Workshop 1: A new approach

A new approach: The clinical LLB
Donald Nicolson, University of Strathclyde

A new approach: The clinical skills out with the LLB
Dale McFadzean, University of West of Scotland

This workshop was part of the 2010 conference Moving forward: Legal education in Scotland.

A new approach: The clinical LLB

Donald Nicolson (University of Strathclyde)

abstract | biography

Abstract

Professor Donald Nicolson discussed plans to establish a Clinical LLB at the University of Strathclyde. This course aims to provide students with academic credit for their work in University of Strathclyde Law, which has hitherto been almost entirely an extra-curricular activity for the roughly 200 students who are members at any one time and who may remain in the Clinic for up to five years. While the Clinic will retain its primary volunteerist and social justice orientation, experience with teaching a small Clinical Legal Practice class for experienced members of the Clinic suggests that students could benefit far more from their clinical experience both in terms of legal knowledge and skills, and in terms of ethical development, if more formal opportunities were provided for reflection on clinical experience and guidance on handling legal and ethical issues. The course will therefore integrate skills training, ethical education and reflection on case handling into current classes in the LLB curriculum while also providing two stand-alone courses to allow students to reflect more deeply on issues of ethics, justice and the contextual practice of law.

Biography

Professor Donald Nicolson obtained a BA and an LLB at the University of Cape Town and a PhD at the University of Cambridge. After graduating, he taught law at the Universities of and Cape Town, Warwick, Reading and Bristol, where he set up the University of Bristol Law Clinic. In 2000 he took up a chair at the University of Strathclyde Law School and in 2003 set up the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic, of which he is the Director. In 2008 he received the University and College Union Life Changers Award and in 2010 an Evening Standard Community Champion award for his work with law clinics. Donald currently teaches in the areas of evidence, legal methods, and clinical legal practice. He has published on lawyers’ ethics, clinical legal education, affirmative action, evidence theory, criminal law, law and gender, feminist legal theory and adjudication. His current research interests are in the areas of lawyers’ ethics, with particular reference to moral development and fact-finding in law. He is on the editorial board of Legal Ethics and a trustee of the recently established LawWorks Scotland established to promote voluntary legal work.

A new approach: The clinical skills out with the LLB

Dale McFadzean (University of West of Scotland)

abstract | presentation | biography

This short workshop gave delegates an outline of the Law Wise Law Clinic project, which is being delivered by the University of the West of Scotland in partnership with Renfrewshire Law Centre. The Clinic operates as an integrated element of the current BA (Hons) Law programme at the university and is expected to expand into forthcoming LLB and PEAT 1 programmes. Delegates were given an insight into how the Clinic was developed within the current BA programme, the model which has been adopted and why, how the Clinic integrates into the curriculum, how students are assessed within the Clinic, and future plans for expansion.

Presentation

Biography

Dale McFadzean is a programme leader at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and is Academic Director of the University law clinic, ‘Law Wise’. Dale joined the Law Subject Group within UWS Business School in 2001. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and is the UKCLE representative for the University. He teaches in the areas of constitutional law (both UK and European) and law and the legal process. Dale’s research has focused on constitutional law in general and he is the author of a number of textbooks in this area.

Dale is a member of the Board of Directors of Renfrewshire Law Centre and is working closely with them in organising the Donoghue v Stevenson International Conference ‘Who Then In Law Is My Neighbour’ (of which he is a member of the papers review panel). The conference will celebrate the famous local case of Donoghue v Stevenson in the form of an international gathering of lawyers, judges and academics in Paisley in May 2012.
Dale is also an external examiner in law at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Last Modified: 10 March 2011