Enhancing employability in law schools

In November 2003 all law schools were sent a copy of the ESECT briefing on helping departments to develop employability, followed up by a request for an outline of the law school’s approach to employability. Responses from Brighton, De Montfort, Staffordshire and Westminster are given below.

University of Brighton (Brighton Business School)

All courses now have to comply with the University’s Career Planning Agreement, which means that the law school has to liaise with Careers and talk through links at the course validation stage. There is also an annual law careers forum, attended by members of the local chambers, firms etc who talk about careers in law and what they want.

De Montfort University

Like other law schools we seek to develop our students, by our teaching and formative assessment mechanisms, a range of personal skills which are relative to employability:

• oral communication skills
• written communication skills
• team work and inter-personal skills
• IT skills (keyboard, e-mail and Internet-based research skills)

We also expose our students to a range of discipline-based subject matter, to intellectual rigour, and to the handling of concepts and analysis, in the teaching and formative assessment of their modules. These things also relate to their employability, as does our emphasis on self-directed learning. We do not seek to develop our students’ promotional, self management or risk taking skills.

Staffordshire University

Within our undergraduate law programmes we have the following:

• Legal Study Skills core module, which includes generic skills such as communication, team working, IT and reflection
• Work Experience option module (Level 3)
• optional Placement Year (Level 2)
• personal development plans PDPs) – piloted for two years; now introduced at Level 1 of the LLB programme

The University also offers a Careers module (optional) open to all undergraduate students as part of their award, which can be customised for individual awards. This is available in Blackboard.

There is also a ‘Your Experience Counts’ module.

The Students Union encourages students to become involved in a number of activities to enhance employability, such as community work, student mentoring, representation on committees – these activities are ‘certificated’.

On the Legal Practice Course (LPC) we were the first provider to introduce mentoring, and have a successful network of employer mentors.

University of Westminster 

Key employability objectives:

• to develop graduates with the appropriate skills and attributes required for employment and to encourage students to take responsibility for their own development
• to widen and strengthen our links with employers
• to encourage and develop the availability of work experience opportunities

Targets:

• include Careers Management Skills module (CMS) materials in each level
• link CMS to the law school’s personal development planning strategy
• strengthen links with employers
• develop work-related learning programme

Initiatives:

• personal development planning (PDP) – the School of Law has a strong record in developing initiatives that are designed to secure and improve good student retention rates. As part of this ongoing process a Level 4 core undergraduate module, Legal Skills and Process 1, has been modified during 2003-04, in terms of both content and delivery. First of all, the decision was taken at departmental level to ensure that where possible personal tutors would teach the groups that they are assigned. Secondly, the content of the portfolios that students must submit has also been modified to include personal information such as a CV. They are also assessed on a careers task (a brief cover letter after research). This development is seen as a precursor or introduction to PDP, insofar as students are able to identify closely with members of staff to whom they would report achievements on a regular basis, and that they are also able to maintain a record of skills (legal and generic) throughout the course.
• employer liaison – The School of Law has developed a network of legal employers as part of its work placement programme. It has also participated this year in the successful Diversity in Law initiative, in partnership with Shook, Hardy & Bacon (a US law firm in London) and Project FullEmploy. This initiative provided summer placements for 14 third year (ie exiting) law students with several blue chip companies and commercial law firms, including BUPA, American Express and Nabarro Nathanson. In addition, the School hopes to broaden its employer base in future years to public sector and non-legal employers, to encourage students to investigate alternative careers. We will pilot another placement scheme in a postgraduate law course during 2003-04, which will give us the opportunity to research specific employment markets (in this case, international commercial trade and maritime law).
• student employability skills (for example interview techniques, CVs, opportunity awareness, skills developments etc) – the Careers Management Skills (CMS) module is slowly being incorporated piecemeal into the LLB programme, with the co-operation and assistance of the University’s Careers Service. Interview techniques are taught at Level 5, both as part of core modules and as part of an optional module, Work Placement in a Legal Setting. Students are expected to participate in group exercises and to reflect on feedback given. As mentioned above, students are encouraged to draft a CV as early as the first semester of Level 4, as part of our core undergraduate programme. In the work placement module at Level 5 students must submit a ‘CV of professional standard’ as part of an assessed portfolio, which is worth 10% of the overall mark. In Legal Skills and Process 2 (Level 5), students are asked to prepare a careers task, which involves a sector study and is worth 20% of the overall mark. As part of a two hour workshop students are asked to complete action plans and consider methods of research on their chosen career path.
• work placement schemes/modules – last year saw the introduction of an optional 15-credit work placement module on the LLB programme, which is open to up to 80 Level 5 students. Students are expected to complete a minimum of 60 hours work experience with a legal employer (the definition of which is broad, and can include NGOs that provide legal services for example). Assessment of the module is by portfolio, which includes reflective learning logs, skills analyses, personal development planning, a written assignment and a CV. A series of workshops are provided for students to guide them on reflective learning and to ensure that teething troubles on placement are dealt with as soon as they occur. 58 students took this module during 2002-03. Anecdotal evidence from these students indicated that they gained not only knowledge of the legal workplace, but also increased self awareness and self confidence as a result of completing the module. Out of 13 students who were interviewed after submitting portfolios, all were offered further work experience as a direct result of the placement. Not all of them accepted these offers, simply because they had decided to obtain further work experience elsewhere during the summer! At the time of writing, 64 students are enrolled to take the module during 2003-04, an indicator of the module’s popularity.
• LLB Advisory Board – the LLB programme has drawn together a panel of experts representing all sectors of the legal profession. One of the functions of this group is to advise on the appropriateness of the LLB curriculum and to tell us what employers are looking for, both in terms of subject expertise but also the skills required from LLB graduates.

Last Modified: 30 June 2010