Università Roma Tre

1. INNOVATIVE APPROACHES FOR ADDRESSING TARGET GROUPS, BY PROVIDING FOR EXAMPLE: MORE ATTRACTIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING PROGRAMMES
The Small Savers Protection Legal Clinic (SSPLC) provides students with a qualified legal education on the legal framework about consumers and small savers protection in the banking and financial sector, especially as regards the enforcement of their rights and the filing of claims before the "Arbitro Bancario e Finanziario" (ABF - for banking issues) and the “Arbitro delle Controversie Finanziarie” (ACF – for financial issues); builds a network cooperation between academics and professionals; promotes knowledge of alternative methods of dispute resolution within the academic community and amongst.
The SSPLC uses participatory approaches and ICT-based methodologies: in particular, students will use a more strategic and integrated use of ICTs and open educational resources (OER) that will allow them to get familiar with ICT based methodologies.
In fact:
-all the relevant documents (the case folder, the legislative and judicial materials) are available on line, in the private section of the Faculty website, in the electronic format (none of the documents will be in paper format), since, given the transversality of the subject, there is not a dedicated handbook for this topics;
– thanks to the drafting of the claim, students will: (i) learn to use legal databases, which they were not previously familiar with (two lessons are entirely dedicated to teach students how to conduct a computer-assisted legal research); (ii) prepare written advice (iii) work in the class only with laptops (theirs or the ones provided by the Faculty), as they will learn to share document in clouds, use just one draft shared by the all class, mark it up and and make it circulate by email;
-the entire ABF/ACF procedure is online, so that students will face with online dispute resolution (ODR).
The SSPLC allows the students to improve processes of recognition and validation of competences, having regard to the greater effectiveness of activities for the disadvantaged groups and the differences in learning outcomes linked to the socio-economic disparities.
The preference in the selection of the cases goes to the ones of particular relevance, even from the social standpoint, having special regard to the structurally vulnerable subjects, to weak, illiterate and poor consumers (as for the subjective element); and to those who had requested loans for house purchase purposes (as for the objective element, protection the right to an adequate house), or had invested their own life savings. These features of the LC and the possibility for the students to attend the meetings with clients, interview them and listen to their stories, led the student to better understand and improve their responsiveness to social and cultural diversity.
The cases dealt with by the clinic are not conceived in-house, but they are filed by consumers' associations which have a connection with the Faculty and the course teacher, which also promotes the cooperation with partners from other socio-economic sectors.


2. A MORE MODERN, DYNAMIC, COMMITTED AND PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT INSIDE THE ORGANISATION:
One of the most impressive results of the SSLPC is the extremely high percentage of students who found an employment, also in a very short time. This proves, more than any other consideration, that the LC, which combines higher levels of excellence and attractiveness (better aligned to the needs of and opportunities offered by the labor market) improves the level of competence of skills for employability.

As a matter of fact, the LC really increases opportunities for professional development, as the students are considered by the labor market as already trained.
Furthermore, the SSPLC supports employement also on the level of the many framework agreements Roma Tre has with other institutions, such as the Banca d’Italia, whereby 13 students take part to a 6-months remunerated training at the ABF Technical Secretariat.
Furthermore, since the banking and financial rules are 90% from the european union, attending the LC increases capacity and professionalism to work at EU/international level.

The benefits of the SSPLC are not simply for students, but also for the Faculty, which benefits for a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment. In particular both the Faculty and the students learn to open to synergies with organizations active in different fields or in other socio-economic sectors (consumers’ association; Institutions like Bank of Italy and Consob).
At the same time, even promoting the team work the clinical teaching promotes a deep subjectivation of the studies matter, since the very close cooperation between students among themselves, teachers and laywers, in line with individual needs and expectations, which also lead to increase motivation and satisfaction in daily work.
But the clinical lessons are also a very efficient way to better understand interconnections between formal, non-formal education, other forms of learning and labour market respectively.

International profile
On the international side, the SSPLC of Roma Tre has a partnership (Convention) with Consumers’ legal clinic of the Luxembourg University which aims to cooperate in the fields of education, training and youth showing students different ways to teach and learn.
As for the allocation of financial resources and the interaction between practice, research and policy, the Roma Tre LC organized an international conference (past September) in cooperation with Banca d’Italia and Fin-Net (the a financial dispute resolution network of national out-of-court complaint schemes) for the double purposes, among others, to implement international strategies in the field of financial education and increase transnational cooperation of public authorities in the field of financial education.

In July 2017 the SSPLC has also joined the winning consortium of the Erasmus Plus project, on Skills Transfers In Academia : A Renewed Strategy
Enhancing legal clinics in the European Union (STARS) , which aims to develop innovation in the field of higher education, enhancing the quality and relevance of students' knowledge and skills

Readings and course materials shall be provided during the course.