scholarly journals “Bush Law 101”: Realising Place Conscious Pedagogy in the Law Curriculum

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-102
Author(s):  
Amanda Kennedy ◽  
◽  
Trish Mundy ◽  
Jennifer M. Nielsen ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
School Curriculum ◽  
Law School ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Collaborative Reflection ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Funded Project ◽  
The Law ◽  
Education Resource ◽  
Regional Australia

In 2012, a team of academics from six universities worked on an OLT-funded project, ‘Rethinking Law Curriculum: developing strategies to prepare law graduates for practice in rural and regional Australia’. The project was motivated by the declining proportion of lawyers being attracted to and remaining in practice in rural and regional Australia. The main outcome of the project was an open education resource designed to sensitise students to the realities of the rural and regional legal practice context in the form of a customisable curriculum package that can be embedded as components within existing units of study, or developed as a stand-alone unit. Three of the team members have now implemented the curriculum package within their law school programs, two in the form of a stand-alone elective unit delivered to undergraduate law students, and the third to support placement programs for law and paralegal students. Applying the process of peer observation and collaborative reflection, this paper reports on their experiences to offer insights on how to adapt and integrate the ‘Rethinking law’ package within the law school curriculum. In particular, this paper will discuss the significance of place-consciousness as a pedagogical tool, and the capacity of the ‘Rethinking Law’ package to encourage law students to ‘re-imagine’ careers in rural and regional Australia and their role as the country’s future lawyers.

scholarly journals Perceptions and attitudes with regard to public international law: empirical evidence from law students in the city of São Paulo

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel Kamiyama
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Law School ◽  
Law Students ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Perceptions And Attitudes ◽  
The Law ◽  
The City

This article empirically examines, by means of a survey conducted at four universities in São Paulo, two issues related to the teaching of international law in Brazil: (1) what law students think of the discipline as a material branch of the law (its effectiveness, legitimacy etc.) and (2) what they think of the discipline as a component of the law school curriculum. The first part draws upon the semiological concept of “myth” in order to paint a picture of students’ views about the place of international law in the world, as well as upon quantitative data to assess their understandings about compliance with international norms. The second part, which also relies on quantitative and qualitative data, describes students’ ideas about how international law should be taught (if at all). The responses paint a picture of mild student scepticism and dissatisfaction with teaching methods that invite a number of questions for reflection, which are raised in the final part. 

scholarly journals Interdisciplinarity and Clinical Legal Education: how synergies can improve access to rights in prison

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 210
Author(s):  
Cecilia Blengino
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Law School ◽  
Education Movement ◽  
The Future ◽  
Legal Positivist ◽  
The Law ◽  
Improve Access ◽  
Positivist Approach

<p>This article discusses the resistance experienced by the clinical legal education movement in Italy due to a widespread legal positivist approach which views law as a self-contained technical subject, and excludes interdisciplinarity from the law school curriculum.</p><p>The choice that the newly-born Italian CLE movement now faces is the option to either become a new socio-legal epistemology of law in action and a social change-maker, or to ascribe to a simple restyling of legal education to include certain practical activities aimed at introducing students to the profession. The future of the movement will depend on whether the rapid increase in the number of clinics will be matched by appropriate reflection on "how clinics might be consciously designed around exposing students to gaps between the law in books and the law in action".</p>

Nurturing Commitment in the Legal Profession: Student Experiences with the Osgoode Public Interest Requirement

2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (6-7) ◽  
pp. 1087-1094 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Leiper
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Teacher Educator ◽  
Law School ◽  
Law Students ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
First Year ◽  
Profession Student ◽  
Ethics Course ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Many

“Eye-opening,” “disheartening,” and “inspiring” are some of the words used by law students who met in 2008–2009 to discuss their mosaic of experience in the field doing public interest work. These students had returned from placements under the first mandatory public interest requirement to be introduced in a Canadian law school (the Osgoode Public Interest Requirement, OPIR). OPIR arose from questions about the relationship between what is learned in law school and what is required to be a professional. Academics have challenged each other to do more to instill an “ethos of professionalism” during law school. Others have suggested that law students who do not receive exposure to the world outside the walls of the law school carry an “idealized conception of the profession” and are often unaware of the many practice contexts available to them. Others have warned that if ethical and professional responsibilities are not modeled and articulated for students, that teaching only the “law of lawyering” does not prepare students for becoming ethical lawyers. Teacher-educator Lee Shulman has bluntly accused law schools of “failing miserably” at connecting its lessons in how to “think like a lawyer” with how to “act like a lawyer.” For years, there have been similar concerns raised about the decline of professionalism among lawyers, both in Canada and in the U.S. A survey of Osgoode graduates revealed that students wanted more opportunities to engage with the community and to experience non-traditional forms of law practice. Osgoode Hall Law School grappled with many of these questions, and in 2007 it approved changes to the curriculum, including a new first year Ethics course (Ethical Lawyering in a Global Community, ELGC) and OPIR. In addition to the more traditional first year mandatory course load, Osgoode Hall law students must also complete ELGC, a minimum of 40 hours of public interest work and then engage in a discussion or written exercise reflecting on their experiences. These reflections are a valuable lens for seeing the profession and the administration of justice through the eyes of first and second year law students. Their experiences remind us in the profession that learning can flow in both directions.

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