Studying at York
Migrants' Rights: Law and Policy Clinic - LAW00093H
- Department: The York Law School
- Credit value: 20 credits
- Credit level: H
- Academic year of delivery: 2024-25
Module summary
The Migrants’ Rights: Law and Policy Clinic combines providing advice to real clients and using evidence from these real cases to argue for a change in policy. In groups, students will produce written advice letters for clients with questions relating to migrants’ access to public services in the UK including access to work, housing, welfare, healthcare and education. Students will then undertake an analysis of the legal and administrative obstacles faced by migrants’ living in the UK. Through ‘legal action research’, utilising evidence from the cases they have worked on, students will prepare a briefing on a potential change to law or policy that could alleviate some of these issues.
Related modules
Pre-requisite modules
Co-requisite modules
- None
Prohibited combinations
- None
Additional information
This course will require a foundational level of Public law and EU law, as delivered through the Law School's Foundations modules.
Module will run
| Occurrence | Teaching period |
|---|---|
| A | Semester 1 2024-25 |
Module aims
This module provides students with practical clinical legal experience, participating in and work on real cases, while supervised by experienced members of staff. Clients may require individual advice on issues relating to eligibility for public services or have more general questions relating to the impact of changes to the law or recent case law. The module will also introduce students to legal-action research, where insight into how the law works “on the ground” through casework can inform analysis of and challenge migrants’ rights policies and practices.
Module learning outcomes
(1) To understand and apply the law and procedure applicable to challenging decisions on migrants' access to public services, as evidenced by research and advice given.
(2) To be able to identify and reflect on the key skills that lawyers and advisers need to have to effectively carry out their work.
(3) To be able to practically and critically analyse, by reference to their experience of clinic case work, how a policy, procedure, or practice impacting migrants’ rights might be improved.
(4) To develop a critical understanding of the ethical and access to justice considerations and constraints of a university-based legal service provider.
Module content
The module will link clinical legal education with how evidence from casework can highlight operational, legal and administrative problems with the current rules.
Introductory workshops will focus on the clinic process, casework management system, fact gathering and advice drafting skills. Alongside this, interactive lectures will cover essential background details on how migrants can establish eligibility for benefits and public services in the UK. Alongside private study on this topic, students will have a good grounding to begin working in small groups on clinic cases. Each group will advise on two cases, gathering the necessary facts from the client and producing written advice letters. Cases are likely to come from charities and organisations working with migrants. These could include organisations such as Citizens Advice, Migrant Centres, local authorities, Homelessness charities or domestic violence charities. These organisations will be treated as clients, where advice will be provided to them, answering questions relating to their clients or issues they are seeing. The cases will concern issues such as eligibility for Universal Credit, access to housing, challenging NHS charges or issues with digital immigration status to prove a right to work/rent. Groups will be asked to reflect on the clinic casework as part of a 1hr viva.
The second group of workshops will ask students to discuss their casework with the group, including the types of issues they’ve encountered. This will provide an opportunity to reflect on ‘legal action research’; how advice on individual rights can reveal how the law works in practice and delve into these issues highlighted from cases in more detail. These workshops, supplemented by private study, will also provide students with guidance on how evidence from casework can inform policy briefings and provide a basis for changes to the law, guidance or administrative processes. The aim of these workshops is for students to develop their own ideas about how the current rules could be improved and prepare them for the written assessment.
Indicative assessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 60 |
| Oral presentation/seminar/exam | 40 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
| Task | % of module mark |
|---|---|
| Essay/coursework | 60 |
| Oral presentation/seminar/exam | 40 |
Module feedback
Students will receive continuous feedback as part of the module design including feedback on progress from their case supervisor and peer support and feedback from group work and interactive workshops.
Assessment 1: students will receive written feedback and an individual mark on their viva performance.
Assessment 2: will be marked and graded with standard essay format feedback via turnitin. Students are invited to discuss their marks and feedback with the module leader.
Indicative reading
Practitioner textbooks:
CPAG, The Benefits for Migrants Handbook
CPAG, Welfare Benefits and Tax Credits Handbook
Specialist academic works:
O’Brien, Unity in Adversity: EU Citizenship, Social Justice and the Cautionary Tale of the UK
A Student Guide to Clinical Legal Education and Pro Bono, Kevin Kerrigan and Victoria. Murray (eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, 2011
Ouimet, M., Beaumier, M., Cloutier, A., Côté, A., Montigny, É., Gélineau, F., Jacob, S., & Ratté, S. ‘Use of research evidence in legislatures: a systematic review’ (2023) Evidence & Policy.
UK Parliament, Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assemble, Northern Ireland Assembly, “Research Impact and Legislatures” (September 2018) https://www.parliament.uk/globalassets/documents/research-impact-in-legislatures_final-2.pdf
Rose, D. C., Kenny, C., Hobbs, A., & Tyler, C. ‘Improving the use of evidence in legislatures: the case of the UK Parliament’ (2020) 16(4) Evidence & Policy 619-638.
Much of the reading on this course will be dependent on the cases given to the students.