United Nations Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems
27
(c) To establish monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the
quality of legal aid services, in particular those provided at no cost;
(d) To work with all legal aid service providers to increase outreach,
quality and impact and facilitate access to legal aid in all parts of the country
and in all communities, especially in rural and economically and socially
disadvantaged areas and among minority groups;
(e) To diversify legal aid service providers by adopting a comprehen‑
sive approach, for example, by encouraging the establishment of centres to
provide legal aid services that are staffed by lawyers and paralegals and by
entering into agreements with law societies and bar associations, university
law clinics and non‑governmental and other organizations to provide legal
aid services.
72.
States should, where appropriate, also take measures:
(a) To encourage and support the establishment of legal aid clinics in
law departments within universities to promote clinical and public interest
law programmes among faculty members and the student body, including
in the accredited curriculum of universities;
(b) To encourage and provide incentives to law students to participate,
under proper supervision and in accordance with national law or practice,
in a legal aid clinic or other legal aid community scheme, as part of their
academic curriculum or professional development;
(c) To develop, where they do not already exist, student practice rules
that allow students to practise in the courts under the supervision of
qualified lawyers or faculty staff, provided that such rules are developed in
consultation with and accepted by the competent courts or bodies that
regulate the practice of law before the courts;
(d) To develop, in jurisdictions requiring law students to undertake
legal internships, rules for them to be allowed to practise in the courts under
the supervision of qualified lawyers.
Guideline 17. Research and data
73. States should ensure that mechanisms to track, monitor and evaluate
legal aid are established and should continually strive to improve the provi‑
sion of legal aid.
74.
For this purpose, States could introduce measures: