Keyword: «law about free legal aid»

The relevance of the study is due to the fact that at the stage of juridical clinics active proliferation in legal education, they have not had a unified status and were organized in different, often mutually exclusive, formats. The contradiction between the social (legal assistance to citizens with low-income) and purely educational purposes (practical component of educational programs) of legal clinics activities has escalated in the period of the Federal Law № 324 "About free legal aid in the Russian Federation" entering into force and it still persists. This research tries to justify the educational function of juridical clinic as a key one. The format of this article highlights some provisions of ongoing research. The purpose of this article is to show reasons to the resolution of the contradiction between the tendencies of juridical clinics functioning in the system of free legal aid to the population and the need for universities to implement on the basis of juridical clinics purely educational programs with non-dominant social function. The study used such methods as a method of theoretical analysis, a method of synthesis and abstraction, a systemic structural method; an axiomatic method; a modeling method. In the result of the study the category "function" was better specified and projected on juridical clinics activities purposes. The concept of "educational function" is defined as the expected by external consumers of law school services area of juridical clinic activity for the optimization of future lawyers practical training. Also, the terms " practice program ", "clinical learning program" are used in the context relevant to modern system of legal education. Within the study framework, thorough examination of philosophical, sociological, psychological and pedagogical literature on the research problem and analysis of the normative documents were made. The essence of the juridical clinic is considered in the unity of human rights defense and educational components. It is shown that the dominance of the educational component distinguishes juridical clinic from other organizations and institutions in the system of free legal aid to the population. The article may be interesting for scientific degrees competitors in the field of the theory and practice of professional education; for the teaching staff of law schools engaged in the development of future lawyers practical training system; and for social investors interested in the promotion of relevant technologies for the preparation of highly qualified specialists of juridical professions.