After a study trip to the United States, where Gerard Mols, then an associate professor, learnt more about American legal aid clinics, he was determined to bring the concept to Maastricht. In 1988, he succeeded. Mols – dean of the Faculty of Law between 1992 and 2004, and later rector – and his colleague Taru Spronken set up what would later become Maastricht University’s Legal Advice Practice (APUM): a law practice where students got to conduct intake interviews with real clients, draft documents, negotiate with opposing parties and sometimes even plead in court.
Too much emphasis
APUM gave students considerable responsibility, which enhanced their learning, Mols told Observant in the late 1980s when asked why a university should invest in such an initiative. He argued that practice-based teaching through clinics fit well with Maastricht’s Problem-Based Learning approach, where students are used to working on cases. According to Spronken, practical experience was essential; legal education placed “too much emphasis on purely legal aspects. Students need to learn that a strictly legal perspective doesn’t always solve the problem.”
Each year, the clinic offered 46 places for third- and fourth-year students. Over a period of eight weeks, they were supervised by professional lawyers. Interest among students was high; sometimes there were more applicants than places available. Clients paid standard legal fees, which helped cover part of the salaries and overhead costs.
Divorce case
Outside the university, concerns were raised about client confidentiality, given the number of students involved. Spronken responded in 1988: “A typical law firm also has plenty of administrative staff. The fact that we happen to work with students here does not at all mean that we put clients’ interests second.” And: “Why are people so distrustful of students? Just go and sit in the café opposite the courthouse, where a lot of lawyers go, and listen to what is said there.”
The issue of confidentiality resurfaced in 1997, when a lecturer from Maastricht University (not from the Faculty of Law itself) complained. As the opposing party in a divorce case, he objected to being “used as a teaching tool”. He felt his privacy was violated because students had access to the case file and considered it “not collegial” to be “challenged in court by fellow lecturers”. Although the clinic initially refused to give in, it eventually decided to drop its rule that it could choose cases completely freely. From then on, cases involving a university employee as the opposing party were declined.
Too expensive
In 2004, the Faculty of Law faced severe budget cuts. The faculty board thought the clinic was too expensive. Practical legal training for regular students was discontinued. In its place came a commercial qualifying master’s for law graduates aspiring to a career in the legal profession. It offered five months of teaching, partly through APUM, for six thousand euros. But the programme failed – too few applicants and too much competition from similar but cheaper programmes in Groningen and Utrecht.
By 2013, APUM staff told Observant they were doing less and less teaching. “The less teaching we do, the less funding the office gets from the faculty. All our income has to come from client fees.” It proved unsustainable. A year later, APUM closed its doors for good.