In the academic year 2013/2014, the Law School established a Street Law programme.

Street Law began in 1972, when a small group of Georgetown University Law Centre students developed an experimental curriculum to teach high school students about law and the legal system. Over time, the Street Law curriculum evolved and has been successfully implemented internationally by many law schools in prisons, schools and community centres, and with a variety of other interested groups including tenants, claimants, patients, single parents and volunteers with not-for-profit organisations.

Under the Street Law scheme, as operated by the Law School, each year about 20 undergraduate law students are selected in a competitive process to participate in the programme. The first step for the students is to identify a matter of legal concern they will then research relevant material with a view ultimately to presenting their findings to a selected audience in a user-friendly format.

The emphasis in Street Law is on clinical legal education with students undertaking real (or simulated) legal work under supervision of practising lawyers and then been given the opportunity to review critically that experience and reflect on what happened (or didn’t), and why.