42 law students representing four law schools in Azerbaijan successfully completed a one-month legal clinic training course, organised in cooperation with the Academy of Justice of Azerbaijan during the month of May 2018. The clinical program included up to 30 training sessions on various professional legal skills, as well as on human rights and on European Convention on Human Rights issues.

Those who successfully completed the course will be engaged in the legal clinic of the Academy of Justice to offer pro-bono legal advice to the general population. This will provide the law students a valuable opportunity to gain hands-on legal experience under supervision of lawyers; such as interviewing and advising clients, doing legal research and drafting legal documents, including applications to the European Court of Human Rights.

By the end of 2018, the programme intends to strengthen the capacity of the legal clinic of the Academy of Justice and to provide qualified free legal consultations to women and vulnerable groups on human rights/ECHR issues by seconding the lawyers from the project’s trainers’ pool, who will also conduct daily coaching for the interns working at the clinic.

The activity is organised in the framework of the “Application of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in Azerbaijan” project, which is part of the Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) programme for Eastern Partnership countries and is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe.