13. Climate and community legal education in a non-climate clinic
As we have explained, contemporary CLE adopts a wide view of the client, and of the legal work done within the clinic to meet the needs of the client. When the client is viewed as being more than an individual, the nature of the work done in CLE has a broader remit. We explained that clinics around Australia now do community legal education, law reform and capacity-building work for community-minded clients. These might be environmental charities advocating for legal change or CLCs attempting to educate and empower their community through the dissemination of legal education resources. In this way at least some climate justice work might be seen as a form of movement lawyering, in which lawyers contribute their skills to build the power of community-led campaigns through a range of legal and political advocacy strategies.[1]
Where the work done by a CLE program or subject that is not squarely a climate clinic involves reform or education, there is great potential for that non-climate clinic to nonetheless do climate CLE, especially clinics that place students within the EDO,[2] where students have the opportunity to be most exposed to activist or rebellious lawyering for the climate.[3]
This was the experience of Melbourne Law School’s Street Law subject in 2023. Street Law is a worldwide CLE program in which students deliver community legal education.[4] They learn about the law and the goals and approaches to the provision of legal information and education for a community that has encountered legal problems. In a climate context, this education-focused CLE proved especially appropriate to build resilience and legal preparedness in communities at risk of weather extremes or climatic changes.
Street Law partnered with a CLC on the metropolitan fringe to develop legal education and information resources to be used by the centre to support their community before and in response to an extreme weather event. In doing so it increased the capacity of the CLC to meet the legal need experienced by their vulnerable clientele, including in the areas of insurance and disaster law.[5] Within the Street Law subject, students prepared community presentations, checklists and videos on legal preparedness and legal response avenues for individuals harmed by fires, floods and storms. The peak body for CLCs in Victoria notes climate justice aligns with the fundamental social justice mission of CLCs, reinforcing and underlining the importance of place-based approaches, rather than, for instance, directing at-risk clients to distant city-based legal centres.
KEY QUESTION
- Think about all the groups working for climate justice in your area. How might law schools partner with them, and in so doing train lawyers for the climate justice movement?
- Scott L Cummings, ‘Movement Lawyering’ (2020) 27(1) Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 87. ↵
- Environment Defenders Office (Web Page) <https://www.edo.org.au/>. ↵
- Richard Owen, ‘Rebellious Lawyering Theory, Sustainability and Clinical Legal Education’ in Omar Madhloom and Hugh McFaul (eds), Thinking About Clinical Legal Education: Philosophical and Theoretical Perspectives (Routledge, 2022) 230. ↵
- Richard Grimes et al, ‘Street Law and Social Justice Education’ in Frank S Bloch (ed), The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice (Oxford University Press, 2010) 225; ‘Street Law (LAWS50102)’, The University of Melbourne (Web Page) <https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/2024/subjects/laws50102>. ↵
- Monica Taylor notes there is significant scope for development of disaster law clinics in Australian law schools, and at all stages of the disaster cycle — mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery: Monica Taylor, ‘Climate Crisis, Legal Education and Law Student Wellbeing: Pedagogical Strategies for Action’ (2021) 40(3) University of Queensland Law Journal 474. ↵
There are many definitions of climate justice. The definition by the Climate Justice Global Alliance states that ‘climate justice advocates for equitable solutions that prioritize the needs of those who are most affected by climate change, strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and ensure that the burdens and benefits of climate action are distributed fairly, taking into account historical and systemic inequalities.’ Climate justice has various aspects:
- Distributive justice: paying attention to inequalities in the causes, burdens of addressing and experience of impacts.
- Procedural justice: ensuring participatory, accessible, fair and inclusive processes to address climate change.
- Recognition justice: centring voices of those who have historically been marginalised, such as First Nations in Australia.
- Reparative or corrective justice: considering what actions are necessary to redress and repair harms caused
‘Preparedness’ refers to a state of being ready for something to happen, especially for a disaster.[1] In the context of disaster law and climate change, ‘legal preparedness’ can be understood as activities or initiatives that aim to reduce the risk of legal issues arising for individuals or communities prior to a disaster/extreme weather event occurring and to equip them with tools to manage and recover from legal challenges arising from such events.
Examples of legal preparedness initiatives can be observed in the work of community legal centres. They include:
- Sharing legal information through various channels;
- Conducting community legal education to raise awareness of potential legal problems, such as insurance disputes, and strategies for legal protection;
- Encouraging the safe keeping of key legal documents by promoting ‘digital inclusion’; and
- Developing legal information resources to highlight the intersection of legal problems caused by disasters.
[1] ‘Definition of ‘preparedness’’, Collins (Web Page) <https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/preparedness>
