At SLS last week, and attended some interesting & thoughtful papers. Fiona Cownie (Keele) gave a general overview of her curiosity in the skills literature in legal education: why is there so much of it, why has it taken the shape that it has, how it could (and should) be analyzed. It was the germ of a fascinating research project, and I hope she continues with it. Alan Paterson (Strathclyde) presented part of his recent Hamlyn Lectures — a tour of decision-making processes in the HL & Supreme Court, presented with the usual Patersonian blend of irony, panache & exact scholarship. Sarah Mercer, Chris Rogers, Clare Sandford-Couch (Northumbria) gave an interesting account of ethics in the trial of Oscar Wilde – well presented, but so much more in the subject than they had the space to present, and I hope they publish the paper. Jenny Rawstorne (SRA) and Eileen Fry (Kaplan) gave an interesting update on the SRA’s development of the new QLTS, the Qualifying Lawyers Transfer Scheme. This replaces the old and generally discredited QLT Test that was designed to test the competence of those lawyers wishing to practise in England and Wales and who had qualified in other jurisdictions. More on this over at the SCI blog.
Finally, I organized a session on my upcoming book, Affect and Legal Education: Emotion in Learning and Teaching the Law, co-edited with Caroline Maughan, and to be published by Ashgate in the next couple of months or so. I introduced the book and some of my chapter (slides here) and then Tony Bradney, Sara Chandler and Chris Maguire each presented their chapter from the 13 chapters in the book. It was really a taster session for the book, but it did raise some interesting issues in questions afterwards. We’ll be presenting aspects of the book in conferences next year.