在日常生活中，“clinic”常与医学相关，表示“诊所”，此外，还有一种含义是“a facility that offers professional services or consultation usually at discounted rates”，就是通常以低价提供专业服务或咨询的机构。此处，“legal clinic”中的“clinic”就是这种含义。据维基百科解释，“legal clinic”是指“a legal aid or law school program providing services to various clients and often hands-on-legal experience to law school students”，最初源于面向法学院学生的一种实践教学模式，但现在还包括非学术性的法律援助。这种“clinic”通常由教授指导，会在特定领域为无法支付相关费用的人免费提供法律服务。《元照英美法词典》将其译为“法律诊所”。

比如，University of San Francisco的School of Law就有“Law Clinics”项目，其中写道：

“Law Clinics give you the opportunity to represent real clients in real cases. Under the supervision of a professor, you'll step out of the classroom and into the courtroom to work on a range of legal matters, from civil, to criminal, to juvenile law cases, and more.”

例句：

To this end, States should take measures, in consultation with civil society and justice agencies and professional associations: (a) To recognize in their legal systems the role to be played by non-State actors in providing legal aid services to meet the needs of the population; (b) To set quality standards for legal aid services and support the development of standardized training programmes for non-State legal aid service providers; (c) To establish monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to ensure the quality of legal aid services, in particular those provided at no cost; (d) To work with all legal aid service providers to increase outreach, quality and impact and facilitate access to legal aid in all parts of the country and in all communities, especially in rural, economically and socially disadvantaged areas and among minority groups; (e) To diversify legal aid service providers by adopting a comprehensive approach, for example, by encouraging the establishment of centres to provide legal aid services that are staffed by lawyers and paralegals and by entering into agreements with law societies and bar associations, university law clinics and non-governmental and other organizations to provide legal aid services.

为此目的，国家应当与公民社会、司法机构和专业协会协商采取措施：(a)在本国法律制度中承认非国有行动方在提供法律援助服务以满足人们需要方面所起的作用；(b)为法律援助服务制订高质量标准并支持为非国有法律援助服务提供人拟订标准化培训方案；(c)建立监督和评价机制以确保法律援助服务的质量，尤其是免费提供的法律援助服务的质量；(d)协同所有法律援助提供人，在全国各地和各社区，尤其在农村地区、经济和社会条件不利的地区以及在少数人群体之间，扩大对法律援助的宣传，提高法律援助的质量和影响，并为获得法律援助提供方便；(e)采取全面的做法以拓宽法律援助服务提供人的队伍，举例说，为此鼓励设立配备律师和法律助理的法律援助服务中心，与法学会和律师协会、大学法律诊所、非政府组织及其他组织订立提供法律援助服务的协议。

来源：

Wikipedia；

《元照英美法词典》；

https://www.usfca.edu/law/engaged-learning/law-clinics；

https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/V12/528/23/PDF/V1252823.pdf?OpenElement；

https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/LTD/V12/528/22/PDF/V1252822.pdf?OpenElement