Montpellier Legal Clinic

Director: Professor LucasBENTO DE CARVALHO
Co-Director: Dr. Laurent CHABAUD

The Legal Clinic is an educational innovation with a social purpose; it promotes access to justice while complementing students' theoretical training. The purpose of the Legal Clinic is to offer a free information service to people facing legal or social difficulties.

Founded in 2013 by Professor Daniel MAINGUY, the Montpellier Legal Clinic is one of the first modern French legal clinics to have been created. Its dual objective is to improve access to justice for the most vulnerable members of society and to train law students through practical experience.

Recognized as an initiative of excellence on multiple occasions and winner of the Grand Prix for student initiatives by the M.U.S.E. (Montpellier University of Excellence) consortium of the University of Montpellier in 2019.

► TWO MISSIONS

Institutionalized by Dean Guylain Clamour within the Faculty in April 2019, the Montpellier Legal Clinic is located in Building 3 of the Faculty.

Helping vulnerable people

Helping individuals facing legal issues. Our aim is to improve access to justice for the most vulnerable members of society (students, the elderly, the unemployed, those in precarious situations, etc.), complementing the assistance already provided by the Maison de la Justice et du Droit (Law and Justice Center), lawyers, and all legal professionals. 

Train students for real-life situations

The Clinic allows students to put the theoretical knowledge they have acquired during their studies into practice by confronting real-life situations.

At the university level, clinicians at the Montpellier Legal Clinic are law students or students in their second year of law school or above. Our teams are mixed so that our older volunteers can share their skills and help develop those of the younger ones. 

► Are you an individual or a student facing a legal issue?

The first step is to agree on an initial meeting together.

In your email, please specify:
> A summary of your request. What are you expecting from the Clinic?
> Your availability over the next two weeks ( please provide several options).
> Your phone number.

We will get back to you within approximately 72 hours ( excluding school holidays and weekends).

During this first meeting, you will explain your situation to a team of student volunteers who will take charge of your case.
In order to provide you with a quick response, you will need to bring all relevant information and documents with you. The team will ask you questions as needed to better understand your situation. After that, we will need about four weeks to provide you with the necessary answers and help you with your application.

The team will explain its recommendations to you during a second appointment.

As part of our quality assurance process, no advice will be given during the initial appointment. This same quality assurance process requires that the information provided by volunteers be verified by faculty members or attorneys.

All volunteers are bound by professional confidentiality.

► How does it work?

Of the 200 clinicians, 30 are part of the organizing team, divided into three areas of expertise (Organization, Quality, and Partnerships). Each of these areas is supervised by several doctors or doctoral students in law, who are themselves supervised by teacher-researchers.

The Organization Division

The Organization Department is responsible for the general organization of the Montpellier Legal Clinic. It is responsible for relations between the Montpellier Legal Clinic and patients, as well as relations between the Montpellier Legal Clinic and our clinicians. It also manages on-call duties, registrations, and the allocation of cases to our clinicians. It also works closely with the Quality Department to offer you the best possible service.

The Partnership and Project Division

The Partnership and Project Division is responsible for coordinating the entire Montpellier Legal Clinic. It is responsible for all internal relations (with the University and the Faculty) as well as all external relations (with legal professionals and French or international legal clinics). It also sets up all partnerships concluded with the Montpellier Legal Clinic. Its goal is also to promote all of our clinicians. It can also set up training courses with certain organizations that need legal training.

The Quality Division

> A division dedicated to quality.

The Quality Department ensures that our legal information is of the highest possible quality while ensuring that deadlines are as short as possible. It is composed of the most experienced students from the Faculty of Law and Political Science, who are supervised directly by a doctor or doctoral student.

> Individualized monitoring of each case.

For each case received, a member of the Quality Department will be designated as the point of contact. This point of contact is responsible for supervising our clinicians before, during, and after appointments. Although a member of the Quality Department is present during each of our appointments, they will only intervene as a last resort, allowing our clinicians to handle the case with as much autonomy as possible. They act as a team leader on each case to assist our clinicians.

> Three levels of control.

The member of the Quality Department designated as the point of contact for a file is our first quality control. A second check is carried out by a doctor or doctoral student. Finally, a final check is carried out by a teacher-researcher. We have streamlined our process as much as possible without compromising on quality.