Long title
A future for legal education: professional development and ethics
Author(s)' contact information
n.j.duncan@city.ac.uk
City Law School,
4, Gray's Inn Place
London WC1R 5DX
UK
City Law School,
4, Gray's Inn Place
London WC1R 5DX
UK
Conference title
Engaging Legal Education: Higher Education Academy Law Summit - learning and teaching
Conference location
Loughborough University
Country
United Kingdom
Year
2014
File
Presentation3.46 MB
Select the option that describes the rights you hold in the attached content
I hold complete rights to all intellectual property in the attached content and have the power to grant the license, if any, that I have chosen below.
Select a license for the attached content
"Copy": I give permission for other users to download the attached content and copy, distribute, and repost it on the web, as long as they credit the author(s) and the publication and provide relevant identifying citation information (volume, page numbers, year of publication, city of publication), do not change the work in any way, and do not use it commercially. ("Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives" Creative Commons license)
Abstract
The LETR finds: “The centrality of professional ethics and legal values to practice across the regulated workforce is one of the clearest conclusions to be drawn from the LETR research data, …”
It recommends that:
“LSET schemes should include appropriate learning outcomes in respect of professional ethics, …” (Rec 6),
“The learning outcomes at initial stages of LSET should include reference (as appropriate to the individual practitioner’s role) to an understanding of the relationship between morality and law, the values underpinning the legal system, and the role of lawyers in relation to those values.” (Rec 7)
Furthermore, the regulators are seeking greater flexibility in the processes by which individuals may become qualified to provide legal services and propose regulation by outcomes, which is likely to imply less prescription of the content of legal education programmes. In this changing environment law schools face the challenge of proving the inherent value of their programmes and have the opportunity to develop a genuinely distinctive offering which meets the interests of their students and their faculty.
This presentation will explore the variety of approaches which might be adopted to considering how the relationship between morality and law, the values underpinning the legal system, and the role of lawyers in relation to those values might be addressed most effectively into undergraduate law degrees. In so doing it will consider the perceived dichotomy between providing a liberal education and meeting the needs of the profession in the light of the guidance in para 7.89 of the LETR Report. It will make use of the insights drawn from the series of Teaching Legal Ethics UK workshops held over the last two years and make proposals for future collaboration.
It recommends that:
“LSET schemes should include appropriate learning outcomes in respect of professional ethics, …” (Rec 6),
“The learning outcomes at initial stages of LSET should include reference (as appropriate to the individual practitioner’s role) to an understanding of the relationship between morality and law, the values underpinning the legal system, and the role of lawyers in relation to those values.” (Rec 7)
Furthermore, the regulators are seeking greater flexibility in the processes by which individuals may become qualified to provide legal services and propose regulation by outcomes, which is likely to imply less prescription of the content of legal education programmes. In this changing environment law schools face the challenge of proving the inherent value of their programmes and have the opportunity to develop a genuinely distinctive offering which meets the interests of their students and their faculty.
This presentation will explore the variety of approaches which might be adopted to considering how the relationship between morality and law, the values underpinning the legal system, and the role of lawyers in relation to those values might be addressed most effectively into undergraduate law degrees. In so doing it will consider the perceived dichotomy between providing a liberal education and meeting the needs of the profession in the light of the guidance in para 7.89 of the LETR Report. It will make use of the insights drawn from the series of Teaching Legal Ethics UK workshops held over the last two years and make proposals for future collaboration.
Teaching Methods
Lawyer Regulation