Fishing for Values in Legal Education
Nigel Duncan
Graham Ferris
Fishing For Values in Legal
Education
• Teaching Legal Ethics UK (TLEUK) workshop on
24th November 2012 at NLS
• International forum on teaching legal ethics at
www.teachinglegalethics.org
• Nottingham Law School, City Law School, and
Higher Education Authority
Teaching Legal Ethics UK
Report on workshop at Nottingham Law School
Three main questions:
•Why do we want to introduce ethics into the
undergraduate law curriculum?
•Who should we aim to serve through ethics teaching
in legal education?
•What does it mean to be teaching ethics in legal
education?
Why do we want to introduce ethics into the
undergraduate law curriculum?
“how to think, reason, feel” as opposed to “what
students think”
– At least make students aware of ethical strains and
issues inherent to the materials involved in their study
of law
– “empower” students – perhaps by providing tools
– preparation for the workplace
– To open up a feeling dimension about the subject
matter of law
– To help prepare students for professional education.
– The relationship between general ethics and
professional ethics
Questions
To obtain those aims in practice:
1.What subject matter (content) is suitable for
teaching and learning to think, feel, and act?
What medium do we use for teaching ethical
reasoning, ethical sensitivity, and ethical
efficacy?
2. How should we assess these learning
outcomes?
What do we mean when we talk about ethical
education?
• enabling students to “do” ethics
• influencing how people feel about ethical
values
• Influencing how people will act in the future
• making people sensitive to the presence of
ethical issues
• supporting people in learning how to talk and
think about ethical issues
Who should we aim to serve through ethics
teaching in legal education?
• Students – unreservedly
• Society – primarily through our students
• The professions – but not necessarily in the
manner anticipated by firms
• Legal service consumers – primarily through the
education of our students
• The liberal state, justice or general moral
progress - through the best possible ethical
education of law students
What does it mean to be teaching ethics in
legal education? 1
• Teach ethics well – not preach, but allow
students security and some ownership
• Developing and sharing resources
• Diverse assessments which encourage feelings
of security as opposed to anxiety
• Can we teach people to act ethically?
• Would this entail a non-assessable learning
outcome?
What does it mean to be teaching
ethics in legal education? 2
• Necessary steps to ethical action: Rest and Narvaez (1991)
– Moral Sensitivity – awareness of the moral dimensions of the situation;
– Moral Judgement – ethical reasoning, familiar to us from Kohlberg’s work on
the subject;
– Moral Motivation – wanting to act morally - which may involve putting
concerns about ethical rectitude above e.g. money, or professional success, or
the approval of superiors;
– Moral Character – the ability to see it through.
• steps (1) – (3) awareness, reasoning, and motivation may all
be amenable to teaching and learning and (somewhat
artificially) assessment;
• but step (4) – ethical behaviour in life – is not assessable and
may not be something we can be sure of doing
What does it mean to be teaching
ethics in legal education?
Questions
• How does one teach:
– Perception or awareness of ethical issues
(Sensitivity)
– Reasoning in a manner that encourages
developmental growth (Judgment)
– Caring about moral (ethical) values (Motivation)
– Efficacy in acting upon moral (ethical) values
(Character)?
Question: How best to introduce ethics into the
undergraduate curriculum?
1. Ethics module?
2. Theme or aspect of a few identified modules?
3. Pervasive?
Best to combine (1) & (2), so as to address silo
risk and achieve a degree of integration. (3)
may be achievable in the future.
Requirements
• Commitment by the leadership of the Law
School or Department or Programme - or
• People willing to take some risks?
• Best to combine the two:
• Positive support of willing change agents by
management that wants to encourage good
ethics teaching in the Law School, change led
from below but facilitated from above.
Concluding thoughts
The question: whether students who do not go
onto practice should learn about legal ethics to
be misplaced.
Why would any student not benefit from
education in legal ethics?
Workshop tasks
• In groups as directed, please:
– Brainstorm ideas for assessing any or all of these
learning outcomes.
– Note your ideas
– Be prepared to report back to the Workshop.
Contacts
Nigel Duncan
N.j.duncan@city.ac.uk
Graham Ferris
Graham.ferris@ntu.ac.uk