CLIENTS CONSULTING AND TRIAL ROLE PLAYING AS A MODEL OF COMPETENCES ACQUISITION

European High Education Area (EHEA) aims to change both what students learn and how they learn it. Teachers are a guide to help students acquire competences of the degree they have chosen; they have to make sure the students leave the university not only with theoretical knowledge but with the ability to continue learning through all their lives.

In law, in particular, students have to leave the university being able to walk right into an office to consult with a client or in a courtroom to assist him or her. Focused on this particular need, we propose a method of role playing in which students will be assigned a role, will be given the case reference and with that information students that have been assigned the role of client will have to describe their case to students that have been assigned the role of attorneys and these will have to give a solution to their client case; furthermore, there will be students assigned the role of judges and opposing party attorneys, each student assigned the role of attorney or opposing party attorney will have to make their case in front of the student given the judge role and this student will have to make a decision for each case he or she is presented with a explanation of the decision taken.

Our aim with this method is to make the students get in the position of client, attorney, opposing party attorney and judge. This way, they will have to work through a case; attorney will have to contemplate all the options available to solve the case, client will have to describe the case so the attorney will be able to help him or her, opposing party attorney will have to counteract each of the statements of the attorney and the judge will have to decide and give a motivated judgment. This method will help students get used to all elements of private practice, from client interviewing to acting in front of a judge. Through all the process students will be guided by professor.
This method will allow students to get ready for their future private practice, and will achieve the goal of providing students with long life learning and practical competences.