ABSTRACT Despite careful planning and preparation, experiential learning environments do not always go according to plan. The North West Tax Clinic demonstrates how teaching can be reframed in a failing clinic to facilitate growth-producing experience and learning. This paper argues that problem-based learning (PBL) can be applied directly to the experiential learning environment to overcome external

ABSTRACT Vulnerability theory stresses the role of an active state that is responsive to our common human needs: health, safety, sustenance, shelter, education, and fulfilling work. This article studies institutions of higher education in the US and UK through the lens of vulnerability theory, examining the role of the state to serve the public interest through its colleges and universities. The history

ABSTRACT Legally aided criminal defence work is under significant strain at present following fee stagnations and funding cuts over the last 20 years. This has obvious implications for those working in criminal defence practice, which have been examined in the literature on access to criminal justice. However, the implications for teaching and learning within criminal law and practice have been not

ABSTRACT In this paper, I examine how university-based legal education has been facing pressures founded on a growing free-market fundamentalism which strengthen in law schools worldwide a model of education that Paulo Freire termed “banking”. In countries of Latin American constitutionalism like Brazil, such pressures also entail the denigration of progressive understandings of the social right to

(2021). Lord Devlin. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This study assesses the learning styles of law students at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill (UWICH) Faculty of Law (FOL) in the Caribbean, based on age, gender and academic performance, using the Grasha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scale. The study also compared the learning styles of UWICH FOL students with the learning styles of UWICH management students, using a comparator

ABSTRACT This paper draws on our continuing work on the neoliberal and marketised law school and seeks to understand how we might apply vulnerability theory to address some of the problems resulting from current higher education and law school contexts. After outlining our understanding of vulnerability theory and summarising what we believe are some of the ills of a neoliberal law school, this paper

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the role of humility in the law school. It argues in favour of a culture where humility is consciously cultivated in law students. Section I considers the grading curve, a quintessentially North American attribute of almost all law schools. It analyses and theorises the curve and its effect in cultivating humility. It suggests that, while the curve can have a humbling

ABSTRACT The “value” of university courses in the UK is increasingly equated with their potential for employability enhancement. Part 1 of this research utilized theory from the marketing discipline to highlight the many other aspects of value that a law degree in particular offers beyond lawyer qualification, and Part 2 presented a theory of value for the UK legal education market specifically, based

(2020). The Clinical Legal Education Handbook edited by Linden Thomas and Nick Johnson, London, University of London Press, 2020, 465pp. £35 or Open Access edition free to read online or downloadable from Observing Law ISBNs 978-1-911507-16-1 (paperback edition) 978-1-911507-17-8 (PDF edition). The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

(2020). Decolonising the law school: presences, absences, silences… and hope. The Law Teacher: Vol. 54, Decolonising the Law School, pp. 471-474.

ABSTRACT This article reviews a final year undergraduate module, “Crime, Punishment and Justice in the British Empire”, evaluating the extent to which it contributed a de/postcolonial perspective within the delivery of a criminology programme’s curriculum. To do this the paper first critiques the discipline of criminology and its links with colonialism, before describing how this module was designed

ABSTRACT Whilst Islam’s role in shaping science as a whole has been well documented and reasonably recognised, its role in shaping Western law has been almost ignored. Arguably the most famous works on Islam’s contribution to Western humanities and law are by George Makdisi but his works are not used as core textbooks in law schools to understand how legal principles and institutions formed within

ABSTRACT This article explores the value of providing discipline-specific writing support to law undergraduates through writing programmes within law schools. By engaging with an “academic literacies” approach to writing skills, this article illustrates a broad understanding of writing as a learning process, thereby exploring why investment in writing support can have such wide-reaching value for students

(2020). Law and the passions: why emotion matters for justice. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT On 20 March 2019, the Decolonise UoK, formerly Decolonise UKC conference took place at the University of Kent (W Ahmed and others, Decolonising the Curriculum Project Manifesto: Through the Kaleidoscope (2019)

ABSTRACT Understanding Black Feminist thinking and decolonial strategy as intimately connected, this paper argues that the foregrounding of Black Feminist epistemology is crucial in the decolonisation of university curricula. Focusing specifically on British undergraduate law curricula this paper argues that Black British Feminist modes of thought could produce effective and long-lasting change in

ABSTRACT The title of this paper is based on a question we were asked by a white colleague at a staff development session we were delivering. It is our problem because we are implicated in creating and perpetuating a colonised law curriculum. The focus of this paper is on what the role of white academics is in decolonising the law school; we contend that we cannot decolonise the curriculum if we do

ABSTRACT The global diversity of clinical practice manifests itself in a divergence of roles for clinicians. With data from a qualitative study of university law clinics in Kenya, this article explores the variety of clinical programmes in the country with a view to examining what the various forms of clinics entail for the clinician. The study finds that the role of the clinician in this jurisdiction

ABSTRACT This study proposes to investigate the contribution clinical legal education (CLE) can make to student learning in legal ethics. CLE (in the form of student law clinics and CLE modules) is a learning environment in which students learn from experience by providing legal advice to live or simulated clients with the support of their tutors or supervisors. Reflection has been identified as a

ABSTRACT Law students face challenges when entering the employment market irrespective of where they reside. Apart from increasing competition from their peers, there is often a disconnect between theory in law courses and the realities of legal practice. The significant leap from “student” to “early career lawyer” or “graduate lawyer” requires law schools to be more proactive in incorporating practice-based

ABSTRACT How do we create spaces within British law schools, for genuine engagement with decolonised methodologies and epistemologies? This paper examines an attempt to decolonise the curriculum in the rewriting of a module entitled “Justice, Law, and Human Rights”, taught at the University of Dundee. I will reflect on the process of choosing the module topics and readings, and the successes and challenges

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the difficulties encountered by socio-legal researchers in approaching questions on law and history, with particular reference to choosing adequate methodologies. Drawing on her personal experience in researching colonial laws and questions on indigeneity, the author outlines established lines of thought while suggesting new ways of interpreting historical material

ABSTRACT Changes in the higher education sector globally have resulted in the transition from an elite to a mass model of education, encouraging the participation of students who have traditionally been underrepresented at university. Law schools in a number of countries face the dual pressures of an increasingly diverse student population, and the imperative to meet externally imposed accreditation

(2020). English legal system. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT Technology is changing the way that legal services are delivered and is having an impact on the administration of justice. Law firms are increasingly adopting digital technologies to disrupt traditional ways of working. The emergence of new technologies test existing legal parameters, paradigms and concepts bringing about legal, ethical and societal challenges. Planned changes to the legal

(2020). Resisting disappearance: military occupation and women’s activism in Kashmir. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

(2020). Feeling queer jurisprudence: injury, intimacy, identity. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

(2020). Criminal law directions. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This article provides a critique of The Fairness Project, a learning and teaching project on equality and diversity in the legal profession and its impact on employability, delivered over three years across three university law schools. The Fairness Project builds on current literature on lack of equality and diversity in the legal profession, by adopting a student perspective. Barriers to

(2020). Enemies of the people? How judges shape society. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This paper explores the dynamics of emotion in law and legal classrooms by showing: (1) why foregrounding how law is shaped by emotion better equips students to learn about how law advances and/or inhibits various pursuits of social justice and (2) how emotion functions as a useful pedagogical strategy in the classroom to make students receptive enough to empathetically and critically engage

ABSTRACT Feedback is an intrinsic part of the learning process in higher education. Despite the development of teaching and learning strategies underpinning the usefulness of feedback, lecturers continue to feel frustrated when students do not implement the feedback or feed it forward into their studies. There is a disconnect in literature and also in practice between lecturers’ perception of how important

ABSTRACT For decades, law has been perceived as one of the most worthwhile degree programmes for students to undertake. In more recent years, contemporary rhetoric has begun to question the “value” of higher education in the modern world, and forthcoming regulatory changes in England and Wales will significantly dilute the concept of a “qualifying law degree”, which in all likelihood has historically

(2020). Key directions in legal education: national and international perspectives. The Law Teacher. Ahead of Print.

ABSTRACT This article introduces Ratio! A Game of Judgment, a card game jointly developed by Dr David Yuratich (the sole author of this article) and Dr Thomas Giddens. Ratio provides an innovative and immersive environment for the deep and active learning of common law legal reasoning. Players adopt the role of a judge and are required to deploy cards representing the main elements of common law reasoning

ABSTRACT Concerns have been raised about how well legal education prepares law students for the reality of their future work life. Some research suggests that law students find it difficult to transfer and apply theoretical knowledge to decision-making in real-life contexts. This article presents a novel way, virtual law cases (VLCs), to teach and learn legal knowledge, analytical reasoning and decision-making

ABSTRACT This article studies emotions of students in light of the concept of clinical legal education and its pedagogy. It takes as its case study the Helsinki Law Clinic. The study shows that emotions constitute an important aspect of academic learning and they often guide students through the learning experience. The design of the course and the scope of the teachers’ involvement have a significant

ABSTRACT Set against the pedagogic literature outlining the benefits of the “visual” in instruction, this article charts the conceptualisation, development and impact of the Virtual Land Law Field Trip Project @ Sussex. Drawing on the findings from a student survey and focus group evaluation, the article outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the project. Notwithstanding limitations, and indeed the

been seen that the practice that is most obviously widespread and concerned with emotions is the teaching of “soft skills”, which is often informed by the idea of emotional intelligence. The slightly problematic place of emotional intelligence in the discourse around emotions in education is noted in chapter 3, and this wariness resurfaces. The central impetus behind placing emotions towards the centre

With some fanfares, one of the most important official reports for both further education (FE) and higher education (HE) was launched in May 2019 – the Independent Panel Report to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding. Although most subsequent comment and debate has focused on its implications for funding both FE and HE in England (only) and issues such as student fees and maintenance grants

ABSTRACT Around the world law schools are embracing intensive and online modes of content delivery in response to both student demand and institutional transitions away from face-to-face educational experiences. This presents a range of pedagogical challenges for teachers, including challenges associated with measuring teacher impact and student engagement within these new learning environments. One

This is the final article in this series of three articles outlining threats to and reform of the Irish legal education system. The first article focused on challenges and change in the provision of undergraduate legal education. The second article explored the professional legal education landscape and current framework. This final article in the series will explore the current reform debate and where

ABSTRACT When is a word not just a word? Can it be expected that using an everyday word or phrase when providing feedback means that it will be understood in the same way by different students at various stages of their academic journey? No matter how well intended feedback is, if a student is unable to correctly interpret the language used, it will prove to be of little use. This research considers

ABSTRACT Precarious work is becoming increasingly prevalent in academe, as tenured opportunities diminish and university employment practices adapt to a volatile and internationalised funding context. This article explores the notion of precarious work as it applies to academic work, particularly in the context of legal education. It analyses available statistical evidence to map and unpack the prevalence

ABSTRACT Teaching a practical legal skill in a classroom setting can be challenging especially when the students are unlikely to have undertaken this type of practical task previously. The module considered in this research, Practical Legal Drafting, comprises taught sessions that first introduce the ‘rules’ of legal drafting and then allow the development of key skills. The module includes tutor led

ABSTRACT This article argues that recent government interventions in higher education – some based in consumer law and others in the form of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) have failed to put prospective students in a position to make informed choices about courses or universities. Consumer law-based interventions do not give students all the information they need, although they may help to

ABSTRACT This article describes and evaluates the reforms that the authors (as course managers) introduced to enhance critical thinking in the compulsory course on private international law in the Master of Laws programme at Stockholm University. The reforms were made in response to a decision by the Stockholm University Law Faculty Board to develop the “Stockholm Model” in an effort to strengthen

ABSTRACT Lecture recordings are anecdotally associated with decreased rates of attendance at face-to-face classes. However, there have been very few studies that empirically analyse this contention, or which examine the motivations for student attendance at face-to-face classes. In this article we report on a study of over 900 undergraduate and postgraduate law students at The University of Western

ABSTRACT In this article I explore the potential of a critical realist approach to the teaching of international law. Critical realist scholars have advanced a compelling account of the importance of paying attention – in designing educational curricula, delivering materials and classroom interactions – to the close relationship between agency and structure, a relationship that has also come to preoccupy

ABSTRACT This study examines undergraduate law students’ perceptions of tutorials delivered by PhD tutors. Enrolment in UK law schools has increased in recent decades and PhD tutors are playing an ever-expanding pedagogical role in undergraduate degree courses. At the same time, the implementation of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework and the growing credence given to the results

ABSTRACT The recent debate concerning changes in the examination for entry to the solicitors’ profession have seen the law schools present themselves as being in a vulnerable position – victims of a controlling and regulatory legal profession. The debate has also revived concern about the dichotomy between teaching law as a liberal arts subject and teaching law as vocational training. This legal history

ABSTRACT The quest to foster professionalism and improve access to justice for all led to the adoption of clinical legal education (CLE) by law schools across the globe. CLE gives law students opportunities to have real-life work experience, while at the same time rendering free legal services to indigent members of the community. Notwithstanding that CLE is being infused into the curricula of faculties

This is the second in a series of three articles outlining threats to and reform of the Irish legal education system. The first article focused on challenges and change in the provision of undergraduate legal education. By way of update there have been two ongoing developments since that initial article. First, on 21 June Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD, Minister of State with special responsibility for

ABSTRACT The literature chronicles an ongoing debate about the teaching–research nexus in higher education. This article details how the author, a law lecturer, has built on the Humboldtian notion of the unity of teaching and research by blogging his research to his practical legal training students in an online teaching environment. With a focus on concern for learners as they soon become Australian

ABSTRACT Clinical legal education provides a unique opportunity to engage with emotions. This article describes and reflects on an interactive workshop that examined the nature, meaning and significance of emotions in clinical legal education. Through a variety of incorporated staged activities, employing the teaching methods of scaffolding as well as backward design, participants explored aspects

How was your summer? Maybe you were living the law teacher summer fantasy: enjoying the outdoors, friends, food, culture and sleep; reconnecting with non-academic pursuits whilst simultaneously catching up on all of the tasks postponed from term time; becoming more relaxed and also more focused . . . . Meanwhile, the ongoing debates about legal education and training continued. You may have missed

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the design and teaching of a capstone law subject that is aimed at developing Indigenous cultural competency in future lawyers. The discussion covers the translation of Wiradyuri traditions of oral storytelling into a video reflection assessment task for law students who undertook a cultural immersion experience with Wiradyuri Elders in rural NSW as part of their law

ABSTRACT Clinical legal education is a self-directed learning environment in which students learn from experience with the support of the design of the environment and the teacher (supervisor). There is emergent research concerning the response of individual students and groups of students in these environments but our understanding of how these environments are shaped and responded to remains at the

ABSTRACT Why is it so important for law students to learn to be reflective? What do we mean by “reflective practice” in the context of legal education? How do we actually teach reflective practice in experiential offerings such as clinics and externships? Finally, how do we assess law students’ reflective work? These questions continue to challenge those of us who strive to teach reflective practice