Legal Clinic

The Legal Clinic of the YSU Faculty of Law was founded in 1999 with the financial support of the Open Society Foundations – Armenia. It is a structural division of the YSU Faculty of Law, which does not pursue the goal of generating profit.

4th-year undergraduate and graduate students admitted to the Legal Clinic on a volunteer basis and based on an interview provide free legal aid to socially vulnerable people who are unable to pay for legal services.

The main goals of the Legal Clinic are:

• provide students with the basic practical knowledge and skills necessary for a practicing lawyer,
• support students in professional orientation and career development,
• promote the involvement of the most qualified professionals in the labor market,
• provide legal assistance to vulnerable groups of society and socially vulnerable people,
• contribute to the socialization of law students by including them in the practical application of legal knowledge and in the process of solving legal problems arising in society,
• support law students in establishing themselves as specialists, as well as in their personality development, that is, to correctly imagine the role and importance of the legal profession, as well as to support the improvement of the moral aspects of professional and personal manner,
• contribute to increasing the level of legal knowledge and legal awareness among the younger groups of society.

The clinic pursues educational and social charitable goals.

The core activities of the Legal Clinic are:

• The organization of the reception of citizens, during which the students, under the direct supervision of the lecturer-coordinators of the Legal Clinic, receive persons with legal problems and provide them with the necessary legal services. In particular, through students, citizens learn about the modern legal regulation of various public relations, their own rights and responsibilities, the resolution of legal disputes and the procedures for the implementation of the latter. Depending on the need, various legal documents (application, claim, answer to the claim, mediation agreement, appeal to the Court of Appeal, appeal to the Court of Cassation, complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), etc.) are prepared by the efforts of the students to present to state, non-state bodies and international institutes.

• Implementation of the "Law for All" project, within the framework of which courses aimed at increasing awareness of various fields of law are organized by applying active (interactive) teaching methods. The main goal of the courses is to create a dialogue mechanism between civil society and youth and to increase the level of legal knowledge and legal awareness among youth. In this direction, the courses include organizing open classes and seminars on various topics of law for high school students of Yerevan and RA regions, holding court games and role-playing games, holding discussions and debates.
   
  

  The Legal clinic implements legal consultation in three main directions: civil, administrative, and criminal. In addition to the mentioned directions, YSU Legal Clinic, expanding its spheres of activity, has introduced a new direction: "Human Rights", within the framework of which students get acquainted with the rights of different groups of society, in particular, refugees, minors, military personnel, participate in training courses on the legal profession, perform narrow field scientific research works, and also get acquainted with the practical skills of submitting a complaint to the ECHR.

  The clinic operates on the basis of the principles of legality, independence, confidentiality, volunteerism, humanitarianism and non-gratuity.
  

The clinic is managed by a director, who must be at least a candidate of legal sciences. The director is appointed by the decision of the Dean of the YSU Faculty of Law.

The day-to-day operation of the clinic is organized by an assistant director with at least a bachelor's degree in law.

Candidates for lecturer-coordinator can be practicing lawyers who must be a candidate of legal sciences or have a license to practice law, obtained in accordance with the law.

Under the daily supervision of the clinic director, assistant director and lecturer-coordinator, the students personally receive and hold consultation with citizens, and, as necessary and possible, present as a legal representative. The student personally collects and analyzes information, carefully studies the legal problem, finds possible solutions to the given problem, prepares and implements the consultation. The main role of the lecturer-coordinator is not to find solutions to the problem, but to exclude possible mistakes of students and to coordinate their actions.

The Legal Clinic of the YSU Faculty of Law cooperates with a number of RA state and non-state bodies and international institutes. In particular, close cooperation was formed with the staff of the Human Rights Defender of the Republic of Armenia, the Office of RA Public Defender, the Office of RA Financial System Mediator, "Mission Armenia" NGO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Armenia and other institutes, cooperation with which is not limited to referring people with legal problems to the YSU Legal Clinic, but also implements a number of programs with them.