Introduction

Living in the twenty-first century means that everything looks different from even twenty years ago. The progress of the modern world brings change to every field of everyday life and challenges that every person needs to face and respond to with flexibility. The competitive nature of today's higher legal education accelerates the pace of development – from theoretical to more practical models, and from national to international legal knowledge. Clinical legal education (CLE) can fill some gaps in higher legal education and can help create future lawyers who are qualified, educated, and socially responsible professionals in a modern world.

This chapter describes one of the new inventions in clinical legal education teaching programs in Poland – the Judicial Practice Center (JPC). The JPC was established three years ago as a part of the Legal Clinic at the Faculty of Law, University of Białystok, and offers a new way to connect theory and practice with the objective of preparing students to be creative, professional, and socially responsible lawyers in the future – lawyers who can easily work in a modern world.

Polish CLE and the example of its innovative teaching method

In the last ten years, clinical legal education in Poland has established, developed, and strengthened its position within university structures. The position of legal clinics is so strong in the country that it was possible to create a network of twenty-four legal clinics.