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Over the last decade, there has been an increase in civil compensation claims for sexual violence in the United Kingdom (UK). Given that trauma‐informed approaches have been called for in relation to legal responses to sexual violence, we put forward seven key principles of trauma‐informed lawyering in this context and draw on interviews with UK‐based civil lawyers who represented sexual violence survivors to explore the extent to which trauma‐informed work is taking place. While we found that our sample of lawyers typically had a very good knowledge of sexual violence and the trauma that it can cause, there was less certainty about how to accommodate the impacts in practice. Moreover, there was a tendency to prioritize individual healing and medicalize a form of social injustice. We conclude by emphasizing the need for legal training and education on a trauma‐informed approach that accounts for the social and political dimensions of sexual violence and trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The phenomenal proliferation of crowdfunding platforms raises concerns on the heightened occurrence of financial crimes since billions of funds are exchanged through these online systems frequently. Accordingly, some countries have implemented legislative responses to address these risks, although each countries' laws have varying degrees of severity. Hence, the purpose of this study is to assess the efficiency and robustness of Mauritian laws to combat financial crimes that may arise from a crowdfunding transaction with a particular emphasis on money laundering and tax evasion. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve this research objective, the black letter approach was used to analyse Mauritian rules and regulations on the researched topic and a comparative analysis was carried out against the corresponding laws on crowdfunding in some other jurisdictions, notably the UK and the USA with the view of suggesting the policy recommendations to Mauritian authorities. Findings: It was found that there is still scope for improving the existing legal and regulatory framework on crowdfunding in Mauritius to prevent instances of money laundering and tax evasion. The paper suggests that a crowdfunding operator must be categorised as a reporting person and must carry out regular due diligence checks. There must also be more collaboration in terms of information exchanges and training sessions among the tax authority of Mauritius, crowdfunding operators, fund seekers and investors to shed light on the tax treatment of income and deductions to avoid issues of tax evasion. Originality/value: At present, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is amongst the first academic writings on the efficiency of Mauritian laws in dealing with the risk of financial crimes through crowdfunding, and also, because existing literature is quite scarce on assessing the adequacy of crowdfunding rules in developing countries, this research aims at filling in the gap in literature. The study is carried out with the aim of combining a large amount of empirical, theoretical and factual information that can be of use to various stakeholders and not only to academics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legal scholars in the United Kingdom (UK) rarely adopt a quantitative approach to addressing socio‐legal questions. Reasons for this are typically grounded in the nature of general education, legal education, and research training. In this article, we argue that an intellectual debate on capacity building needs to consider the conditions that have limited the production of quantitative work both within and beyond our discipline. This article draws on an empirical analysis of published socio‐legal articles to understand the nature of quantitative scholarship and evidence an increasing body of work that reflects a flexible approach to data collection and analysis. Moving beyond the tribalism often associated with the qualitative/quantitative divide, we draw attention to the shift away from understandings of quantitative work as hypothesis testing towards those that are accepting of the importance of critical reflection and exploration of nuance. It is hoped that the article will prompt further discussion about capacity building to develop and sustain good‐quality quantitative socio‐legal scholarship in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK there has been a resistance to using multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) assessments to assess undergraduate students. This resistance is based on traditional legal pedagogy and the needs of the legal profession. However, the use of MCQ-style assessments by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and other shifts in legal education make it necessary to reflect on the role that MCQs could play in assessing law students. This article seeks to contribute to this discussion by providing a pedagogical analysis of the assessment strategy of the "Public Law I – Sources of Power" module at the University of Dundee. First, the article sets out Bloom's Revised Taxonomy and its applicability to legal education. The article then applies this taxonomy to identify the complexity of the module's learning outcomes and its assessments, as well as considering the extent to which they align with each other. The article finds that while MCQs cannot contribute to all of a module's learning outcomes, they do provide some pedagogical value in assessing law students, particularly when implemented in parallel with other assessment methods. The article concludes by reflecting on the broader position of MCQs and their role in assessing undergraduate students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a functional analysis of the UK constitution. It explores how the UK constitution discharges three minimum 'constituting', 'legitimating' and 'limiting' functions that citizens living in modern liberal democracies may legitimately expect all constitutions – irrespective of form – to perform. This functional enquiry breaks with dominant trends in the legal scholarship that remain focused on theorising the constitution's underlying political or legal nature or, likewise, identifying its ultimate source of authority. In addition to offering a richer descriptive account of constitutional practice, this paper identifies, normatively, an institutional responsibility for Parliament to discharge the UK constitution's three minimum functions. Recognising that institutional responsibility unlocks fresh insights into two constitutional conundrums: the legitimacy of judicial review and the status of 'constitutional statutes'. At the same time, it also exposes deficiencies and tensions in relation to the quality of Parliament's institutional performance on matters of minimum constitutional functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article advances international comparative regulatory scholarship on the implementation of nudge-style risk rating systems that are used to empower the public to make 'right' choices for their health, safety or security and help shape regulatee behaviour. Little attention, however, has been paid to the policy question of the extent to which the international introduction of such approaches and the form that they take, is dependent on the institutional contexts of regulation in different countries. Drawing on 55 key informant interviews and extensive policy document analysis, we examine starkly contrasting attempts to introduce 'food hygiene barometers' in the UK and Germany, having been successfully introduced in the former, but abandoned in the latter. This outcome can partly be explained by the stronger sectoral organisation of food businesses and the number of policy veto points they can exploit in Germany compared to the UK. More significantly, however, the study identifies strong institutional contrasts between the two countries; both in the way they balance rights to consumer information, public health and economic activity as well as the extent to which ideas of consumer sovereignty can be instrumentalised for regulatory purposes. The article concludes by pointing to how the form, purposes or even the very possibility of nudge-style public policy interventions are likely to vary from country to country, depending on their fit with the conceits and character of nationally-specific regulatory philosophies, constitutional and legal norms, and juridical ideas about consumer sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, Iraqi law has followed the Latin approach in the ambit of civil law, while English law is the creator of the 'common law approach'. This has had an effect on the Iraqi doctrine for the protection of works in the field of intellectual property law. Therefore, Iraqi author rights have followed French law which grants authors many, in particular moral, rights on their works whilst English law restricts the rights of the author in kind of the moral rights. However, both laws grant authors important 'paternity rights' that prevent anyone from using a work without first receiving license from the author. Due to its importance in both laws, this article will try to explain paternity rights and its differences in Iraqi and English laws. This article will examine the scope paternity rights under both systems of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agenda 2030 on sustainable development promotes a holistic approach to development and emphasizes the need to leave no one behind. Regarding the rule of law, sustainable development goal (SDG) 16.3 focuses on (promoting the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all by 2030) and the related goals and targets on justice. Changing economic conditions in recent decades have caused stagnating wages and widening economic gaps among individual citizens and regions within developed countries and this is reflected in pockets of poverty and inequality in high income countries and islands of excess wealth in developing or low-income countries, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines the legal aspects of poverty and inequality in the education and health sectors in select high-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa and a Western industrialized country such as the UK, with emphasis on period poverty or poor menstrual health management (MHM) as a barrier to access to education and health due to inability to afford sanitary products. The analytical paper applies the institutionalist legislative theory and methodology (ILTAM) and the general theory of law and development, examines the role of the state in regulating the health and education sectors and concludes with key findings and recommendations on how the institutional and legal frameworks can be utilized to foster sustainable development in high-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the headings of "Rechtssoziologie" in Germany and "sociolegal studies" in the UK, scholarly traditions have developed that relate law to its social environment. This Article identifies key stages in the development the subject took in both countries and the directions of travel. Comparable milestones were passed, and directions were taken in Germany and the UK. This includes the institutionalization of the subject along the lines of programmatic texts; becoming part of university education; and the establishment of research institutes, academic associations, and specialized journals. The development tells us something beyond sociology of law or sociolegal studies, namely about the relation of law and sociology, the parent disciplines themselves, as well as about academic studies and professional and institutional practice. However, in contrast to the UK, there is still more of a distance between the sociology of law and jurisprudence in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article provides a novel insight into how earlycareer scholars in the UK may combine different theoretical tools in their research, and the implications that this may have for the socio-legal discipline. This Article draws upon the author's experience of combining theoretical tools from different schools of thought: Feminist legal theory, Bourdieusian theory, and Actor Network Theory, within the context of recent research into experiences of those representing themselves in family court hearings in England and Wales. Combining these theories for the first time, this Article explores the difficulties, tensions, and benefits of combining tools within socio-legal research and reflects upon the influence of the pedagogical and institutional resources that characterize the socio-legal research environment in the UK. This Article argues that the task of combining different tools provides scholars with the opportunity to work politically, because the process of reconciling tensions between different approaches requires researchers to reflect upon the worldviews that underpin their selected theories. In this sense, it argues that combining different theories within socio-legal research is a political activity, because researchers are required to reflect not only on how theoretical choices may contest, expand, or develop dominant assumptions that characterize socio-legal scholarly traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultures of legal and socio-legal scholarship, like legal cultures themselves, are shaped by their respective historical, cultural, economic, and socio-political context. Socio-legal—or law and society—studies are thus pursued and taught differently in different parts of the world. This Article suggests making socio-legal studies the object of comparative research, so as to understand and explain commonalities, differences, and context dependencies in socio-legal scholarship and teaching in different countries. Such comparative endeavors help to translate between different academic languages and to critically reflect upon one's own research methods and system of legal education. They prove useful for scholars planning research in other parts of the world or engaging in cross-country collaborative research projects, and for research institutions and policymakers involved in reforming research funding and legal education. But how do we go about comparing socio-legal studies? More specifically, why, what, and how do we compare, and what are the challenges that we may face when pursuing such comparative endeavors? This Article gives an overview of potential research questions that a comparison between socio-legal studies may address, the sources that comparativists may draw on, the methods such a comparative endeavor may use to collect and analyze data, and the challenges researchers may face when attempting to compare socio-legal studies in different parts of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching Islamic law in a UK university is a unique experience. First, Islamic law is based on religious beliefs whereas UK universities offer teaching in a secular environment. Secondly, law schools are primarily meant to train lawyers and Islamic law in its purest form is not practically applicable in the UK or even in most Muslim majority countries. Thirdly, due to the series of recent events, such as those related to terrorism, Islamic law and Islam more generally has created certain anxieties making the teaching and learning of Islamic law a sensitive exercise. These sensitivities exist not only in the interrelationship of Islamic law with other legal systems, but also within Islamic law creating different viewpoints over the need to redesign the studies of Islamic law. The opposing views on interpretation of Islamic legal texts and their application in modern cultures and societies can potentially create frictions of thought and argumentation at the classroom level, which makes teaching and learning of Islamic law both interesting and challenging exercise. Most importantly, from the teaching and learning perspectives, the diverse background of students and their varying expectations makes the delivery of Islamic law teaching a complex exercise unknown to any other law subject. In these contexts, this article examines the implications for approaches to teaching and learning Islamic law from the standpoint of above identified challenges. By placing those challenges in the framework of existing pedagogical literature, the article addresses the UK Professional Standard Framework (UKPSF) requirements in the context of teaching and learning in Islamic law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research confirms law students and lawyers in the US, Australia and more recently in the UK are prone to symptoms related to stress and anxiety disproportionately to other professions. In response, the legal profession and legal academy in Australia and the UK have created Wellness Networks to encourage and facilitate research and disseminate ideas and strategies that might help law students and lawyers to thrive. This project builds on that research through a series of surveys of law teachers in the UK and Australia on the presumption that law teachers are in a strong position to influence their students not only about legal matters, but on developing attitudes and practices that will help them to survive and thrive as lawyers. The comparative analysis reveals several differences, but also many similarities with law teachers in both countries reporting negative effects from neoliberal pressures on legal education programs that impact their wellbeing, performance as teachers and ability to adequately respond to student concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

8% of UK students have an 'unseen disability': a specific learning difficulty, autistic spectrum condition, or mental ill health. A department with 1000 students has, on average, 80 students with such unseen disabilities. These students have a variety of potential sources of legal redress if they consider a university has failed properly to accommodate their disability. The most plausible is a claim under the Equality Act 2010. We have experienced a lack of clarity in understanding the nature and extent of those Equality Act entitlements, and the corresponding obligations that fall upon universities, and their staff. These confusions occur in many contexts, but the one that is most important to students is their entitlements where assessments are concerned. We set out to explain the relevant law, and to consider how it applies to some, perhaps typical, unseen disabilities in the context of a range of approaches taken by universities in assessing their students. Our principal and important conclusion is that there is no 'quick fix' approach according to which someone may say that they are Equality Act compliant. However, there are several considerations which will increase (or decrease) the likelihood of compliance. In brief, these constitute: effective communication; procedures that secure individual decisions, rather than blanket policies or approaches; and what amounts to no more than good inclusive educational practice for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper is a psychoanalytic reading of recent electoral events in Greece, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with the help of the Lacanian theory of the decline of the father and the concepts of jouissance and the sinthome. The case of Greece, where the radicalization of people's electoral and political choices took place in the framework of an unprecedented crisis, is studied emphatically, to highlight the different characters of this phenomenon's two main strands. The first, represented by the incumbent prime minister of the radical left in a coalition with a party of the populist right, is compared with a sinthomatic solution. The second, viewed in the atrocities of the neo‐Nazi party Golden Dawn, is described as the choice for pure violence. With regards to similar cases, such as Brexit Britain or Trump's America, psychoanalysis can highlight the significance of contingency, which could allow the emergence of such solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although therapeutic jurisprudence ("TJ") is increasingly well-established internationally, particularly within the United States of America ("US"), to date it remains relatively unacknowledged within the United Kingdom ("UK"). This article will explore the opportunities presented within contemporary UK society for the greater promotion, and eventual mainstreaming, of TJ. It will also consider the challenges faced during this process and how best to overcome these. Its first key area of focus will be upon the potential role of legal education in the UK in educating law students (and academics) about TJ, considering which approaches are likely to be most effective in incorporating TJ perspectives, at what stage this should occur and to what extent TJ is likely to impact on the existing curricula at a time when proposed changes relating to entry into the legal profession are heavily influencing the work of Law Schools. The article will then move on to consider the receptiveness of the UK legal profession to the TJ paradigm in light of recent attempts to move to a competency-based approach to practice and to reconceptualise professionalism to meet the challenges of increasing fragmentation and corporatisation. The third key area it will explore is the UK's recent plans to reintroduce problem-solving courts ("PSCs") into its criminal justice system. The authors will discuss the downfall of the six UK Drug Court ("DC") pilots originally established in 2005 theorising upon their failures and reflecting upon whether the current UK criminal justice system is truly able to support a fresh round of PSC initiatives. The article will end with recommendations for ways in which the international TJ community should begin the process of mainstreaming TJ within the UK. It will conclude that there are currently significant opportunities to be utilised, but that this requires significant commitment and mobilisation amongst existing TJ scholars and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What are the prospects for internationalised legal education in the contemporary UK? Our reflections on this question were prompted by three relatively recent publications dealing with a variety of aspects of the internationalisation of legal education, as well as discussions in and outputs from “Brexit and the Law School” events in Liverpool Law School, Keele University, Strathclyde University, and Northumbria University during 2017. We argue that, although law is often assumed to be state based and jurisdiction specific, there are significant reasons to internationalise legal education but that in the current climate of Brexit, marketisation of higher education and the Solicitors Qualifying Examination such internationalisation is under threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning legal reasoning is a central part of any undergraduate law degree and remains a threshold concept: one which is vital for any law student to grasp, but which is often difficult to explain. It is a form of reasoning which is very distinctive to the discipline. This article explores the applicability of learning theories typically used to ground pedagogy in higher education to the specific task of teaching legal reasoning. Constructivist or experiential theories of learning are widely used in higher education, but they need to be used with a clear focus on the specific nature of legal reasoning, which does not fit neatly within the assumptions about learning which underpin many constructivist approaches. Situated learning theories, which place emphasis on the role of the community in constructing knowledge, can also be of value. However, steps need to be taken to avoid replicating the hierarchy of the legal community within educational communities. Overall, the pedagogy of legal reasoning needs to pay attention to the specific nature of legal reasoning, to enable students to access the discourse of the legal community to use as a model, and to take students seriously as members of that community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this paper is upon the educational background of academic lawyers in England and Wales and the extent to which qualifications from certain institutions may be seen as acting as a proxy for social class. In recent years higher educational background and socio-economic background have been significant topics of research relating to entry to the legal professions and judiciary in England and Wales. There is a relative absence of such research relating to academic lawyers. The research discussed in this paper aims to close that gap. The paper argues that critiques relating to the elite nature of the traditional legal professions in terms of educational background have parallels within the academic legal community, evidenced by a dominance of those educated at Cambridge, Oxford and other Russell Group institutions, with relatively lower proportions of graduates from other sectors, most notably the post-1992 universities. The paper further argues that economic hurdles to entry to an academic legal career are significantly higher than those for other law related careers, potentially exacerbating issues of socio-economic exclusion. The conclusion drawn is that law schools should engage proactively with measures to expand opportunities for entrants into the academic legal community from candidates from a much wider range of educational backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discuss how legal transfer is part of China's intellectual history of legal education and exemplifies Chinese legal scholar Zhu Qiwu, who received his public international law education at the Graduate School of National Central University in Chongqing and the Oxford University Faculty of Law in the 1940s. It reports the dynamic legal transfer process and network of exchange of legal thoughts formed amongst Zhu and his teachers, Wang Tieya, Huang Zhengming and Humphrey Waldock.

Legal education has witnessed a significant rise in the number of Animal Law courses since 1989, especially in the United States where 164 universities have offered the subject. This article discusses the world-wide growth in provision in the context of a failure to match this impetus in the United Kingdom. It addresses how the continuing rise in the profile of legal issues relating to animals such as the failure to control the disappearance of species, links between poaching and international terrorism and the welfare of 56 billion animals slaughtered for meat worldwide have been largely ignored by the UK legal academy. Possible reasons for this are postulated including a professional realignment of UK legal education. An approach to Animal Law grounded in the methodology of socio-legal studies is discussed. It is suggested that Animal Law provides an opportunity for the UK legal academy to contribute its particular skills to the development of this new area of legal education and research. It would help move UK legal education towards a greater recognition and provision regarding the interaction of sustainable human activities, animals and the law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been very limited consideration to date of how the regulatory environment in England and Wales impacts on university law clinics and the solicitors who run them. This paper sets out the current regulatory framework pertaining to university law clinics and explains the restrictions and limitations it poses. It highlights the current failure on the part of the regulators to meet their statutory duty to promote access to justice in relation to university pro bono services and sets out a series of recommendations as to how clinicians and regulators can secure a more certain and enabling future for clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article makes a comparison across the unique educational settings of law and business schools in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia and New Zealand to highlight differences in teaching methods necessary for culturally and ethnically mixed student cohorts derived from high migration, student mobility, higher education rankings and host governments promoting educational services. The approach of grounded theory is used, drawing data from instructor interviews and class observations of their teaching styles. While instructors from universities with higher numbers of international students are under pressure, the findings indicate there are positive consequences that result from these settings. Outcomes include experimentation in teaching methods, increases in the use of technology and more teacher training. There are concerns about English-language entry tests, a possible reputational risk for the higher education industry. This research contributes to the debate on changes in teaching methods that result from student mobility towards English-medium universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Widening access to higher education is a challenge currently under discussion in Australia and the United Kingdom. The increasing number of alternative entry programs offered by universities has made tertiary study, including law study, more accessible. One concern with widening access to legal education is the ability of students entering law school through means other than very high academic scores to undertake a law degree successfully. Students who enter law school are generally referred to as “high achievers”, having qualified through an admission policy based on competitive rankings. The implementation of equitable access programs in some Australian universities has resulted in a number of places being made available to final year high school students who meet the eligibility criteria. Lowering the entry requirements to some courses provides opportunities for students whose circumstances have affected their ability to attain competitive ranking scores. The Principals’ Recommendation Scheme (PRS) is one of these programs. The University of Technology Sydney in New South Wales, Australia commenced the PRS in 2012. UTS:Law was one of the first Faculties to develop a strategy to support these students. The Faculty is committed to resourcing all students in their study and, as a result, is engaged in the ongoing evaluation of the academic and co-curricular programs provided to students. This paper explains the implementation of the PRS and the relevant support infrastructure available to students. It also considers the research into student retention and academic success and makes a preliminary assessment that, to date, the PRS students are succeeding in the transition from secondary education to law school, and that the existing infrastructure is accommodating the needs of these students. The PRS is an alternative entry scheme that provides a model for consideration by other law schools, committed to widening access to legal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Law needs a force; without its force, it would be nothing. This article proposes a conceptualization of the force of law as affective by examining the political aesthetics of "Forensic Architecture," a project based at Goldsmiths, University of London. The novelty of Forensic Architecture's analytical approach arises, on the one hand, from its use of technologies of power that are otherwise employed by states and their military forces--thus reversing the direction of the surveillant gaze towards a disobedient practice of seeing and sensing. On the other hand, the notion of a "force field" operates as a particular critique of European border policy. The force of law appears to merge into, and at the same time emerge out of, a complex arrangement of technological devices, legal regulations, and human actions. This essay re-traces the political aesthetics of the "left-to-die-boat" case, where a boat filled with migrants was left without any assistance despite the legal regulation that obliges obliging seafarers to rescue anyone in distress in the Mediterranean Sea. Forensic Architecture's case-work unsettles human-centered "norms of representation" typically used in critical writings on the European Union (EU) border regime; instead, the law is demonstrated to be enfolded within an affective force field that operates with "touch" and "connectivity" and that allows us to see and sense the law in a newly pluralistic manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses potential changes in legal education in England and Wales, commenting on the role of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in regulating the work of solicitors and in considering adding a requirement of apprenticeship as part of the mandatory training for legal professionals.

This article focuses on reviewing energy law education in the UK. For such a fast-growing discipline it is important to reflect on the features that give cohesiveness to its curriculum development: how it is taught; who is teaching it and where it is being taught; and what content is given to the curriculum offered? Is it, for example, national in focus or international, or both? A recent review on the state of energy law education in the US demonstrates the scale and ambition of energy law education in that country. This article complements that exercise by providing a review of energy law education in the UK as at 2016. By comparing and contrasting the two approaches, we can glean some distinctive features of the UK approach. More research is needed on energy law education but from this article it is clear that energy law has taken a foothold in legal education in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this short piece, I set out briefly what we know about the challenge of diversity in the legal academy from existing scholarship. That field, in the UK at least, is sparse. I then go on to present a snapshot of the legal academy using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). I do this as the start of a much larger project on diversity and the legal academy that I plan to undertake over the next year. My argument is rather simple. The diversity of the legal academy reflects neither the diversity of our law student bodies nor the diversity of the wider population. Such diversity is vital for a number of reasons. My hope is that this piece can be the start of a dialogue on an important and largely ignored topic, and that further research will be done in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the argument for increased student participation in experiential learning approaches within the UK undergraduate law curriculum. It is supported by the findings of a very small-scale research study undertaken by the writer into law students’ perceptions of the efficacy of role-play simulation as a means of studying mediation, in an optional credit-based module within the final year of a UK undergraduate qualifying law degree. In order to provide situational context, the first part of this article will briefly address the experiential learning possibilities for undergraduate law students, a discussion of the study involving qualitative research methodology, which was used to demonstrate that role-play simulation as a method of experiential learning has a place within the UK undergraduate law curriculum. The final part of this article will consider the findings of the study which demonstrated that, inter alia, role-play simulation can be motivational, helps to build student confidence, enables deeper learning, assists graduate skills acquisition and arguably enhances employability. Based on the findings of this study and other empirical evidence, the article suggests that greater emphasis could be placed on experiential approaches such as role-play simulation for credit-based law courses, including those “core” foundational courses which form part of the undergraduate qualifying law degree in the UK, but achievement of this aspiration is not without its challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out the findings of a teaching development project undertaken with undergraduate law students at the University of Leicester (UOL) in 2013–2014, funded by the Higher Education Academy (HEA). In the course of this project, students were actively involved in the design, development and delivery of five interactive workshops for primary school children, each built around a particular theme and each designed to help develop an aspect of the children’s legal literacy. The aims were to assess the impact on the learning experience of student participants; to assess whether it may be possible to incorporate this form of activity within the undergraduate curriculum and to assess whether it may be possible to create a sustainable model for use in the future, with new groups of students and a wider number of schools. The most positive outcomes of the project relate to the students’ self-reporting of the development of transferable skills and their reported increase in self-confidence, as a result of being involved in the project. The role of group work in the development of transferable skills is also evident. By far the weakest area was the demonstration and development of legal research skills. The authors reflect on these findings, and comment on some of the unforeseen benefits and challenges of the project, before drawing conclusions as to its future viability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the post-LETR environment, many questions still currently hang over the position of ethics and legal values in undergraduate legal education. The clear disjunction between the centrality of ethics in the profession and its absence from education was highlighted by the review as an area of proposed improvement. Furthermore, our students continually seek new mediums to engage with important legal subjects and issues, especially in the age of social media. With this in mind, Plymouth Law School has begun to fill this lacuna through using contemporary video resources to encourage consideration of legal values. This article evaluates live screencasting of current affairs to incite critical reflection upon collective legal values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The LETR urged UK law schools to consider how they might do more to encourage the development of professional ethics. This article engages with that call and reflects on the experience of teaching professional ethics through popular culture. It begins by outlining some of the theoretical work that has been undertaken in establishing law and popular culture as a discipline more generally, before focusing on professional ethics in particular. The course itself is designed to encourage students to understand the changes to professional ethics over the past 100 years and how these changes have pushed law away from a model of professionalism towards one of commercialism. These changes are mirrored by a subsequent downturn in cultural representations of the lawyer. The module encourages students to see professional ethics as a possible reason for these negative portrayals. The paper then considers student evaluations of the first two years that the course has run, highlighting its positives and also looking at how it may be improved for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on economic and social value of transactional law clinics in Great Britain. Topics discussed include social and economic benefits for law students from transactional law clinics, role of law graduates in safeguarding the legal profession, use of such clinics for legal education in the region, and development of clinical legal education in Great Britain.

The article discusses the positive impact of Legal Services Act 2007 of Great Britain on development of legal policies and legal education. It mentions that the act provide several legal entity such as alternative business structure (ABS). It also mentions that ABSs manages law schools and several legal activities. It informs that pro bono service provide social justice to businesses.

The author discusses the role of legal education in law practice in England and reports decision of the British Courts in cases including Swift 1st v The Chief Land Registrar, Malory Enterprises Ltd v Cheshire Homes (UK) Ltd., and Jones v Kernot.

The Equality Act 2010, in its content and passage through Parliament, provides a rare example of an Act that engages, to some extent, with all seven foundations of legal knowledge (the English compulsory subjects upon which other legal subjects build). This article examines the Equality Act 2010 through the prism of the foundations and, in light of ongoing reform, contends that while anti-discrimination law is an important subject it should not join the list of foundations but rather that awareness and appreciation of those foundations can provide a richer understanding of such laws as the Equality Act 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the major recent expansion of law degrees in England and Wales and their accepted place as the ‘academic stage’ of a lawyer's education, important questions remain or are even intensifying over their nature and content. It is said that there is an increasing urgency to develop broader and more liberal degrees, not least to respond to changes in the delivery of legal services and expertise but also societal imperatives. This article argues, through an exploration of historical data, especially from the nineteenth century, that the system of legal education that was developed and embedded during that period inevitably makes liberalising law degrees both problematic and challenging. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the reasons for a greater emphasis on access to justice in UK legal education and how law schools might go about raising awareness of the issue in students and fostering a commitment on their part to play a role in redressing problems of unmet legal need. It argues that the most effective means of doing so is through law clinics and other forms of voluntary legal services which expose students to the issue of unmet legal need and which may inspire them to seek to enhance access to justice when in practice. Moreover, it argues that the potential for the practical engagement by students with problems of access to justice is enhanced by the very same neo-liberal forces that make the issue of access to justice so urgent in UK society and which seem to militate against an education in which access to justice plays a central role. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This work describes the legal education system as it currently exists in England and Wales (the rest of the UK has a somewhat different structure) and highlights perceived shortcomings in that system. It then goes on to address these and to suggest how learning and teaching can be improved by paying attention to form as well as content, particularly from the perspective of how legal education is delivered. The paper focuses on one particular approach to legal education, termed: problem-based learning (PBL). This forms the key means for study at one of the UK's leading law schools. The rationale for and concept of PBL is explained and extensive reference is made to a wealth of source materials on the nature and effectiveness of such a learning medium. The implications for PBL in the context of experiential learning are also explored including the use of PBL in live-client clinics. The chapter concludes with the suggestion that more interactive or 'hands-on' methods of study will increasingly feature in legal education across the common and civil law worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assertion of contractual rights may be defeated by the illegality defence, not because their creation is offensive to public policy but by reason of an illegality that 'taints' these rights. To date, no analytical framework has been developed for understanding how these tainting rules are connected to one another. The Tainting Illegality Framework ( TIF) presented in this paper seeks to fill this gap in current legal scholarship by exploring, first, the linkages between the rules by which contract rights are tainted and, secondly, the theoretical underpinnings that explain the existing tensions and that will continue to shape the law in this area. The suggested analytical approach enriches and increases the sophistication of the current approaches by considering how their application is shaped by considerations of proximity and the nature of the contaminating illegality. The framework recognises the value of the existing rules, and seeks to enrich the analytical approach by suggesting how their application can more transparently reflect the policy rationale for applying the illegality defence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on a learning set designed to support educators teaching law to social work students in England to build their capacity, first, for engaging with e-learning resources and, second, for evaluating the outcomes of their use in teaching. A mixed methods approach was used, including recording and transcription of the content of seven learning set meetings with eight participants over 2½ years, repeat measures questionnaires to capture changes in attitudes and orientation to the use of e-learning, reflective diaries, and individual interviews with learning set members. The findings demonstrate increased self-perceived capacity in blending e-learning into teaching and in researching the outcomes. The learning set enabled e-learning to become embedded in the curriculum progressively over two years. Participation was experienced as a constructive and empowering experience. There were positive changes in attitudes, motivators and barriers to the use of e-learning, and in orientation to the use of IT resulting in improved confidence. Similarly, understanding of, and the ability to apply, evaluation techniques to track changes in student learning improved throughout the project, confirming the collaborative capacity building value of the learning set approach. The findings have broad relevance for social work education beyond the teaching of law. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper makes two claims. First, it claims that there are various trends within academic law that discourage legal scholars from learning about their predecessors. These trends are explained. Secondly, it claims that there are a number of benefits which could flow from addressing this neglect. Several of these benefits have been acknowledged elsewhere. For example, some scholars maintain that ideas are best treated historically before being dealt with analytically. The more scholars read whole bodies of their predecessors' works, the better their interpretations and understandings of such works become, thus strengthening the intellectual integrity of the discipline. While agreeing with this argument, the purpose of the second section of this paper is to articulate other, perhaps less obvious, benefits. It is argued that by learning about a wider range of past academic endeavour, legal scholars are encouraged to challenge existing notions of academic standing and consider not only what the legal academy has become but also what it ought to be. Learning about scholarly predecessors could help scholars better contextualise current challenges. Such learning could be empowering in the context of a discipline whose scholarly practices have meant that there has been little reason to look to the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]