Abstract
The late NR Madhava Menon, known widely as ‘the father of modern legal education in India’, was also a leading voice for global legal education reform by championing ‘socially relevant legal education’ through clinical legal education throughout the world. This article concentrates on his seminal role in the founding of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE) and the crafting of its mission statement. Drawing on a number of key moments in Dr Menon’s lifelong dedication to the twin causes of legal education and social justice, it highlights how he brought an international perspective to his critical work on legal education reform in India by enlisting international collaborators, how he motivated international colleagues to bring similar reforms to their countries, and how he mentored new generations of legal educators in what has become a true global clinical movement. The article focuses specifically on how the guiding principles of GAJE’s inaugural conference, which Dr Menon co-chaired in 1999, reflect his vision of global clinical legal education that continues to guide GAJE and the global clinical movement today.
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Notes
NR Madhava Menon, Clinical Legal Education (Eastern Book Co. 1998) x.
See NR Madhava Menon, ‘Lok Adalat in Delhi: A Report from a Legal Education Perspective’ (1985) 12 Indian Bar Review 415. See also Frank S Bloch and Iqbal S Ishar, ‘Legal Aid, Public Service and Clinical Legal Education: Future Directions from India and the United States’ (1990) 12 Michigan Journal of International Law 92 (exploring similarities in the role of legal aid in clinical legal education in India and the United States).
See, e.g., Frank S Bloch, ‘The Clinical Method of Law Teaching’ (1987) 14 Indian Bar Review 229; Frank S Bloch, ‘Training Lawyers for the Public Interest’ (1987) 24 Journal of Indian Law Institute (West Bengal) 1.
Clark D Cunningham, ‘Clinical Education Changing the World and the World Changing Clinical Education: The Global Alliance for Justice Education’ (‘Flowers in the Desert: Clinical Legal Education, Ethical Awareness and Community Service’, joint conference of the Australian Clinical Education Association and the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 14 July 2005) 2.
NLSIU, Reading Materials for Refresher Course for Law Teachers on Clinical Legal Education (1995) 8 (on file with author).
Ibid.
Ibid. 9.
Ibid. 2.
Workshop syllabus, in ibid. 1–6.
Jane Ellen Schukoske, ‘Dr N. R. Madhava Menon on Inclusion and Equity for Rural and Tribal India’ (2020) 7 Asian Journal of Legal Education 17, 18.
For a discussion of Dr Menon’s later views on training clinical law teachers in a global context, see Frank S Bloch, ‘N. R. Madhava Menon: A Global Justice Educator’s Approach to Training Clinical Law Teachers’ (2020) 7(1) Asian Journal of Legal Education 7.
See Cunningham, ‘Clinical Education Changing the World’ (n 4). The significance of the occasion for a clinical community that rarely ventured outside its border was noted in the conference materials: ‘For the first time we will have the opportunity to learn from and with a significant number of clinical law teachers from outside of North America as well as the opportunity to learn from people from disciplines other than law such as medicine and social work.’ See ibid.
This history is described more fully in Cunningham, ‘Clinical Education Changing the World’ (n 4) 2–7. See also Edward Santow and George Mukundi Wachira, ‘The Global Alliance for Justice Education’ in Frank S Bloch (ed), The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice (Oxford University Press 2011) 371.
This statement along with other current and historical information about the Global Alliance for Justice Education can be found on the GAJE website at www.gaje.org.
This can be seen at clinical conferences held by other international clinical organisations, such as those of the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, which has occasionally partnered with GAJE to hold joint conferences, and the European Network for Clinical Legal Education.
Text of GAJE Inaugural Conference brochure, on file with the author.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Report on the Inaugural Conference and Workshops of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (Thiruvananthapuram, 8–17 December 1999). https://resources.gaje.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/1999-GAJE-Conference-Report-Thiruvananthapuram.pdf. Accessed 15 November 2020.
For further development of this idea, see Frank S Bloch and NR Madhava Menon, ‘The Global Clinical Movement’ in Bloch, The Global Clinical Movement (n 13) 267.
Law students in Street Law programmes explain to schoolchildren, prisoners, and members of disadvantaged communities ‘on the street’ how the law affects them in their daily lives, thereby giving the students valuable insights into social justice issues as they work at making others aware of their legal rights.
Ved Kumari and Susan L Brooks (eds), Creative Child Advocacy: Global Perspectives (Sage 2014).
Information about the Durban conference can be found in the conference report, Report on the Second World Conference of the Global Alliance for Justice Education. https://resources.gaje.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/GAJE-2001-Conference-Report-Durban-South-Africa.pdf. Accessed 15 November 2020.
GAJE Constitution. https://gaje.org/GAJE-Constitution. Accessed 8 November 2020.
Conference pages and/or conference reports for all ten conferences are available on the ‘Conferences’ tab of the GAJE website (www.gaje.org). Other information about GAJE, including the GAJE archives, goals and Mission Statement, Constitution, and information about GAJE committees, may be accessed under the ‘About GAJE’ tab at www.gaje.org.
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Bloch, F.S. NR Madhava Menon: The guiding light for global clinical legal education. Jindal Global Law Review 11, 209–220 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41020-020-00123-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41020-020-00123-4