Since the 1970s, victimologists have identified victims as the ‘forgotten party’ in criminal law, emphasising its failure to recognise them as more than a witness to a crime. While victimology and our understanding of the effects of crime on victims have advanced considerably in recent years, victims largely remain the forgotten party in legal education. Law schools in Canada continue to approach victims as witnesses and fail to offer tomorrow’s legal professionals comprehensive training in victimology. Based on the premise that change starts with education, we created an interdisciplinary legal clinic for victims of crime in which law students work together with criminology students, providing legal information to victims. This article presents findings from an evaluation of the programme, which is based on a qualitative study of law students who participated in our legal clinic for victims. After a brief presentation of the programme and the training provided to students, we explore the experiences of the law students and examine how they feel their experience impacted the way they view law and prepared them to work with victims of crime.

A positive and inclusive student experience is increasingly viewed as closely related to student support, with academic support and pastoral care becoming the main drivers in the development of services, schemes and teaching curricula. This article addresses the operationalisation of student support for law students and the evolving role of law lecturers in providing both academic support and pastoral care to cultivate more inclusive student support. Traditionally, academic support and pastoral care have been offered to law students on an entirely separate basis. Pastoral care tends to be provided by professional colleagues outside of law departments, while academic support has been the sole remit of law lecturers. Despite the merit in this theoretical distinction, this article identifies that in practice, law students’ support needs are best met within their department when approached in a less binary and more holistic and individualistic manner. The article recommends a systematic approach to the design and delivery of student support services to provide academic support and pastoral care more holistically and inclusively. This is premised on the recognition that law student support needs often arise in an interconnected and interdependent way where the line between pastoral and academic issues is blurred. The present study creates a taxonomy on student support systems to help identify how academic support and pastoral care may be offered more holistically and, thus, inclusively. Furthermore, this study uses this taxonomy to identify the crucial role of law lecturers in providing students with support.

The project “University in Prison” unites law students living in freedom and imprisoned students by having both groups of students attend a weekly university seminar on criminological and legal topics. This takes place within the walls of Berlin’s largest prison and therefore comes with various challenges. Much more decisive, however, are the positive effects that the project has on all those involved. In this article, we talk about the implementation of the project, the impact of “University in prison” on students living in freedom, imprisoned students and law schools in general and the first evaluation results. “University in Prison” attempts to foster inclusivity in law school and challenges the status quo at law schools in Germany.