PSL-Dauphine Legal Clinic
The PSL-Dauphine Legal Clinic is an innovative academic and social project that aims to get Dauphine law students working on real cases. In providing high-quality legal services, students are supervised by experienced attorneys.
Respect Zone Law Clinic for Digital Human Rights
The Université PSL Digital Human Rights Clinic (Respect Zone DHN-PSL) at Dauphine allows students to apply their legal knowledge to help prevent cyberviolence alongside the NGO Respect Zone.
The legal clinic gives practitioners and students the ability to impact society by practicing law as part of legal and civic missions that contribute to our understanding of digital human rights.
The Respect Zone DHN-PSL Clinic offers legal assistance and is run by experts from Respect Zone (unique access to specific and varied cases, dealing with both human rights and digital rights). This laboratory aspires to operate similarly to a law firm specializing in the remediation of digital spaces.
It provides numerous opportunities:
These include legal departments and firms interested in the relationship between corporate law and social responsibility for digital businesses, along with personality, image rights, personal data management, criminal law, minors, and brands. Projects touch on aspects of business law, digital and media law, criminal law, and cyberviolence law.
This clinic is the only one of its kind, combining social utility, ethics, action and conversations on digital environments, personal assistance, new technology law, all towards preventing cyberviolence.
The clinical track enables students to help provide assistance to victims under the supervision of the clinic's management team, as well to tackle – with guidance from seasoned legal experts in business law and human rights – the study and resolution of specific cases that fall within the purview of the Respect Zone jurists who oversee the DHN-PSL clinic.
Under the guidance of legal professionals who are experts in their respective fields (corporate law, digital law, criminal law, etc.) and members of Respect Zone's association of jurists, clinic workers must resolve specific cases within the framework of the association's activities (www.respectzone.org).
The association of jurists (Cercle des Juristes Respect Zone) is a group of nearly 70 legal experts and attorneys who devote part of their time and skills, on a pro bono basis, to help end cyberviolence. The supervising association members hail from first-rate legal teams and firms specializing in corporate law and criminal defense.
Students take on cases, and they are bound by an obligation of confidentiality and must comply with the rules set out in the Respect Zone charter while performing their mission. Cases can typically be handled remotely. Group projects must be completed in each subject. There are deadlines for project completion.
Objectives
The clinic's mission is to provide practical tools in the form of descriptions and studies related to actual cases, with the goal of helping victims and contributing, through a variety of innovative legal methods, to the protection of digital human rights and the prevention of cyberviolence.
Students get the opportunity to demonstrate their legal commitment to the cause of online respect and towards preventing cyberviolence (harassment, discrimination, radicalization, fake news, sexism, etc.), in keeping with the Respect Zone charter, and in particular by engaging in the areas of work described below.
Students can assist:
- The Victim Support Center – This division guides victims of cyberviolence and their loved ones by creating guidance forms for apps and chat bots used in the prevention of cyberviolence and the remediation and exercise of victims' rights. This division is involved in an experimental helpline with Respect Zone focused on legal assistance and counseling, in collaboration with the child and adolescent psychiatry unit at the Assistance Publique Pitié Salpêtrière public hospital.
- The Public Affairs and Spokesperson Center – They develop proposals to update standards with regard to screen education, the fight against online hate and harassment, as well as prevention and other areas, in conjunction with the 50 Respect Zone proposals. The organization is regularly interviewed by various committees and elected officials, and students assist in preparing for these public sessions and consultations.
- The #Respectduels/Cyber Debate Center – This department periodically hosts online speaking competitions, applying rhetorical techniques to online expression available to all via smartphone, as these pertain to the values of online respect.
- The Local Government Center – Members of this division facilitate relationships with local governments to develop initiatives within cities and with local bar associations and jurist groups.
- The Pro Bono Center – Connected with the RZ association of jurists, this division assists the organization in drafting their contracts and day-to-day legal documents.
- The Education Center – Students may be called on to host events on the clinic's behalf, in public (in the Paris region) or online, to promote their activities and take part in web-based positive interventions.
Students help to develop innovative legal tools, participating in the necessary creation of a digital environment that allows for respect and goodwill. Human rights are now a potential distinguishing factor concerning the ethics of future legal practitioners, in alignment with the conduct and oath of jurists intending to be architects of digital respect.
Clinical workers are invited to organize an annual event at PSL on the theme of digital ethics for businesses and cyberviolence prevention.
Workers help to develop the tools used by the clinic and its partnering organization within the legal world.
Clinical workers are encouraged to publish law articles on topics relating to the Respect Zone DHN-PSL Clinic, through such partnerships as Village de la Justice, Revue Compliance, Journal Spécial des Sociétés, and on the Respect Zone website.
Requirements:
- Strict adherence to confidentiality
- Charter on www.respectzone.org must be signed
- Remote work
- Occasional availability for meetings and helplines
- Writing skills
- Ability to meet deadlines and work in a team
- Thoroughness
The Team
Clinic director: Philippe Coen (President of the NGO Respect Zone); Patron: Professor Georges Decocq
Development and Coordination:
– Eric Lauvaux, attorney and director of the Respect Zone association of jurists
– Laura Blu Mauss, CAPA recipient and head of coordination and development at Respect Zone
With support from:
– Alexandre Lercher, contract-based PhD candidate in International Commercial Arbitration and associate research professor (part-time) in the graduate program in Law at Dauphine-PSL
– Marc Servant, PhD candidate in Public International Law at Université Paris 2 Panthéon Assas and temporary officer of teaching and research at Université Paris Dauphine-PSL
Speakers from the RZ association of jurists in 2021:
– Anne Cousin, associate attorney in IP/IT at Herald
– Vincent Denoyelle, associate attorney in IP/IT at Eversheds Sutherland
– Marie Daphnée Fishelson, labor law attorney at August Debouzy
– Matthieu Juglar, associate attorney at JLT Avocats
– Vincent Tisler, public law attorney
– Patrick Vilbert, attorney in intellectual property and press law, former secretary of the conference
Academic and Professional Partnerships
- Partnership with the Observatoire de la haine en ligne (Online Hate Watchdog; established July 8, 2020) under the auspices of the Superior Audiovisual Council (ARCOM)
- Partnership with the NGO Respect Zone (www.respectzone.org), and by extension, partners of the RZ association of jurists