all of this clinics can be adopted in your particular jurisdiction but make sure that the clinics that you adopt are ones that are needed by your society they told us that back in 2008
there were a lot of clinics that caters to foreclosures of mortgage because during that time there were a lot of foreclosures because of the bursting of the bubble of the us economy however because of that particular because of the end of that particular reception recession there is no need for this more foreclosure clinics to exist that's why they closed down their those clinics and opened up new clinics because of the advent of the residency there were a proliferation now of immigration clinics that protects immigrant asylum seekers from possible deportation coming from the trump administration now
going on when we talk about the responsibilities of supervising lawyers we also the rules apply and the rules require rather that they control the number of supervised law student practitioners that they should appear personally with students assume personal responsibility of the work that they do assist and advise student practitioners read and approve readings before filing and have general supervision over the law student practitioner now as regards clinical faculty this is a new uh this is a new term that will uh that comes in in philippine legal education system when you talk about clinical faculty we
have to distinguish them with what you call podgum professors when we talk about pojun professors we talk about those professors who lectures who teach us on the substantive and procedural laws they talk about constitutional law they talk about criminal law they talk about they talk about immediate law procedures civil procedure summary procedure etc etc well on the other hand when you talk about clinical professors they don't talk about the substance or the procedure but rather they talk about and teach you the skills that you need in order to practice how to interview how to conduct
a good investigation how do you do a good case build up how do you survey how do you present in public how do you present your paper how do you properly interview an individual a minor a rape victim etc etc those skills that are not necessarily taught to you in law schools so the right the revised law student practice will require schools to uh to hire clinical instructors now for deans and heads of clinics they're there to endorse qualified law students for certification purposes as i've said hire clinical faculty or practitioners that will teach skills
on how to be let's say professional right and supervised supervising lawyers and student practitioners now the question is why are we here why are we doing all of this we're here in order to help you law students students and other stakeholders to comply with the rules okay but we we are always here and we're always um live by the motto that we are strict in principle but we are always flexible in execution with that being said i thank you very much and i end my presentation thank you very much you
