Widening participation in legal education

Latest news and resources

• Developing and embedding inclusive policy and practice in higher education – a research report produced by the Higher Education Academy in February 2010

• Unleashing aspiration – the government’s response to the report of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions was issued in January 2010 – read our summary of the Panel’s report, published in July 2009

The move from an elitist to mass higher education affects every institution. With the low unit resource now allocated to teaching it is no longer possible simply to do more of what we have done in the past – it is necessary to approach teaching and the curriculum differently.

UKCLE is involved in several activities aimed at widening participation to legal education. We held an event entitled Should I stay or should I go? Retention strategies for law, in December 2003, and discussed the response to disability discrimination legislation at the Access to law seminar in November 2002. In the past CALE, the Consortium on Access to Legal Education, has run events on widening participation issues.

Resources: legal education

• Accessibility in law schools – paper addressing the learning and teaching issues and a listing of the key agencies, publications and materials
• Recruitment and retention in legal education – report (2002) commissioned by CALE, including examples of good practice
• Enhancing retention and student success – paper on the importance of the student experience in addressing retention issues, presented at the UKCLE seminar on retention strategies for law on 2 December 2003
• Go forth and diversify – paper presented by Stephen Migdal, then Chairperson of CALE, at LILI 2001

Case studies

• Ladders 2 Law – profile of an e-mentoring programme for students from non-privileged backgrounds interested in a career in law
• Pathways to the Professions – article on an initiative at the University of Edinburgh aimed at encouraging pupils from a wider range of socio-economic groups to apply to study law (2005)
• Stop thief! Engaging young people with the law – overview of initiatives at Wolverhampton aimed at encouraging young people to come to university (2005)
• Teaching students how to ‘think like a lawyer’ – paper by Peter Wendel (Pepperdine University, USA) on an academic support programme for ethnic minority students (2006)
• Widening participation to create opportunity – article on the University of Wolverhampton community entry programme (2001)

Examples

• Law Society Diversity Access Scheme – the Law Society has developed two initiatives aimed at increasing diversity within the solicitors profession – a vacation placement scheme and a scholarship scheme. It is also planning to launch a mentoring scheme to put students in touch with mentors.
• Pathways to Law – programme established by the College of Law and the Sutton Trust aimed at encouraging students from non-privileged backgrounds to apply to study law
• Sutton Trust summer schools – law schools at four universities (Bristol, Cambridge, Nottingham and Oxford) are participating in student summer schools aimed at widening access to law to pupils from underprivileged backgrounds

Resources: generic

See the widening participation section on the Higher Education Academy website for details of Academy work on widening participation issues, as well as details of related research and links.

The main organisations and project working on widening participation in higher education include:

• Action on Access – national co-ordination team appointed by HEFCE and the Learning and Skills Council. Website includes news on widening participation topics and links to resources including good practice guidelines.
• Scottish Wider Access Regional Forums (SWARF) – forums for the dissemination and review of widening participation work in Scotland

Resources on widening participation

• Fair enough? – report (2003) from Universities UK on developing university admissions
• Successful student diversity – HEFCE report (2002) including case studies of practice in learning and teaching and widening participation
• Supporting higher education in further education colleges – HEFCE guide (2003) containing good practice guidance, with examples from over 50 institutions. A companion volume for senior managers addresses policy issues and prospects for HE in FE colleges.
• Student retention – issue 1 (2002) of Exchange focuses on retention issues

Last Modified: 4 June 2010