Street Law in Poland

From Poland, Monika Platek, Executive Director, Polish Association of Legal Education writes about their experience.  Their Street Law Program is based on the law school model.  Here,  Ms. Platek writes about the impact the course has had on the law students:

“It is much more work but so is the satisfaction greater.  The program brings an almost immediate effect; we see what we do well and what is wrong.  The contact with students is much closer and free from the usual anonymity.   At the beginning, the law students were excited and a bit frightened as to how it would work for them to act as teachers in schools and in prisons.  Very soon they experience that they have to work much more than anywhere else but they want to do the work.  They also learn that it is not what they’re used to.  In so many cases they have to use the knowledge from each of the legal branches in the very same case they debate or deal with during class.  It is like an opening.  Many newcomers are shy and very fragile during the first meetings.  But afterwards become more assertive, eager to work and fantastically creative.  I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that for many of those who have gone through “Law in Every Day Life”, a lot changes for the better.   The students want to continue what they have started in the course.  Some of them are working with me in the Civic information office, helping people with legal problems. It is the very first of its kind in Poland.”

“The students admit they understand the people much better and can see the realistic dimension of the theoretical legal knowledge they usually get when studying the law.  In fact, they become much better lawyers, more eager to help the client.”

“The law in every day life is a process, and it is important to understand that.  For us it was important to use the Street Law methods learned in Washington.  It has been three years, but I believe we are still learning.   It is also important to understand the goals which is not only law and procedures but also building the self-esteem – so needed in our part of the world.”