Karen Barton
Senior Lecturer in Legal Practice
Glasgow Graduate School of Law
University of Strathclyde
Lord Hope Building
141 St James’ Rd
University of Strathclyde
Glasgow G4 0LT
T: 00 44 (0)141 548 4984
F: 00 44 (0)141 552 4264
E: karen.barton@strath.ac.uk
Karen joined the Glasgow Graduate School of Law (GGSL) in 2004 having worked previously for IBM and, for the past ten years, in the Higher Education sector. She initially taught in Business Information Management, and was then appointed as the ICT Skills Co-ordinator at Glasgow Caledonian University where she implemented an institution-wide ICT skills programme for all undergraduate students. She was also project co-ordinator for the CITSCAPES Project investigating student C&IT Skills Induction across the whole of the Higher Education Sector in the UK. More recently she was the Programme Director for a work-based post graduate qualification in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.
Within GGSL, she is responsible for the development and management the Diploma in Legal Practice, the post graduate qualification required by all Scottish Law graduates prior to commencing their two year traineeship. With a keen and long-term interest in teaching and learning and the use of IT within legal practice, she has carried out a number of collaborative research projects with Patricia McKellar and Paul Maharg (both from GGSL) in these areas including The Paisley Pattern, a survey of use of ICT within Scottish legal practices; and the development of The Virtual Court Action, a computer-based learning package. She is currently working on a number of innovative teaching and learning projects for the Diploma in Legal Practice course at GGSL involving transactional, web-based environments as well as multimedia and webcast environments. At the same she continues to develop her interests in professional education and training and is involved in two leading edge projects in professional legal education based at GGSL: The Standardised Client Project in interviewing skills; and a Portfolio Pilot Project involving trainees and trainers within a number of Scottish legal firms.
Apart from her husband Peter and three teenage sons, her other main passion in life is the sport of rowing and, having given up serious competition a few years ago, she now spends most of her spare time coaching the junior section of her local club at Strathclyde Park.