The Future of Australian Legal Education Conference was held in August 2017 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Australian Academy of Law (AAL), the 90th anniversary of the Australian Law Journal (ALJ) and the 30th anniversary of the Pearce Report on Australian Law Schools. The conference provided a forum for an informed, national discussion on the future of legal study and practice in Australia, covering practitioners, academics, judges and students.
We are currently witnessing an unprecedented transformation in the legal profession and legal education. The Legal Services Act 2007 and the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 have both enabled and necessitated dramatic structural changes to the profession, as well as impacting on its ethos and ethicality. The recent Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) promises similarly dramatic change to the provision of legal education, reflecting the shifting landscape of both the legal professional market and Higher Education in general. These transformative changes bring both exciting opportunities and challenges with which everyone involved in the law – from University lecturers, to Senior Partners in leading law firms, to the judiciary – must grapple. This edited collection comprises a selection of papers presented at the 2nd conference of CEPLER, Birmingham Law School's Centre for Professional Legal Education and Research. The aim of the Conference, and thus this collection, was to bring together leading academic scholars, senior figures from professional practice, policy-makers, and representatives of the regulatory authorities, to reflect on the key issues arising from this transformative moment. As such, this volume of essays covers diverse ground, from curriculum development to professional theory, enriched and enhanced by the range of backgrounds and perspectives of its contributors.
Key Directions in Legal Education identifies and explores key contemporary and emerging themes that are significant and heavily debated within legal education from both UK and international perspectives. It provides a rich comparative dialogue and insights into the current and future directions of legal education. The book discusses in detail topics including the pressures on law schools exerted by external stakeholders, the fostering of interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration within legal education and the evolution of discourses around teaching and learning legal skills. It elaborates on the continuing development of clinical legal education as a component of the law degree and the emergence and use of innovative technologies within law teaching. The approach of pairing UK and international authors to obtain comparative insights and analysis on a range of key themes is original and provides both a genuine comparative dialogue and a clear international focus. This book will be of great interest for researchers, academics and post-graduate students in the field of law and legal pedagogy.
Building on Best Practices is a follow-up to Best Practices for Legal Education, a project of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA), authored primarily by Roy Stuckey. With contributions from more than 50 legal educators, this new volume is not a second edition, but is intended to be used in conjunction with the original volume, as the core content of Best Practices remains just as useful as when it was originally published. In the wake of new ABA Accreditation Standards, the MacCrate Report, and other changes, legal education is called upon today to respond to a broader view of what lawyers must be trained to do. Building on Best Practices identifies ten such areas and provides guidance on what and how to teach them. The demand to teach a broader range of knowledge, skills, and values presents difficult trade-offs, however, that are also considered. "To demonstrate that law schools can still add value to careers and society, legal educators must grapple with structural changes that affect every aspect of teaching, learning and researching. Building on Best Practices provides diverse expertise and useful guidance on approaching these challenges and on improving and expanding the enterprise of legal education." - Jeffrey R. Baker, Journal of Legal Education
This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing legal education in the era of globalization. It identifies the knowledge and skills that law students will require in order to prepare for the practice of tomorrow, and explores pedagogical shifts legal education needs to make inside and outside of the classroom. With contributions from leading experts on legal education from various jurisdictions across the globe, the work combines theoretical depth with practical insights. Seeking to understand the changing landscape of legal education in the era of globalization, the contributions find that law schools can, and must, adopt educational strategies that at least present students with different understandings of what studying and practicing law is meant to be about. They find that law schools need to offer their students choices, a vision of practice that is not driven entirely by the demands of the marketplace or the needs of major international law firms. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book makes a significant contribution to the impact of globalization on legal education, and how students and law schools need to adapt for the future. It will be of great interest to academics and students of comparative legal studies and legal education, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.
The trouble with law schools -- The problem with legal history -- Subversive legal history -- The F in feminist legal history -- The perils of periodisation -- Counterfactual legal history -- The parallel world of legal geography -- We are all legal historians now.
This coursebook addresses key topics in the evolving legal profession and the business of law. The book features chapters on the traditional law firm; the corporate client; the emergence of alternative legal services providers; legal technology; access to justice; employment and diversity in the legal profession; and legal education reform. Students will learn from detailed, insightful interviews of a broad range of legal industry professionals, including the general counsel of an international company; chief litigation officer of a Fortune100 company; director of knowledge management at a Biglaw firm; a legal innovator who founded a pioneering legal process outsourcing company; a legal industry consultant; and a legal tech startup CEO and co-founder. Interactive exercises and questions for reflection and discussion are included throughout the book. Read reviews of this title here.
This book is a tight and fresh analysis of the American legal profession and its significance to society and its citizens. The book’s primary objective is to expose, and correct, the principal misconceptions— myths— surrounding prelaw study, law school admission, law school, and the American legal profession itself. These issues are vitally important to prelaw advisors and instructors in light of the difficult problems caused by the Great Recessions of 2008 and 2020– 2021 and the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Aimed equally at prelaw advisors and potential law students, this book can be used as a supplement in the interdisciplinary undergraduate law-related instructional market, including courses that cater to majors/minors in political science and criminal justice in particular. It can also be used in career counselling, internships, and the extensive paralegal program market. New to the Second Edition • Expanded coverage to include paralegal and legal assistant training. • New material on women and minority law students who are transforming law schools and the profession. • Explores challenges to the legal profession posed by economic recession, COVID-19, high tuition rates, exploding student loan debt, internet technological advances, and global competitive pressures, including legal outsourcing and DIY legal services. • Updated data and tables along with all underlying research.
Shines a light on the emerging field of law dedicated to responding to and resolving the crises of the twenty-first century In an increasingly globalized world, a complex and interlocking web of nations, governments, non-state actors, laws, and rules affect human behavior. When crisis hits—whether that be extrajudicial detention, unprompted deportation, pandemics, or natural disasters—lawyers are increasingly among the first responders, equipped with the knowledge necessary to navigate the regulations of this ever more complex world. Crisis Lawyering explores this phenomenon and attempts to identify and define what it means to engage in the practice of law in crisis situations. In so doing, it hopes to sketch out the contours of the emerging field of crisis lawyering. Contributors to this volume explore cases surrounding domestic violence; dealing with immigrants in detention and banned from travel; policing in Ferguson, Missouri; the kidnapping of journalists; and climate change, among other crises. Their analysis not only serves as guidance to lawyers in such situations, but also helps others who deal with crises understand those crises—and the role of lawyers in them—better so that they may respond to them more effectively, efficiently, collaboratively and creatively. Crisis Lawyering shines a light on the emerging field of law dedicated to responding to and resolving the complex crises of the twenty-first century.
