Reflective Portfolio: Experiential Learning in Law Clinic Module

This reflective portfolio details the experiences and skills acquired during a law clinic module, emphasizing client interviewing, legal research, and professional development. The author reflects on their initial overconfidence in interviewing skills, highlighting the importance of preparation and effective communication. The challenges of legal research, particularly in understanding and applying relevant laws to client cases, are discussed. The portfolio also covers the significance of organization, time management, and teamwork in delivering sound legal advice. Weaknesses such as communication barriers and difficulties with accents are acknowledged, along with strategies for improvement. The module's impact on the author's ability to manage pressure, think like a lawyer, and provide practical solutions to clients is underscored. Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students.

Reflective portfolio refers to looking back at one’s past and focussing on the good and bad
attributes. It is about gaining knowledge on what was right and what has wrong. This module
provided me a chance to exhibit all the six core credentials by taking up real cases. The
process involved skills such as drafting letters, interviewing, researching and being
professional. To explore about this case I found out four clients and advised two of them who
experienced real problems.
Interviewing skills
Initially I was over- confident regarding my interview skills; however, during this law clinic
module I acquired certain specific skills. Normally people ignore these skills while
interviewing, especially on the points, which might or might not require attention. Lacking
any prior experience, I was nervous on the first day and reluctant to face real clients. It was a
great learning experience with questionnaire preparation and teacher inputs. The essential
points of learning nurtured my interview skills to help me in doing a better job.
I should have not done:
I think I was quite good with my first client interview but with the second client interview, I
took things for granted which put a negative impact on my preparation. The effect was in
terms of questionnaire preparation, as I did not jot down the points. I understood my mistake
when the teacher asked about my preparation. As I have not written the points, key questions
were not flashing out of my mind at this critical juncture. I learnt the importance of
preparation and noting down the important points.
The key factors I learnt while dealing with the clients as far as interview is concerned
were approaching the client to make them feel at ease and comfortable which provided
opportunity to speak freely without any hesitations about their problems. This will not only
make them answer freely but also allow me to question and enquire about sensitive details

related to the case by maintaining relevance to the topic. This allowed me to extract as much
information as possible further to which my job of handling the case will be much easier and
clear.
Researching a legal problem
On the other hand, I felt research is a bit difficult as it requires lot of time and effort.
Moreover, there is no relation with any basic formula or rulebook. When I started studying
and doing research on the clients’ case, I researched in detail to find solutions to various case-
related problems. I was puzzled with the amount of information and knowledge as I kept
getting more involved in the case. In order to give alternate solution and options it requires
great deal of time and energy. It is time consuming, but plays an important part in enriching
our knowledge and skill. In order to make suggestions to the client, primarily I required
understanding the client case and going through the situation, and then looking for the
appropriate law to find a solution.
I had a great experience while researching, as it helped me to understand its importance to
any case in advising clients. It also helped me to understand various similar scenarios and
situations of the client and the ways to research on a particular topic and drafting the same.
However, I did great research but all my work will gain value only with the organisation and
extraction of the required information. It will have an impact after explaining to the client on
the information I have, because he will work as per the information. Keeping the advice
simple and short, I could be able to meet most of the requirements of the case. Most of the
time it is always better to speak less on law and explain more on what actions or steps he/she
should take.
The experience with my second client was much different as I just had summary of the issues
and I never got a chance to interview the client. I only got the issue described on a piece of

paper about the client’s problem. As I was going through the case from the paper, it was quite
different for me because I became inquisitive about certain things and needed to speak to the
client. Later on, I did my best to provide with the best results from the information that I have
gathered. While going deeper into the case I was able to understand well enough and
researched accordingly to issue an advice letter to my client. I was very confident that it
helped my client in addressing his problem.
Organising and preparation
Organising and preparing the work is very important, without which an interview cannot be
properly conducted. Reviewing the work and going through it is very important, as
unorganised things do not help us in achieving better results. From my own experiences in
similar situations, an interview cannot be interpreted properly without preparation.
During the preparation of the client case, I needed to be imaginative, initiative, resourceful
and flexible. I was prepared to accept the unexpected because the client just tells us what is
the issue in one sentence; they do not tell us in brief what the problem is. I have to put an
effort through personal interview to extract as much information as I could and think
analytically to familiarise with the case and constructively give the client a better suggestion
about their problem.
Before taking up the case of any client, I do researches using various medians or probably
watch couple of videos on how to conduct a law clinic meeting and the way by which the
process takes place. Sometimes it really helped me in getting great ideas. I used to prepare
myself as a lawyer so that I could conduct and perform the interview well and research on the
type of question to ask while conducting the interview so that I could extract more
information from the client.

Over all, this module helped me to develop certain skills related to drafting letters,
interviewing, preparation, research and being professional to my dream profession of
practising law. I acquired decent skills related to these six dominant credentials which would
help me through out my career while practising law.
Action plan
 How I will be addressing question and what I will be doing
Firstly, I am going to speak about the skills I have learned from this module and tell what
went wrong and right. Later on, I will be addressing the practice of legal client and give
advice on what action he can take in order to solve the issue. Finally, I will speak on real
client case on the experience I had with the client and tell about the legal solution I had given
the client and whether it was helpful to the client or not. I will speak about the amendments in
the law related to the client’s problem.
 Weakness and problems I have encountered
I had few weaknesses through the module, which was communication barrier I had with the
client. While addressing the interview I had few problems in understanding the client because
of the British accent, which was little bit difficult for me. However, at the end I took help
from my partner and know if I had missed out on any points.
 Time management and team work

Managing the time was very crucial because after the interview with the client I needed to go
through the problems and have a look at the law. Before, I had to prepare the notes taken
from the client and look if I had missed anything or forgot to ask the client. Later on, I
prepared the advice letter, which was very important part where I had to prepare an advice
letter in a professional way try to explain to the client about the solutions of the problem.
When it comes to teamwork, I used to send out the letter of advice to my advisor before
sending it out to the client to know if I had addressed the issue properly.
What can I do now?
At the end of this module, I have learned lot of things and gained experience from this
module. At present, I am able to work under pressure especially in managing things such as
completing the work before deadline. The law clinic subject taught me how a lawyer should
think and address the question with two lines of sentence and the way a lawyer can think up
to 20 questions before meeting and discussing the client.