‘Clients, Clinics and Social Justice: Reducing Inequality (and embedding legal ethics) via an LLB portfolio pathway

The Department of Law and Criminology at Edge Hill University (England) introduced a three-module, challenging, and longitudinal portfolio pathway in 2014. In addition to supporting the work of its campus pro-bono law clinic, its underpinning aims were threefold: to enhance and evidence the professionalism of its under-graduate LLB students, to embed a deeper awareness of the (legal) ethics needed for sustainable legal practice under PRME and the UN Global Compact, and, most significantly, to highlight the increasing need for socially responsible advocates, able to defend the rights of marginalised,vulnerable clients. Human Rights case law on socio-economic issues, and the ability to both navigate and argue it, is key, as this article sets out.