LILI 2003 panel discussion

LILI 2003 aimed to bring into focus what a creative curriculum in law might look like, taking into account the complexities of the higher education context. The conference opened with a discussion identifying the complexities that have particular influence on legal education and beginning to suggest creative ways of responding, at both the law school and individual law teacher levels.

The following topics were discussed:

• employability – the role of the academic stage of legal education in preparing students for employment and the profession, the relationship between the academic and vocational stages and its effect on the curriculum, skills development and benchmarking, assessment
• widening participation – the picture in law, equality of opportunity and access to legal education and training, and implications for learning, teaching and assessment processes and practices
• quality assurance – focusing on developing a more sophisticated understanding of what ‘quality’ is and how it may be demonstrated
• globalisation – implications for UK higher education of the Bologna process, changing legal markets and employment practices, the impact of ICT on the delivery of and market for legal education

The discussion was chaired by Alison Bone (University of Brighton), with contributions from John Bell (University of Cambridge – the undergraduate perspective), Ann Holmes (Staffordshire University – the law school/the institution), Pat Leighton (University of Glamorgan – regional perspectives), Richard de Mulder (Erasmus University, Rotterdam – Europe) and Avrom Sherr (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London – the professional/vocational stage).

Last Modified: 12 July 2010