ABSTRACT
CLINICAL PROGRAMMES generally have one or more underlying goals: an exposure to welfare cases which harnesses student motivation and idealism; an exposure to 'real life casework' which enhances a broader understanding of the operation of law in context;1 or the development of the skills associated with the practice of law.2 What these aims share is "a belief in and quest for an alternative to a curriculum dominated by propositional knowledge for its own sake".3 As the aims of clinical programmes have become more concrete and diverse the traditional conception of the clinical experience in law-the tyro lawyer conducting welfare cases-has expanded.4 This article describes the Internship in Capital Punishment Studies, a programme which places students, for a brief period of their studies, in the teams of organisations struggling to save convicted prisoners from execution. The main foci are the ethical issues raised by the involvement of students in this kind of clinical programme. This is a fortuitous linking of the two strongest themes to emerge from the First Report on Legal Education and Training by the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Education and Conduct (ACLEC). The report both endorsed clinical legal education5 and expressed concern that, with changes in the market for legal services, "there are real dangers that professional standards will be threatened unless counter-balancing steps are taken to reinforce ethical values".6 * Peter Hodgkinson is the Director of the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies (CCPS) based
The relationship of these issues will be considered in the context of the ethics of 'cause lawyering' and of assessment.
