The AU Law: Legal Aid Center was established with aims to provide legal aid services to the University’s members, students, staff, and general people for community service.
Vision & Mission
The Center was established with aims to provide legal aid service to the University’s members, students, staff, and general people for community service. Our service is free of charge and plays as an important platform for AU law students to get down to legal practice. The service is run with cooperation of the faculty’s members and selected law students who voluntarily join the Center to learn necessary skills that cut across practice areas of law. From client interviewing to case preparation down to writing legal opinions, students will have an opportunity and be trained to put their legal theories into practice and experience real disputes and cases under supervision of the Director of the Center.
With limited budget and finite resources, our priority is to aid those in need. Unless you are our staff and members, the Center may consider your income, assets and any other financial considerations when reviewing your requests for assistance. This is to prevent our unexpected heavy workload.
As the Center aims to provide legal aid for community service without charge, the advice thereby given is merely considered as general information and is not intended to be legal advice and/or opinion and may not be used in courts, legal proceedings, against government units, or for professional or commercial purposes.
Organization Structure
Under supervision of the Dean of School of Law, Assumption University, operation of the Center is primarily directed by visions and missions of the University and the School to serve neighboring communities. As communities’ needs in certain areas and of specific groups of locals can change over time, particularly under rapid change of economic and social uncertainty impacted by trade and global pandemic, action plans of the Center are scheduled to timely be reviewed and updated on an annual basis. Based on our current organization structure, the Center brings all the Advising Team, Working Team, and Supporting Team together to make our action plans possible. The Advising Team, which includes the School’s faculty members from diverse legal backgrounds and specializations, works as a core part of the organization to function its consulting service duly advised by the Director. The Working Team, operated by on-the-job training students (OJT student), will on the other hands work as a back office of paralegals in support in terms of legal documents and correspondence with clients, together with the Supporting Team of the faculty staff to be assigned to work on project funding, budget and treasury work and as a coordinator with the University to hand on pleasurable experience and satisfied and effective legal service.
Scope of Work and Working Flow Chart
1. Scope of Work and Activity
Of the current action plans, apart from the main job of providing legal aid service, the Center also aims to be a platform for legal training and practices for AU law students. There will be two academic activities to be conducted each year. While Exploring the Law Profession (the ELP Project) is the activity scheduled to run in second semester to guide students on their career path[1], the ideal Journey to Dreaming Career (the JDC Project) in first semester will routinely supply students with knowledge, techniques and tips on how one may prepare to apply for a training job or even a position in law firms and organizations after their graduation[2]. Speaking specifically on the ELP Project, it is an opportunity that students will possibly meet successful practitioners from different professions and business sectors in person, who perhaps are their seniors and the School’s alumni, to share their hands-on experience and project their views on “ideal employee” or “qualified lawyers” through different talks under different themes to broaden students’ vision and build up passion to third and fourth year students. They will then be soon equipped with tools and tips on how to get their dream jobs by joining a one-day workshop of the JDC Project to learn i) drafting an attractive resume and cover letter, ii) writing legal opinions and a professional timesheet, and iii) exhibiting personal strengths through interviewing techniques to be moderated by the Director of the Center.
2. Working Flow Chart
Of the main work of the Center, the legal aid service will start when the request is made and inputted into the system by potential clients. Soon after the QR code is scanned and form is completed online, the OJT student who monitors the system will, due to the process, report to the Director in order to hold an internal meeting for job allocation. The meeting decides a responsible person to contact a designated lecturer (or lecturers) of the School who appears to be specialized in the field to seek legal advice. A meeting (or meetings) may be held between the Advising Team and the client online or offline, as the team deems appropriate, to inquire more info. before further steps are to be taken. Once the team can finalize the client’s needs, the Working Team will prepare legal opinions with assistance from the lecturer to serve the client as a solution. Verbal consultation is more preferable to present the Center’s findings and/or opinions than in written documents to be given to the client as they are by-all-mean not intended to be a formal legal advice and/or opinion to be referred or used in courts, legal proceedings, or against government units, or for professional or commercial purposes. The client will also be required to complete the satisfaction scoring survey online so that the Center can monitor its performance and improve its quality to the utmost outcome. Our service serves in three languages and they are Thai, English, and Chinese.
[1]Exact time shall latterly be advised.
[2]Exact time shall latterly be advised but should be scheduled sometime between July and August as the application and recruitment for summer clerk programs usually run in September.