A legal clinic (also law clinic or law school clinic) is a legal aid or law school program providing services to various clients and often hands-on legal experience to law school students. Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors. Legal clinics typically do pro bono work in a particular area, providing free legal services to clients.
Legal clinics originated as a method of practical teaching of law school students, but today they encompass also free legal aid with no academic links. There are practice-based law clinics with no academic link which provide hands-on skills to lawyers, judges, and non-lawyers on practical ethical dimensions of the law at the same time offer free public defense legal services.
