Category: legal education

  • Experiential Learning Conference, HKU Faculty of Law, day 1, am

    I’m at this conference at the invitation of Wilson Chow and the conference committee. It’s one of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of HKU’s Faculty of Law.  It’s great to be back in HK and meet colleagues and friends in the Faculty, and talk over projects.  More of that…

  • CLEO Conference: Games, Stories and Simulations

    Am here in London South Bank University Law at the invitation of Emily Allbon, Dawn Watkins and Andy Unger, who are convening this one-day event.  CLEO is the Clinical Legal Education Organisation, but as the title suggests, the speakers are moving well beyond the usual framework of clinic. There will be Belbin role games and design…

  • Assessment in Legal Education – new book series

    Today ANU Press has published Assessment in Legal Education. Critical Perspectives on the Scholarship of Assessment and Learning in Law. Vol 1: England.  It’s the first volume in a series, this volume edited by Alison Bone and myself.  The series editors are Craig Collins and Vivien Holmes (ANU College of Law); I’m consultant editor.  ANU Press is an…

  • Pressing problems MLR seminar, final thoughts

    The seminar organisers based the conference on a book of essays edited by Peter Birks entitled Pressing Problems in the Law. Vol 2. What are Law Schools For? and published by OUP in 1996 (hereafter, ‘Birks’). I remember buying it around 1997 or 1998, second-hand, from Voltaire & Rousseau, in Glasgow.  Five years out from…

  • Constitution, institution, foundation: a ius commune of legal education

    In a chapter I finished a while back for Catrina Denvir’s forthcoming book on Modernising Legal Education I explored what modernising the law school actually means, with case studies – hence the title, referencing Talking Heads, ‘Same as it ever was?  Second modernity, technocracy, and the design of digital legal education’.  As I point out,…

  • New beginnings

    Tonight is the formal opening of Osgoode Professional Development’s (OPD) newly refurbished premises on floor 26 of 1 Dundas St West, downtown Toronto. Now the view inside will match the stunning views outside to Lake Ontario and the Toronto Islands, Algonquin Island, and all the way west and south to Mississauga, glimpsed through a foreground…

  • Osgoode Sim Client Project

    We’ve finished our Simulated Client (SC) project at Osgoode Hall Law School, which was around three months in the planning. Further and much more detailed analysis later, but this is a quick post for now to summarise what we did.

  • LETR conference: parallel papers, 2

    First up, Jenny Gibbons on ‘Curriculum as constitution’.  Fascinating analogy, which I’ve explored elsewhere.  She started with Fortnite Island.  To play the game you need to: learn the rules of the game know how to find and use yr materials take time to create safe spaces learn to maximise yr advantage in encounters learn from…

  • LETR conference: paper session 1

    First up, Steven Vaughan, by video conference, on ‘Same-same but different?  The current and future LLB offerings on law schools in England and Wales’.  He started with conversations with colleagues he had about grades and the relative difficulty of subjects, the Joint Statement (JS) and the normative hold it had on the curriculum.  Law degrees…

  • Conference: LETR – Five Years On

    The Legal Education and Training Review submitted its findings five years ago now – seems more like 15 years to be honest, so much has happened in the interim.  To mark the occasion, Jessica Guth of Leeds Law School at Leeds Beckett University has organised the above conference, taking place tomorrow.  LETR’s co-authors Julian Webb,…

  • Directions conference, parallel session 3

    Final parallel session.  First up, Richard Hedlund (Lincoln University Law School) on ‘Modernising the (property law) curriculum at Lincoln Law School’.  He focused on the direction and restraints he faced in his adaptations, having taught PBL at York U.  Pedagogy wasn’t discussed much at Lincoln, and he tried to change that.  There was spoon-feeding, and…

  • Directions conference, day 2, Plenary session

    First session, and we have Lyria Bennett Moses (UNSW, via skype), on ‘What law students need to know about technology’.  Lyria argued that students need to know how technology is affecting legal practice – forms of new literacy – in addition to legal literacy.  Doesn’t necessarily mean detailed knowledge of machine learning; but lawyers need…