Second day of the conference, and we’re focusing first on technology and innovations in legal education, followed after the break by a session on experiential learning and innovation in professional education. For reference, full conference programme here.
We start with the third keynote, this time from Daniel Rodriguez from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, on ‘New technologies and the disruption of legal education’. Quoted from Susskind, Tomorrow’s Lawyers on how legal education will inevitably change. He says the main objective of legal education is to train the new generation of lawyers to practise for 21st century. That’s a US view of course and by no means shared in every jurisdiction. It includes representation and legal ethics. He notes that the LLB and JD are different models, coming to the same point, and include credentials and licensing, and practice readiness and on-the-job training. I have to disagree with this – surely legal education is much more complex and richer than this. He quotes his upcoming book, Law Schools in the World, which has a comparative lens, and in which he describes legal education as needing to become multidisciplinary, with trans-national / global objectives and accountability.
Pressures on law schools include rankings, competition and technology. Turning to disruptive technologies, he begins with big data and predictive analytics. Data mining, using digital analysis now includes the use of statistics, AI and machine learning, and is much more accurate in its predictions. In legal tech itself, he separates it into basic (Word Excel, metadata, case management etc), intermediate eg document automation, expert systems, and advanced eg machine learning, natural language processing, AI. Again, I tend to disagree with this typology. A lot of so called basic tech is actually very poorly used by students. How many students (and faculty) use Word well for either academic or professional purposes; how many use metadata as a matter of course (apart from tagging photos on Fb)? AI is defined as per the slide below:
He then described machine learning and deep learning. He described machine learning in professional use: technology assisted review (ediscovery & diligence), compliance, quantitative legal prediction in use in litigation and transactions.
What does this mean for law schools? Rodriguez defined imperatives: modern skills for a modern world, multidisciplinary knowledge, entrepreneurial mindset, public service orientation, and technology competencies. What are law schools expected to provide? Main objective: thinking like a lawyer is thinking like a problem solver (only this?) Learning infrastructure: new structures of knowledge including synthetic learning. Tech education through the pervasive method including AI machine learning, research aids, expert systems, and applied knowledge through simulations and the real world. This means redefining the law school mission. He quoted the Stanford Law School model of integration which I’ve seen before and is worth citing (below).
There are conditions that are critical: the ‘weight of the JD, the unbearable lightness of the LLB’ (what does this mean? we weren’t told). And 9 others he mentioned that were mentioned too fast to be considered here. I have to say there was little here that hasn’t been said many times before, and at the same level of generality.
The next session began with Prof Yang Jianguang, of Sun Yat-sen University Law School on mainland China, speaking in Chinese, with slides in Chinese. My apologies to Yang for only following some of his presentation (but huge kudos to the simultaneous young translators, to whom I was listening and blogging, and who btw are working only from abstracts & quickly scanned slides as they translate – such skill, not least in the collaborative way they took over from each other in the midst of a solidest – almost like a musical performance). He talked about the use of simulations in criminal and civil law, giving students practice in court skills and activities. His students take part in competitions too. His staff encourage the setting up of clinics. On National Constitution Day students went out to educate people on the PRC constitution. Students also work with procuratorial services, with training given in those services. The same educational functions existed in the Supreme Court. Resources and teaching practices are shared between procuratorial services, the Supreme Court and university law schools. With regard to clinic, in NW China universities, there are websites that illustrate what students are doing. At SYS U, there is a criminal law clinic (I think I have that right…)
Yang noted that personnel and HR needs to be improved in the clinics, and the operating methods of clinics could also be improved. Clinics also need better technology. Finally on assessment, there is considerable work to be done on a common assessment framework. There was also a need to develop a frame for skills development. Some duty lawyers in the clinic had to leave to attend to practice – but on the plus side, they brought their valuable experiences into the clinic. At SYS the target was to establish a stable teaching team for clinical legal education. Independent administrators were also required, but there were very limited resources available for clinic. Yang is aware of the huge developments in technology, and feels that there needs to be considerable investment in order for clinics to catch up. He feels there is a real need for programmes such as Street Law (my interpretation of the translator’s description). An online program for clinic was developed, and was approved by the Ministry for Education. Criminal litigation and legal procedure has been taught online since 2000, and has won awards. Development below:
In summary, there was a need for better supervision in experiential learning, more consistency between classes, and more links to outside agencies such as courts were required. I thought this was a really interesting and honest set of insights into law clinic issues in the PRC.
Following Yang was Francine Ryan of the UK OU, on ‘The integration of technology into clinical legal education: an exploration of the “virtual” law clinic’. The Open Justice Centre was established in 2016 to build links between the OU law school and the wider community. It pioneered the use of clinic in distance education. Clinical legal ed can provide new platforms to increase public access to legal advice and guidance. This was developed as a new module – Justice in Action. The traditional f2f law clinic was transferred into a virtual setting, and the Open Justice virtual law clinic began in 2017 – it’s one of eight clinical opportunities in the module. Why virtual? Because OU students are not based in a physical location, and the OU wanted to deliver services to clients at a distance using tech as a means of communication. It also helps students become familiar with tech and develop online collaboration skills.
Online inquiries are trained through the clinic mailbox – taken to clinic or signposted to other organisations to help. Students work in firms of around 3-4, supervised by qualified solicitors. If taken into the clinic, the case is put into the case management system, Clio, a cloud-based practice management system, where all case interaction takes place and the case is tracked. Adobe Connect was used to connect with clients and interview them. AC connects via mobile devices, there’s video conferencing and text tools too. Students follow the usual clinic workflow, under supervision. On training, students have online training on interviewing, legal research, ethics and professional responsibility. They sand-box Clio before using it live. They conduct a sim case before going into the live clinic. In conducting the entirety of the case online, students need to learn skills of online collaboration. This was exactly what we found in our sim cases online at Strathclyde, and in Legal Workshop at ANU. Research was carried out in 2018. Early training and access to tech was crucial. Online/virtual collaboration was challenging for students, an they needed to practise it. Francine pointed out that the virtual clinic was not a replacement for f2f clinic: both had advantages, and both had a place in the educational infrastructure, particularly that of the OU. Good clear presentation of an interesting clinic development.
Next up, Rick Glofcheski from HKU Law Faculty on ‘Using technology and the media to cultivate authentic problem-solving skills in undergraduate law students. Lost his slides in a journey back from Bhutan where he was training law teachers, so he gave us some wonderful photos of Bhutan…
His talk emphasised the need to consider the theoretical as well as the practical. Yes! Quoted GBS: ‘my learning was interrupted by my education’. How can we meet the deficit in learning when students are seated in rows etc? Such a valuable question. And Rick shared with us one response to the dilemma – the Reflective Media Diary or RMD. See below, right.
From the start of the course (on Torts) students are required to keep a RMD where they upload a narrative of a torts-related legal event in the media, and provide comprehensive legal analysis for submission. Students are thus required to pay attention to the news and identify tort-related issues. The diary is unsupervised. Students start it knowing almost nothing about tort law, but still manage to carry out the tasks – it gives agency to students and just tells them to get on with it, using creativity and their own developing research skills, especially in ‘unflagged situations’. I like that phrase, with its resonances of uncertainty, ambiguity, and the quest by students to clarify, define, understand that’s carried out by students themselves. And according to Rick it develops ‘the habit of learning’ – the Deweyan emphasis on embedding learning in cycles as habits that take place not just in the classroom.
The media reports are thus authentic learning – with the qualities as outlined in Rick’s slide below:
Rick showed us his marks sheet and an example of a RMD:
This is a super initiative. It’s so simple but in so many ways a radical reversal of much that’s frustrating and ineffective about conventional legal education. I’ve heard Rick talk about it before but I never fail to take new things from hearing him describe the project.
Finally in this session, Brian Tang on HKU Lite – Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) Lab@HKU. Why this unit? The need for upskilling lawyers is increasingly recognised. There’s a high cost of start-ups in HK. There’s a new supply of lawyers every year through the HK PCLL degree, who needed courses on fintech and legal design and the like. Brian is founding exec director of LITE Lab@HKU. Showed a promo video which put me off since I’m not a fan of them, but I’m already beginning to really like his work.. In first semester of the inaugural class, 39 students, international background was striking, and they were taken from all years. It’s a fascinating model, often used in progressive primary school education (ie students from different year groups mixed up) and clearly he’s making massive inroads into the tech deficits in legal education. Useful slide on piloting pedagogies for 21st century startup lawyering education:
Students work in team assignments, student agency, engagement is critical. Assessment is experiential, interdisciplinary, agency and impact – see slide below. I like the top line, but what’s impressive is the detailed thought that Brian gives to the working out of these radical ideas. In many ways each of these qualities could blow apart the whole assessment plan if they aren’t carefully integrated. In this way assessment is itself a design task, where student-centred tasks are knit together with learning, purpose and creative dynamism (below right):
Iron Tech Lawyer Invitational is an example of students working on projects, below:
Student feedback is very interesting (below):
As is the focus on what could be improved on the course (below right):
This is very interesting initiative, and good final presentation to this session. Keep an eye out for Brian and his international work if you’re interested in developing really rich edu designs in law & tech. I’ll certainly want to keep in touch with him.