THE NLS LEGAL EDUCATION GROUP
Newsletter 15 (February 2015)
The Legal Education Group is a discussion group, organised by the Centre for Legal Education but open
to everyone (including, if your line manager says yes, subject administrators). It positively benefits
from bringing together people from across the school. The spring meeting focussed on ethics and
identity and was led by Graham Ferris.
CLE News
Since the last newsletter, two members of the centre (Andrea Nollent and Becky Huxley-Binns) have departed to
the University of Law. We wish them the best in their new roles. The Centre has gained new members in Jane
Wood, Stephanie Wright and, not least, our new dean, Janine Griffiths-Baker. We also say hello to a new research
student, Sairah Al-Qasim, who has joined the D Legal Practice to work on a project on legal education in the UK and
Saudi Arabia. This brings our complement of research students up to three, with Brónagh Heverin working on skills
in Irish undergraduate education and Jo Long reforming skills education for Chinese international commercial
lawyers.
We are in the final stages of development of the new CLE website, which will include an interactive blog and allow
all and any of us to post thoughts, materials, work in progress and both showcase what we are doing as well as
engage interactively with the wider legal education world.
Following last year’s successful conference, a special edition of the Nottingham Law Journal is in the course of
preparation, including a strong selection of articles on a range of legal education projects.
And otherwise:
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Graham is currently working on a book “The Uses of Values in Legal Education”;
•
Jane and Paul delivered 50% of the Association of Law Teachers’ Annual Lord Upjohn lecture.
Resources and reading
Note that there is an eclectic, but useful collection of books in the staff development library in Chaucer 4804. Don’t
forget that education journals and books are also held by the NTU library. If you are visiting London, consider
obtaining access to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies library in Russell Square (produce your staff card), or,
through SCONUL, the Institute of Education library next door.
Some legal education journals:
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Asian Journal of Legal Education http://www.uk.sagepub.com/journals/Journal202251
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Canadian Legal Education Annual Review http://www.acpd-calt.org/?page_id=14
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Clinical Law Review
http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/clinicallawreview
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Clinical Law teaching and Practice ejournal (SSRN)
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/JELJOUR_Results.cfm?form_name=journalbrowse&journal_id=303431
•
European Journal of Legal Education
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rejl20/current#.VK-_lbFFD5o;
http://elfa-afde.eu/ejle/
•
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education
http://www.northumbriajournals.co.uk/index.php/ijcle
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International Journal of the Legal Profession
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cijl20/current#.VK_mY7FFD5o
•
Journal of Commonwealth Law and Legal Education
http://www.open.ac.uk/law/main/why-studylaw/journal-commonwealth-law-and-legal-education
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Journal of Legal Education http://www.swlaw.edu/jle
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Journal of Legal Studies Education http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1744-1722
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Journal of Professional Legal Education (ceased)
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Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/JlALawTA/;
http://www.alta.edu.au/jalta.aspx
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Law and Method www.bjutijdschriften.nl/tijdschrift/tvgr
•
Legal Education Digest
http://www.alta.edu.au/led.aspx
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Legal Education Review
http://www.ler.edu.au/
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Nottingham Law Journal http://www.ntu.ac.uk/nls/research/nlj/index.html
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The Law Teacher (UK)
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ralt20/current#.VK-xvrFFD5o
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The Law Teacher (USA)
http://lawteaching.org/lawteacher/
•
Web Journal of Current Legal Issues
http://www.bailii.org/uk/other/journals/WebJCLI/admin/wjclidex.html,
http://webjcli.org/
Ethics and identity
Graham began by discussing the existing dichotomy in much discussion of ethics in (academic) legal education: that
it is either about teaching professional codes of practice, or that law is about social action and that study of law
necessarily involves an active struggle for social justice. This is simplistic and does not assist the student in
developing his or her own stance and identity. A useful structure for discussion could be found in Narvaez, D. &
Rest, J. (1995) The four components of acting morally, in: W. Kurtines & J. Gewirtz (Eds) Moral Behavior and Moral
Development: an introduction, pp. 385–400 (New York, McGraw-Hill):
a) Noticing (that there is an ethical issue). This could be challenging in group contexts (eg lawyer/client) as a
relationship can be both collaborative (let’s get the deal done) and combative (no, that’s a deal breaker for
my client).
b) Thinking it through – using ethical reasoning. Challenges here were about the spectrum between
absolutism in morality at one end and relativism at the other.
c) Motivation. To act ethically, the individual has to care what the answer is, or what the “right thing to do” is.
The role of the teacher is not to prescribe this, but to enable students to care about the things that they do
care about as individuals. We had an interesting side discussion here about the hypothetical sociopathic
student.
d) Taking action. This would always be action within a group (academy, legal profession etc). It could be
problematic, eg in the law firm where any conflicts issue is diverted away to specialists or seniors; and
because ethics thinking (what is the right thing to do) can be at odds with “law thinking” (what can we get
away with within the context of the rules). Mary Gentile (see eg
http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/studio/multimedia/20110426/index.html/:pf_printable?) uses an exercise in
which she asks participants to think of the time when they “did the right thing” and then to articulate “how”
they did the right thing. The reason for doing the right thing could be a good (moral) reason, a prudential
or pragmatic reason, or for the wrong reason (mere compliance). We discussed the desirability of
discussing different viewpoints with students, who might come to a consensus, but otherwise might at least
develop respect for the other view. We also discussed different aspects of identity that might reflect on
action – as for example, cultural drivers to prioritise and protect the group (the family, the clan) or to
respect the individual (eg the concept of individual human rights) or where there was conflict between
groups (eg between duties to family or to the state).
Dates for your diary:
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ALT Conference, 50 Years of Legal Education, 29-31 March 2015, Cardiff. Call for papers/posters has closed.
http://www.lawteacher.ac.uk/events.asp
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BILETA Conference 2015, 8-10 April 2015. UWE, Bristol. Call for papers extended to 10th February.
http://www.bileta.ac.uk/News/&action=fullnews&id=19
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Global Legal Skills 10, 20-22 May 2015, Chicago. hhttp://glsc.jmls.edu/2015/
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NTU CPLD Supervising Postgraduate Research Students: Getting them started and making progress (GS
Workshop 2), 27 May 2015.
http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/cpld/cpld_events/events/163002/Supervising_Postgraduate_Research_Students_G
etting_them_started_and_making.aspx
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Legal Education Review, call for papers, 30 May 2015
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Ryerson University (Canada), 2nd International Conference on Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, 9-10 June 2015,
Toronto. Call for papers deadline 15th March. Early bird booking 15th February.
http://www.legalconference.org/international-conference.php.
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University of Oslo Law and Society in the 21st century. 10-12 June 2015, Oslo. Call for papers has closed.
http://www.jus.uio.no/ikrs/english/research/news-and-events/events/conferences/2015/socio-legal-studiesconference/index.html
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Institute for Law Teaching and Learning, Experiential Learning Across the Curriculum, 12-14 June 2015,
Spokane, Washington. Call for workshop proposals deadline has closed.
http://lawteaching.org/conferences/2015/
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NLS Centre for Legal Education, Legal Education and Access to Justice, 19-21 June 2015, Nottingham. Call for
papers deadline has closed.
http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/events/3/home.aspx/event/165035/default/centre_for_legal_education_conference
_2015
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Athens Institute for Education and Research A Forum on Legal Education, 13-16 July 2015, Athens, Greece.
Call for papers deadline 23rd March. http://www.atiner.gr/led.htm
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Australasian Law Teachers Association, 2015 conference, 16-18 July 2015, Melbourne. Call for papers deadline
not yet available.
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Global Alliance for Justice Education 8th Global Conference 2015, 22-28 July 2015. Eskişehir, Turkey. Call for
papers deadline has closed. http://www.gaje.org/conferences/upcoming-conferences/.
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SLS Annual Conference, York, Law’s Subjects, Subject to Laws, 1-4 September 2015. Call for papers
deadline 23rd March 2015. http://www.slsconference.uk/