For more than 32 years the Rhodes Law Clinic has served Grahamstown citizens and educated people all over the Eastern Cape about their rights. Its mission: to contribute to the development of the province through teaching, research and community service.
For more than 32 years the Rhodes Law Clinic has served Grahamstown citizens and educated people all over the Eastern Cape about their rights. Its mission: to contribute to the development of the province through teaching, research and community service.
The clinic provides legal education to law students, provides legal services to the poor, runs an advice office-programme and does community outreach.
Professor Jobst Bodenstein, the clinic's director, said it was established by four law students in 1979.
It gives Rhodes LLB students the opportunity to apply theory in a practical setting: they focus on skills such as consultation and communication; file and case management; the drafting of letters, pleadings and other court notices and trial advocacy.
Bodenstein said the clinic also serves as a firm of attorneys for poor people and disadvantaged communities.
Its staff and volunteers are involved in criminal cases, debt collection, labour cases, divorce and assisting with drafting and checking the legality of contracts and wills.
Formal procedure
The process begins with a client first being interviewed by a law student, while supervisors ensure that the correct advice is given. The person is then screened to determine whether he or she is truly in need, and to establish the difficulty of the case. If it is a complex matter it will be taken over by an attorney or candidate attorney.
If the clinic follows the legal route the candidate attorney will then take the matter to court, but because of the cost and time consuming nature of the legal route, Bodenstein does not believe it is the best way to go.
The other route is mediation, where someone from the clinic tries to help settle the matter outside of court. Bodenstein said the clinic suggests negotiation between the individuals themselves.
There are, however, certain cases that the clinic does not handle. For example defamation, matters involving the road accident fund (RAF), the administration of estates or the transfer of property.
Law clinic expansion
The law clinic’s Queenstown branch opened in 2003 and deals with rural matters and the protection of farm workers.
“A lot of the matters are about the conflict between customary law and civil law as regards to the rights to property and succession rights,” said Bodenstein.
A big problem in the rural communities is that people, especially women, are not aware of their rights, he said. The clinic attempts to educate the community by combining street law – basic information about the law for ordinary people – with technical legal assistance.
“If people are aware of their rights they will be able to help themselves more and they can then be empowered to take more control of their matters,” said Bodenstein.
Bodenstein has seen a number of cases where two families fight about a funeral, and the financial implications that come with it.
“The family gets hold of the funeral policy… which is very often the only money left for the widow and children,” he said.
The clinic tries to empower women by educating them about their rights so they, and not the relatives, can have power over their late spouse's money.
The clinic also serves about 50 paralegal advice offices around the Eastern Cape and into the Northern Cape as part of their “access to justice” project. This includes training staff, students and paralegals in facilitation skills; legal and administrative support to the offices; assisting paralegals in their cases and interviewing clients.
In 2010 the Rhodes Legal Aid Clinic’s name changed to the Rhodes Law Clinic. It is a non-profit organisation that is dependent on outside funding.
Today the Grahamstown and Queenstown offices have six attorneys and eight candidate attorneys with more than 35 part-time LLB students that work for the clinic per semester.
For legal services:
Contact person: Ms Luise Ostler (Legal Practice Coordinator) or Prof. Jobst Bodenstein (Director)
Telephone: 046 622 9301.
Address: 41 New Street, Grahamstown
or 24 Ebden Street, Queenstown.
