Teaching family law

Frances Burton, Norma Martin Clement, Kate Standley, Catherine Williams

NCLE teaching and learning manual

“For the family law teacher, Teaching family law is a ‘must have’ – so get one…I thought I had thought about teaching family law, but this book tells me that there are plenty of things I have not thought about at all.”

— Penny Booth, University of Sunderland, in the Law Teacher 36(2) 2002 264-266

This manual, published in 1999 by the National Centre for Legal Education, is now out of print, but you may download the full text at the bottom of the page.

The manual contains:

• Chapter 1: what is happening in law schools today? Survey of family law teaching, structure, teaching methods, innovations, benchmarking.
• Chapter 2: teaching family law: a special case? The nature of family law and its implications for teaching, its status and attraction, advantages and difficulties, curriculum planning.
• Chapter 3: teaching, learning and family law – planning the course, lectures, small group teaching, constructing questions, other small group sessions, assessment.
• Chapter 4: teaching family law at Leeds – course development, advantages and disadvantages of seminar-only delivery, study guides, running the seminar.
• Chapter 5: teaching family law at Sheffield – methods of assessment: assessing oral performance, seminar examples using different assessment methods, an exercise on statutory interpretation, student projects.
• Appendices – survey questionnaire, family law resources, study pack example, ‘family sagas’.

Last Modified: 4 June 2010