Recently in Ukraine such term as "law clinic" became normal in professional and student environment.
It is hard to imagine a better place for future lawyer to practice and support his theoretic knowledge with some practice than a law clinic.
At the same time it is hard to imagine more tensed and responsible work: teachers and lawyers relate to the category of people who have unlimited working day. And it means that they work all the time when they don't sleep… And the most creative solutions come to their mind and cause insight - a solution that can change the whole case is found!
How should we teach students in a right way and with minimal investments get the maximum results?…
Active teaching method - trainingn - is not the only factor for successful law clinics and students. First of all you should understand that effectiveness of the work of law clinic means good organization of the process and correct action from the side of students. Trainings only teach participants to do something correctly, effectively cooperate with social environment, adequately accept themselves and others…

What is a training as an active teaching method and what trainings do we need?

David Lee says "Group training is any process of gaining knowledge and behavioral skills where more than two people participate" {1}
Everyone who attended training with a talanted trainer will think that such definition is too mundane...
At the same time, everyone who attended a bad training can be frustrated and irritated and the reasons can be different - from cognitive dissonance* to banal quarrels of participants in the group...

*Initial theory of cognitive dissonance of L.Festinger: dissonance is a negative stimulating condition that evolves at the moment when an individual simultaneously feels two contradicting "knowledge" (opinions, feelings) about one same object. Subjectively dissonance causes discomfort… In the case with bad training the result can be the belief "Training - is waste of time"…
If we modernize existing concept of social-psychological training given by Yu. Yemelyanov we can see that training - is a practical activity oriented at active methods of team work to develop competence. Basic methods for trainings are group discussions and role games, including viodeoing of games…
Before we start reasearching the gist of the trainings as a process we have to define what trainings we need for students of law clinics.
Considering that the main kind of activity of a student at law clinics is work with clients and protection of their rights you can think that precisely these skills he needs to improve. If we phrase the goal differently - a student must become a professioanl defender of rights - then the work at the clinic will only become a way to achieve this goal. And then variety of needed skills with increase and cover all spheres that are necessary for successful carreer in general.
As usually there is a happy medium. And there are universal and specific skills that ensure effective professioanl activity.
To these universal (basic) skills I would relate skills of social perception, business communication, work with information, management skills, etc…
Specific skills that student needs to carry out his professional responsibilities are also various and interesting.
Skills of social perception must include skills to understand behavior of participants of the process - defendant, judge, attorney… Besides the skills mentioned above, a student needs to know how to consult and solve the problems…
So we can go on and on with this list of skills and at the seminar for faculty from law schools trainers should start from amking such list…
Now when we defined what a training is we should define what trainings we will need to form necessary skills among students. David Lee calle done chapter of his book "Training as a process"
"Training as a process" (David Lee)

David Lee thinks that a training is a longlasting process, not a non-permanent event
He offers to answer four questions at the beginning stage:
1. Determination of the problem (Is there a problem?)
2. Search the solution (If the problem exists, are you sure this training will help you to solve this problem?)
3. Make decision about application of this training (Will the training help in the present situation?)
4. Formulate tasks (What will I have as a result of this training?)
We had a good example of conducting training for partner organization where we taught students-lawyers some consultation skills. The organizations had a formulated mission - legal assistance to poor people…
We determined the problem together (too much clients at the consulting center, and not enough time to work with all of them). We decided that to solve the problem they needed to specify the category of cases where they can help people. For example, help disabled, or pensioners.
It is understandable that one training can not solve organizational problem inside the organization. But when we found a way to optimize the work load for consultants and supervisors we saw that the training was useful. This example shows that there are several solutions to one problem…
You need to
1. Determine the need in teaching
5. Evaluate results
2. Determine goals of teaching
4. Conduction of the training
3. Organization and planning of the training

So the main problem that happens in the work of students at clinics and that can be solved through trainings - active teching methods - is incomplete amount of necessary skills. Some other problems: no motivation, lack of knowledge, absence of power in decision-making processes. These problems can be solved differently...
Formulation and planning of tasks for the trainings will have to base on the needs and ideas how to satisfy these needs…
Thus, some unexperienced trainers are satisfied with mere emotional evluation "Did you like the training?", which does not ensure even a minimal stage of success…
At the end of this short overview I want to name training methods once again. Traditional lectures and seminars, and less traditional role games and discussions, modeling of practical situations, brain storming, case study…
But the main goals - to be a citizen, professional, self-actualized person - must be the basic level of communication, they must be the values that predetermine any teaching trainings with basic value of supremacy of law and human dignity.
Yelena Voochay, 2001

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Article prepared for seminar-training "Organization and methodic supply for law clinics" that was conducted for faculty of law clinics of Mongolia and Ukraine by the center of practical teaching from economics and law department of Donetsk State University in November 2001.