A warm welcome to the Simulated Client Initiative (SCI), an international collaboration to develop a research base and resources for the use of simulated clients (SCs) in legal education. This page has been assembled as a resource for all academics, practitioners, students and anyone interested in the use of SCs at any stage of legal education. Note that it is still under development.
Aims & work
The blog is based on the work we have been doing over the past two decades in the SCI, which has now set up projects in 18 centres & 10 jurisdictions worldwide – work which derives from the substantial practical experience and considerable research base on simulation in medical education, and is adapted to legal education locally in diverse jurisdictions.
| University of Strathclyde Law School (Glasgow, Scotland) | WS (Writers to the Signet Society) (Edinburgh, Scotland) |
| University of New Hampshire Law School (Concord, NH, USA) | The Australian National University College of Law (Canberra, ACT, AUS) |
| Northumbria University Law School (Newcastle, England) | Kwansei Gakuin University Law School (Osaka, Japan) |
| Hong Kong University Faculty of Law (Hong Kong) | The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong) |
| Nottingham Trent University Law School (Nottingham, England) | Newcastle University Law School (Newcastle, England) |
| Osgoode Hall Law School/ OPD (Toronto, ON, CA) | University of Windsor Faculty of Law (Windsor, ON, CA) |
| Flinders Law School (Adelaide, SA, AUS) | Solicitors Regulation Authority (London, England) |
| Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED, Provinces of AB, MB, SK, NS, CA) | Law Society of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland) |
| National Centre for Skills in Social Care (London, England) | Manchester Metropolitan University Law School (Manchester, England) |
Medical education has been our guide in many respects. Sim patients have been in use in medical education for over half a century. In a role-play consultation, medical students or medical professionals are required to recognise the condition from the patient’s description using their clinical, caring and patient-handling skills. Patients are trained to assess doctors’ communication and patient-handling skills, as well as their attitudes towards patients. The same is true of SCs, with regard to communication, values, attitudes and ethics.
The aims of our SC project in legal education are to:
- Encourage the establishment and maintenance of SC projects globally
- Collate and update pre-existing research on standardisation and simulation practices across a range of disciplines and professions
- Where possible, research the use of simulated clients (SCs) in the education of law students, trainees and lawyers through a series of pilot projects and research publications
- Produce a body of resources that will enable staff in law schools and other legal educational centres to develop their own SC programmes, in undergraduate, postgraduate and professional legal education
Workshops
We have held workshops in London (2016), Canberra (2017), Toronto (2022) and Amsterdam (2024). They’re summarised below.
London (2016)
The workshop, called ‘Simulated Clients: A workshop on interdisciplinary learning and teaching in legal education’, was held on Friday 2 June, 0950-1600, in the Common Room of the Atkin Building, City Law School, City University, London. Here’s the flyer and an extract from it:
The [use of simulated clients] challenges many aspects of our current theory and practice in legal education, including the following:
- Curriculum structures: the method leads us to re-design our conventional curriculum interventions.
- Ethics of the client encounter
- The cognitive poverty of much of conventional law school assessment
- Law school as a self-regarding, monolithic construct
- Law school categories of employment
- The curricular isolation of clinic within law schools
- Hollowed-out skills rhetoric
- Conventional forms of regulation by regulatory bodies
- The role of regulator, less as monitor/accreditor and more as encourager of innovation & reform.
- Disciplinary boundaries – SCs and educators can learn much from other interdisciplinary practices
- SCs reflect local jurisdictional practices – how might such a project work, globally?
This workshop was keynoted by Professor Roger Kneebone, a distinguished medical educator who has worked in the field of simulation. It contained examples of practice from a range of jurisdictions; and included summaries of the work of the Simulated Client Initiative (SCI), its global setting, and examples of SCs in use in a range of programmes. There was advice on how to set up a SC project in your institution, how SCs interact with students, novice lawyers and can be used for lawyers’ continuous professional development, and how they can be used to develop a range of legal skills. There was also advice on how to sustain a community of SCs in your law school, how to create a research agenda around the heuristic, and much else. With 27 registrants and eight speakers there were lots of lively discussions, questions. Permalinks to relevant blogs on paulmaharg.com below:
http://paulmaharg.com/2017/06/02/sci-session-1-roger-kneebone/
http://paulmaharg.com/2017/06/03/session-7-scs-and-professional-development-for-lawyers/
http://paulmaharg.com/2017/06/06/simulated-client-final-session-ahead-of-whose-curve/
Canberra (2017)
Our second international Simulated Client workshop, which this time was held on 16 August under the auspices of the PEARL centre in the College of Law, The Australian National University, Canberra, went very well – 31 registrants, seven speakers, and as with the first event in London, lots of lively discussions, questions, and take-aways for those present. Workshop resources are posted under Resources below. Here are the permalinks to the liveblogged posts on my blog over at paulmaharg.com:
Debra Nestel, Simulations for learning and teaching: Experiences from healthcare
Lucy Evans, The experience of using SCs at Flinders Law School
Julienne Jen, Research into SCs: The Hong Kong University experience
Moira Murray, SCs and students at ANU College of Law: Student evaluation of the use of SCs
Anneka Ferguson, Vivien Holmes, Pamela Taylor-Barnett, The power of narrative: Immersive video/audio work with students
Toronto (2022)
On April 29 we had a super workshop, organised with the assistance of my research assistant and SC trainer, Angela Yenssen. All details can be found over at https://simclient.osgoode.yorku.ca/. It summarised much of the great work done on SCs in Osgoode Hall Law School, in Osgoode PD, and also by CPLED in the PREP programme. That programme is such a visionary, bold design in professional legal education – all the more so because four Canadian regulators came together to fund, design and sustain the programme – surely a first in any nation?
Amsterdam (2024)
The fourth international workshop was held in the University of Amsterdam’s Law School Hub, and co-sponsored by the Amsterdam Centre on the Legal Professions and Access to Justice, Osgoode Professional Development and the National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism (USA). Click here for the agenda. After welcomes, Clark Cunningham outlined the workshop and some of the research on client perceptions of lawyers and the interviewing process (slides here). Thereafter I presented on SC situated theory and practice, followed by a demonstration & discussion of an online SC meeting, zoomed live from OsgoodePD. We then had break-out group discussions of the ranges of applications of the SC methodology, reports to plenary and possible next steps.
Manchester 2026
Resources
The following documents are published under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND). This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Please feel free to use the resources.
General introduction to Simulated Clients
Global Assessment Criteria
Sample schedule
Sample SC training handbook
Slidesets
From Theory to Practice: Expanding Simulated Patient Methodologies beyond Healthcare
Abstract
Lorena Dobbie & Delon Pereira, Standardized Patient Program, University of Toronto
Incorporating Simulated Clients into JD & Continuing Legal Education Programs
Abstract
Shelley Kierstead & Paul Maharg, Osgoode Hall Law School
Simulated Clients at Scale: The Windsor Legal Practice Simulation
Abstract
Noel Semple, University of Windsor Faculty of Law
Making Law Students Client-Ready: A New Model in Legal Education
Abstract
John Garvey and Courtney Brooks, University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law
Simulated Clients in PREP
Abstract
Erica Green, Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education
Angela Yenssen, Simulated Client Trainer
Our next event will be held in Manchester Metropolitan University. Details to follow.