Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic

The Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic is a space for Law School students training. It allows students put everything they have learned into practice, providing a social service for legal free assistance. It is a non-profit clinic that works for third-sector entities and individuals at risk of poverty and social exclusion, always under the supervision of Professors and lawyers who work in pro bono law firms.

It is an initiative coherent with the educational model that Fundación Universitaria San Pablo CEU, founded by the Asociación Católica de Propagandistas, educational activities promote. A model that respects individuals’ dignity, a catalyst for professionally solid and generous people, that intervenes in public life in favour for justice and human beings’ defence.

Clinical methodology allows for connecting theoretical knowledge with reality through practice. The Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic of Universidad CEU San Pablo Law School lets students knowing about specific situations in relation to citizens, who could end up being subjects of their future professional activities.

Through the Legal Clinic Activities:

• The students will take care of a social project. For this reason, they will be in direct contact with a Law firm pro bono service and with a Third Sector entity.
• The student will work with other students, and they will be supervised by a practicing lawyer and a Professor from the Law School.
• Every project’s activities mean an incentive for the student to learn coordination skills, and cover the different stages and commitment levels of professional work.
• The student that offers this service in a responsible way, will receive the corresponding credits for the transfer of a 3 ECTS optional subject (credit transfer only available for the 2022/23 academic year).
• Clinical methodology facilitates interdisciplinarity, since not only the diversity of legal subjects, but also other areas of knowledge an experience must be taken into account.

Thought the Clinic, the School commits to its social responsibility, at the same time it fosters that same responsibility in students that voluntarily commit to providing those pro bono services. This way, with our pro bono services, we contribute to making university activities present in social reality.

Therefore, the Clinic facilitates the consolidation of teams, participating in networks, associations, and communities: the opportunity to work in other national and international clinics will be offered.

Finally, the Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic will contribute to develop innovation in students learning since they will be able to practice methodologies such as ‘service learning’ and ‘case methodology’. Precisely, Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic of the Law School will develop the design, execution, and evaluation of every project through signatures based on service learning methodology (APS).

The issues that the Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic will initially deal with will be determined by the social context and the profile of the third sector entities with which it will work. The current legal and social needs require more and more interaction between professionals from different fields, whether they come from the education, economic, medical or assistance sectors. Only this way, Law will be able to appropriately comply with the social work, society demands.

The Pro Bono CEU Legal Clinic will collaborate with both pro bono areas form law firms that have incorporated to this initiative (in collaboration Fundación Pro Bono España) and its actions for third sector entities, functioning as a nexus between the recipients of their services and Spanish society.