The development of a new law curriculum: work in progress report

Kisch Beevers, University of Sheffield

Five years ago the Department of Law at the University of Sheffield began the process of developing a new curriculum. This curriculum is due to be implemented in September 2005. In this paper Kisch describes how the department approached the huge task of developing a new curriculum, the principles that were central to the review and some of the problems faced along the way.

---

The advent of semesterisation and modularisation at the University of Sheffield brought with it a high level of concern and unhappiness in the Department of Law that the current curriculum did not fit this new structure very well. At the same time the department was aiming to develop its focus towards being a globalised law school, rather than one that did not emphasise the global context of domestic law. During one of the Department’s away days it was decided that the curriculum should be reviewed in an attempt to devise a core syllabus of the kind that, with hindsight, every lawyer within the department would like to have studied, and that contained the elements of law that every Sheffield law student should be taught in order to take them through into the 21st century. We were also concerned to improve the level of legal skills and to stop students from compartmentalising the law into standard subject areas.

Alongside these concerns, the law department noted the content of the Quality Assurance Agency’s Benchmark statement for law and the Joint statement of the Law Society and Bar Council on qualifying law degrees (PDF file). In particular, the department was keen to ensure that subjects be studied in context, engendering a student understanding of the relevant social, economic, political, historical, philosophical, ethical and cultural contexts within which each core area of study has been developed.

This work in progress report outlines the procedure undertaken by the Department of Law in the development of a new law curriculum. It identifies some of the problems encountered and outlines some of the innovative aspects of the curriculum that is taking shape. It is not intended to detail the specific module content of the new curriculum in great detail, since this is still undergoing development and is also the subject of intellectual property.

The starting point of the department’s curriculum review was to form three groups of academics whose remit was to produce a broad ‘wish list’ of elements which they considered to be essential for a Sheffield law degree, and then further to develop these wish lists into a curriculum structure. The membership of each group was chosen to be broadly representative of the legal arena – a contract/commercial lawyer, a public lawyer, a property lawyer etc. Each group was told to start with a blank piece of paper and develop the beginnings of their utopianistic legal degree without any consideration of cost or resources.

Group 1 met ‘virtually’ – ie they developed their wish list and curriculum structure by e-mail – and presented an outline curriculum which was more or less the current structure with a number of changes and additions that could normally be expected during the natural progression of traditional curricula.

Group 2 held a series of meetings within the department and produced a very theoretical paper analysing the conceptual and contextual issues within the conceptualisation of law. The structure produced involved a two year core of mainly 10 credit modules covering all the traditional modules, but also adding in an ‘Introduction to comparative, civil and European legal systems’ module, and a second skills module over and above the skills tuition contained in an introductory module. One of the perceived problems with this model was that the inclusion of additional material left very little room for some of the more traditional topics, which was one of the problems that the review sought to address.

Group 3 met by way of a series of dinner parties in the members’ homes in order to distance themselves from the constraints of the normal working day and in an attempt to produce a more radical approach to the review. This group proposed a core two year programme covering the nature of law, the fundamental concepts underpinning legal rules (legal personality, fundamental rights etc), the English legal system and its place in a global environment, the streams of private law and public law (including introductory modules in the first semester to introduce the students to key concepts), some compulsory theory, and some compulsory research. This group also identified the key principles of integration and progression that should underpin the curriculum.

All groups felt that it was important to retain a degree of optionality within the degree, in order for academics to be able to teach topics of their particular specialism, and in order for students to be attracted to a degree within which they had some scope for choice. Additionally, Group 3 proposed that optional modules should be confined to the third year, thereby upholding the principles of progression.

These three structures were put to the department and it was decided to proceed broadly along the lines of the proposal submitted by Group 3. A steering committee was formed, and various sub-committees began the task of putting the meat on the bones of the accepted skeleton curriculum. That was five years ago, and it has been a long and arduous road during which a number of key individuals have tried to guide the department through to the development of a detailed curriculum that can be submitted for approval to the university. There are still a number of issues to be addressed and content details to be agreed, but the development of a new curriculum is finally online for implementation in September 2005.

Basic principles of the new curriculum

There are two main principles that inform the development of the new curriculum – that of progression and integration.

The principle of progression is addressed in a number of ways, but in general addresses the vertical progression deemed desirable in terms of skills and knowledge. The degree begins with an overview, a general map of what is meant by law, and progresses through to the specific in semesters 2, 3 and 4. There is obviously a progression in terms of substantive legal content and student knowledge, but the degree also builds in progression of delivery, starting with a teacher-centred learning approach and progressing gradually to a more student-centred learning approach through to the final year. This will be achieved by a gradual decrease in contact hours throughout the degree, with final year students being expected to undertake a higher proportion of guided reading and independent study.

The principle of integration underlies the development of the teaching of skills, theory and substantive law, and requires module content to be linked across what has traditionally been seen as the boundaries of distinct legal units. The concern is to encourage students to understand linkages between subject areas they are studying and not to view them as discrete areas of law that can be put aside once the exam is out of the way. By way of example, students will be shown how principles of causation in relation to claims for damages are relevant to, not only torts, but also contract law. The key to this principle of integration is the first semester of the law degree, which is seen as one integrated unit but is delivered in the form of six modules for ease of operation. This semester provides students with basic information, skills and contextualisation that are regarded as essential for, and are built on by, the rest of the degree.

Another principle that was not identified at the outset, but has certainly taken shape during the various discussions, is that of circularity. Circularity is seen to reinforce the principle of integration by endeavouring, wherever possible, to bring the second year second semester student back to the basic principles introduced in the introductory courses in semester 1. This principle of circularity was introduced into the private law stream, and, most particularly, in the way in which property law will be addressed.

However, there is also another principle to the new curriculum that has required a shift in emphasis from the individual academic’s approach to his/her subject area to a collective approach; the principle of collective responsibility. By collective responsibility, the department has had to take on board the fact that each and every module within the LLB is owned by the whole department and is not just the baby of the module developer or course coordinator. From the very beginning of the discussion, the department took the view that there must be collective involvement in determining the content of the core in order to produce coherence to the degree. Moreover, this principle of collective responsibility was seen to enhance the main principles of progression and integration, as subsequent modules could build on the general skills and knowledge already acquired at level 1, thus avoiding gaps and too much repetition.

The core and its innovations

The current structure of the new curriculum is as follows:

Level 1 semester 1
intensive skills course (2 weeks)
Understanding Law	Legal Systems
Law of Persons	Introduction to Private Law	Introduction to Public Law
Level 1 semester 2
Obligations I (Contract)	Property Law A	Public Law I (Constitutional Law)
Level 2 semester 1
Obligations II (Torts)	Property Law B	Public Law II (Administrative Law)
Level 2 semester 2
Obligations III (Restitution)	Theory	Criminal Law
Level 3 semester 1
optional	optional	optional
Level 3 semester 2
optional	optional	optional

The LLB degree will therefore continue to be a three year programme, but with a compulsory two year core followed by a final year of optionality.

Skills course

The first innovation that can be seen in the degree structure is the introduction of an initial two week intensive skills course, designed to address the lawyering skills required by the Joint statement of the Law Society and the Bar Council; legal writing and presentation of argument, IT skills, and group work, as well as skills identified by the department as beneficial to the modern day law student. The department sees the teaching of skills as key to the degree as a whole, and the content of this intensive course will be built on in subsequent substantive modules. The initial skills fortnight is wider in content that traditional skills teaching. It has two main aims. First, it aims to introduce students to skills they will need to study law; library, IT, study skills (how to use lectures and seminars) and time management skills. This is the introduction to principles of ‘good practice’ which will be reinforced in subsequent modules to ensure that students ultimately demonstrate competence in the following; fact management, case law skills, statutory interpretation, understanding legal and institutional frameworks, drafting, the role of legal scholars, the decision making process, and, most importantly, to assess the nature of the problem before applying the rules.

Secondly, the skills course aims to capture the students’ imaginations. During these two weeks they will be introduced to the community of the law department; they will meet its members and hear about the research that is undertaken in the department, in particularly research of national and international importance. Through becoming part of this community, it is hoped that students will develop a heightened responsibility for their own study rather than expect to be spoonfed with information in order to pass exams.

These two weeks are non-credit bearing and will not be assessed as such, although formative assessment will be introduced by way of a non-assessed piece of work addressing writing and argument skills.

The second block of teaching weeks in this first semester is shared by two modules; Understanding Law and Legal Systems.

Understanding Law

This innovative 10 credit module was originally called the ‘Concept of Law’, however recently this has been changed to ‘Understanding Law’ since the title itself caused disagreement based on each member of the team’s perspective of what law is. This, in fact, was the point; to introduce the students to the nature of law, placing it in its social, historical, cultural, economic and philosophical context, thus demonstrating the changing nature of legal problems.

This course is designed to develop students’ critical awareness of legal writing rather than merely their regurgitative facilities. The lecture programme and seminar programme will be semi-independent. Lectures are to be descriptive, placing the development of law in its European and international context, whereas seminars will be used to analyse the nature of law. In this way the students will take the big picture from lectures and have the themes illustrated in the microcosm of the seminar. Lectures will be given by key members of staff as if giving guest lectures, thereby exposing students to a range of academics in their first year (particularly, but not exclusively, to our professors).

Each seminar will have a central learning objective, which can be illustrated by the interests of each seminar tutor. However, there will also be a standard seminar outline for the use of any tutor who so wishes and by graduate teaching assistants.

Legal Systems

Running alongside the Understanding Law module is the Legal Systems module – a 20 credit module that incorporates the elements of a standard introductory law course; court structure/doctrine of precedent etc, but that also includes the elements of a global legal system, setting the English system in its global context with a discussion of the role of the United Nations, The Hague Conference, the World Trade Organisation, as well as a brief overview of the civil law system. This course will mainly be taught by way of a series of informative lectures, but with three two hour seminars including the students first foray into European law.

The final part of the first semester is split into three 10 credit modules; Law of Persons, Introduction to Private Law and Introduction to Public Law.

Law of Persons

This is a completely new and innovative module that caught the imagination of the whole department. It was originally a five credit module, but was increased to 10 credits for its own value even before the credits system was standardised by the university to 10 and 20 credits. Public lawyers, private lawyers, international lawyers, even criminologists, all saw a great deal of value in teaching the students the concept of personality at this early stage.

This module includes an introduction to the concepts of legal personality and the legal rights and obligations of different classes of person. It gives the students an overview of some legal topics that in the past were only taught as part of an optional module, but which the department feels is crucial knowledge for every law student – for example corporate personality, connecting factors, parental responsibility etc.

Private Law and Public Law streams

The final two modules in this first semester form the beginning to two streams of law that take shape through the rest of the compulsory core. From here on in, the content of the law degree over the first two years was developed by considering what should be the content of the two streams rather than what should be the content of individual modules such as contract, torts, land law, constitutional law etc. This allowed for the development of a core that was integrated and progressive, and even innovative in terms of what goes where, and how linkages are made. Emphasis is placed on referencing back to earlier information to reinforce the links in the students’ minds.

The Private Law stream encompasses the Introduction to Private Law, Obligations (contract, tort, restitution) and Property (land law, equity & trusts). This stream considers the themes and concepts that are central to private law. All modules will be taught by a mixture of lectures and seminars; and there is a current proposal to include the same problem scenario in one seminar of each of the private law modules to examine the remedies available in contract/torts/property/restitution to that one particular scenario.

In recent years Property Law has struggled to keep its content within the boundaries of two x 20 credit modules based on land law and equity & trusts. By the use of streaming, some of the elements of property law will be contained in the Introduction to Private Law and within the Restitution module (Obligations III), thereby allowing the property modules enough space to cover its material with ease. In fact, a completely new property course (run over two semesters) will be introduced, integrating equity, trust law and land law in a way that should aid the students’ understanding and make appropriate linkages. The key concerns in the development of this new property course were coherence, relevance, and sufficiency.

The public law stream comprises the Introduction to Public Law, Public Law I (Constitutional Law), Public Law II (Administrative Law), and Criminal Law. Public Law I will cover the theory of public law including a comparative study of three or four constitutional systems, and building on work in the first semester regarding the ECHR and EU law. In fact, throughout the public law stream (with the exception of Criminal Law) there is to be an increased consideration of European law and human rights law.

The development of a new curriculum for criminal law is currently in progress following the employment of new staff onto the teaching team.

Challenges and considerations along the way

During the development of Sheffield’s new curriculum there have been many challenges, problems, disagreements and areas of concern. This section identifies those areas of concern and describes the solutions that have been reached so far.

Teaching delivery

It was decided not to prescribe the form of teaching delivery of each module, but to leave this to the discretion of each teaching group. This has resulted in a variation of teaching styles across the core, with some modules relying heavily on lectures, some concentrating more on seminars, some including written lectures etc. However, each group will take on board the necessity to include presentations and group problem-solving sessions as required by the Joint statement.

The one area that has been the subject of many discussions and much disagreement has been in the teaching of the first semester – the semester that is seen as key to the whole degree. The department was asked to consider three proposals and to vote on which to accept. Proposal 1 required every academic to teach on all the modules in the first semester, and most probably to their personal tutees. This proposal contained the additional advantage of allowing personal tutors to get to know their personal tutees well at the beginning of their degree. Proposal 2 required that every academic teach something in the first semester, so that some would be part of the Understanding Law teaching team, others would be part of the Legal Systems teaching team etc. Proposal 3 required that the modules be taught by teaching teams of people who were willing to be part of these introductory modules. After much heated debate the department could not reach a decision that carried a large enough majority.

This lack of agreement was actually symptomatic of a lot of the areas of concern throughout the development of the new curriculum. Detailed consideration of the reason this was happening led to the analysis that each participant had their own particular concern which appeared to be different from most other concerns. Therefore, it became obvious that departmental meeting discussions were not the vehicle for achieving consensus. The solution to this problem has been achieved by changing the management style from committee discussion to a one-to-one discussion format between one of a partnership of two guiding academics and each concerned member of staff. By addressing the particular concerns on an individual basis, this team of two has managed to secure the agreement to date of the vast majority of the department that everyone will teach something at level 1. The agreement by academics to be involved in the teaching of first years ranges from being part of a dedicated teaching team to offering a couple of hours guest lectures on an agreed topic. Although this result does not mean that there is theoretical consensus within the department, it does mean that there is an agreement that is workable in practice; and an agreement that reinforces the collective ownership of the degree and exposes students to the whole gamut of academics during their first year.

Assessment

The department had decided that the methods of assessment across the degree should not be prescribed, but that there was merit in standardising a number of assessment packages. The assessment of each module is still under consideration, but it is recognised that assessments need to balanced across each semester and each year, and that a diversity of assessment is necessary in order to ensure competence in the different skills attached to assessment.

With regard to the assessment of the first semester, there was a concern to minimise the use of formal unseen exams so that students do not see their learning in terms of passing exams. The initial view of the steering group was that the first semester should not be assessed by way of examination at all. However, subsequent discussions have shown that the majority of the department considers that some examination is necessary even in the first semester since a) examination is a skill that needs to be developed during the degree, and b) an exam-free first semester might escalate the problem of plagiarism. In fact, the issue of plagiarism is of great concern to the department and the subject of on-going consideration.

One innovation that is being considered in the area of assessment is to require students in their first semester to complete a workbook/portfolio throughout the whole semester. This workbook would be assessed on a pass/fail basis only, but would be a portfolio of fundamental information that students could use to refer back to during the rest of their degree. Discussions are continuing.

European law

From the outset it was envisaged that EU law should be integrated into the core syllabus rather than being taught as a separate module, thereby engendering the perception that EU law permeates domestic law rather than being an addition. Therefore, EU law is seen as a ribbon of knowledge that will be taught throughout the core two years rather than as a stream or module unit. The first two years will contain all the elements of EU law that is considered essential for all students to know. Thereafter advanced EU law will be provided as one or two options for students to choose in their third year. This policy of integrating the study of EU law into the substantive legal subjects is very much in line with the thinking of other European law schools as evidenced by the ‘European Lawyers in the 21st Century’ conference at the University of Tilberg, 21-23 September 2001. However, it should be noted that the task of achieving this ribbon has not proved to be an easy one, but progress is now being made following the appointment of a new member of staff.

Jurisprudence

The diversity of perceptions as to the nature of law has caused both the Understanding Law module and the compulsory (for LLB students) Theory module (in semester 4) to stall at various stages of their development. Although the Understanding Law module is almost finalised, it has undergone considerable change since its initial proposal. The Theory module was designed to introduce students to a wide but fairly superficial appreciation of the varying theories within jurisprudence, drawing on themes running through the first two years and making linkages back to the content of Understanding Law, thereby providing a degree of circularity as well as progression and integration. However, the problem to date is one that is symptomatic of having taught jurisprudence at Sheffield in two distinct groups – the philosophy of law and the sociology of law – and that the same individuals who currently teach these modules are attempting to compromise what they consider to be fundamental into one module. The management partnership is currently working with the group to arrive at a solution.

‘Law with’ degrees

Sheffield offer a Law with Criminology degree as well as Law with French, German or Spanish degrees, and consideration of how to merge the core curriculum with these degrees has caused many challenges.

The initial departmental thought process that all Law with Criminology students should take the core modules in the first two years was unacceptable to the criminology team since a) some students decide to concentrate more on criminology and do not require a qualifying law degree, and b) criminology students require introductory criminology modules before they can progress to more advanced optional modules in their final year. The solution has been the creation of two separate degrees; a Law with Criminology degree that will be a qualifying law degree and a Criminology with Law degree that will not. The Criminology with Law degree will not follow the new core curriculum, but the Law with Criminology will follow a slightly amended core to allow for an introduction to criminological studies. Consideration is also being given as to whether a specially adapted Understanding Law module will be studied by criminology students.

The Law with Language degrees have proved to be somewhat more problematic, due to the fact that, although the degrees are law degrees and not joint degrees, the Department of Law uses the teaching resources of the university’s language departments who have their own structure of teaching within which they ‘fit’ our students. Negotiations with the language departments to date have reached a stalemate, owing mainly to differing pedagogical objectives. A survey of views obtained from the Law with Language students by way of questionnaire echoed these differing objectives. Therefore, one of the tasks of the managing partnership in the near future will be to propose alternative ways forward for the department to consider with regard to the Law with Language degrees.

Conclusion

By way of a conclusion, it is of interest to highlight the key obstacles that have caused the development of this new curriculum to take so long and to be still on-going.

One of the main problems has already been addressed – that consensus by committee has been impossible to achieve due to the nature of academia. Each meeting was attended by a cross-section of the department, but not always the same cross-section. A large amount of paperwork was produced, but its reading was not prioritised. The cycle of study leave meant that key members of the various module groups were absent at crucial times. The pressure of research, teaching and administration produced severe constraints on individuals’ abilities to spend the necessary time on a new curriculum development. On top of this, the diverse nature of academic theory on the detailed study of law reflected in the inability of the department to reach a consensus on some issues.

Another underlying obstacle has been the issue of resources. Although the structure and content of the new curriculum was originally designed on a resource-free basis, its implementation must be completely resource sensitive. The department is conscious of the problem of resources in terms of delivery, assessment (marking duration), library resources and other costs (for example the development of our own study packs). These considerations have often contributed to the challenges facing each team as the substantive content of the modules are devised. The issue of resourcing the new curriculum is a challenge that faces the department’s management over the next 18 months.

In general, the development of a new curriculum has meant the investment of a huge amount of time and energy by the department as a whole, and by key individuals in particular. It has often been in doubt whether implementation will ever be achieved. There is still much work to be done and issues to be addressed, but the department is solidly working towards implementation in September 2005.

Last Modified: 12 July 2010