Public Interest Law and Legal Education
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EDITORS' NOTE
Public Interest Law and Legal Education
JAYDEN HOUGHTON*
MICHELLE CHENt
The Journal has already issued a challenge to New Zealand universities to take action to
sustain the idealism of law students so they might use their legal studies to champion a
cause greater than themselves.' In this Editors' Note, we survey initiatives that top
universities around the world have taken to nurture students' enthusiasm for public
interest law, promote it as a viable career option and support students to pursue it as a
career.2 We hope that the survey gives New Zealand's law schools some food for thought.
An initiative at most of the world's leading law schools-and, indeed, taken up by most
New Zealand law schools-is a programme in which law students assist practitioners and
external organisations with pro bono legal work, particularly research and advocacy.3
Broadly, the programmes exist in one of two arrangements: either an arrangement in
which the law school formally offers a course or clinic for which students receive credit;'
* Rereahu Maniapoto. Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
t Faculty of Law, University of Auckland.
Jayden and Michelle have written the Editors' Note for this issue on behalf of all members of
the editorial team.
1 See Jayden Houghton The Public Interest Flame (2018) 5 PILJNZ 1 at 1-3.
2 The universities we survey in this Editors' Note include the top five law schools in the world,
as well as a selection from the rest of the top 10, according to Top Law Schools in 2019 (27
February 2019) QS World University Rankings <www.topuniversities.com>. The initiatives we
survey are a selection of those offered by each law school only.
3 On programmes in New Zealand universities, see, for example, Clinical Legal Studies
University of Canterbury <www.canterbury.ac.nz>; and Our Mission Equal Justice Project
<www.equaljusticeproject.co.nz>.
4 Yale Law School, for example, offers a successful clinical programme as part of its curriculum.
Yale Law School reports that around 90 per cent of its students take part in its clinical
programme. The high uptake could be partly due to the fact that, unlike most other law
schools, [Yale Law School] students can begin taking clinics ... and appearing in court ... during
... their first year. Clinical and Experiential Learning Yale Law School <www.law.yale.edu>.
Interestingly, senior students at New York University (NYU) who commit their last semester at
law school to work full time on pro bono legal work through the faculty's Pro Bono Scholars
Program are eligible to take their state bar exam early. Pro Bono Scholars Program Externship
NYU Law <www.law.nyu.edu>.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/piljnz6&div=4&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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