Our various Law Clinics provide a bridge between our academic teaching and research work and litigation, civil society, advocacy and law reform. Students and academics collaborate on submissions to law reform processes and on producing research briefs that support the work of civil society groups or lawyers engaged in litigation.

Notable examples include the work of the Child Law Clinic on securing redress for survivors of sexual abuse in National Schools, which helped to secure rulings by the European Court of Human Rights in the Louise O’Keeffe case in 2014, and by the Government’s Independent Assessor in 2019.

The Family Law Clinic website provides accessible legal information on aspects of the family law system for interested members of the public.

At the IT Law Clinic, students provide legal information to startups on issues such as copyright, data protection and selling online. The clinic is the first such clinic in any Irish university and provides an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge of these dynamic legal areas to real-life problems faced by businesses.

The UCC Sports Law Clinic, the only undergraduate clinic of its kind in the world, provides a unique opportunity for students to directly engage with real clients, ranging from professional to amateur clients both within and outside of UCC in areas such as child protection, disciplinary hearings, negligence, transfers and governance.