Emerging Legal Education – serie

This visually rich, experience-led collection explores what design can do for legal education. In recent decades design has increasingly come to be understood as a resource to improve other fields of public, private and civil society practice; and legal design—that is, the application of design-based methods to legal practice—is increasingly embedded in lawyering across the world. It brings together experts from multiple disciplines, professions and jurisdictions to reflect upon how designerly mindsets, processes and strategies can enhance teaching and learning across higher education, public legal information and legal practice; and will be of interest and use to those teaching and learning in any and all of those fields.

How as a society can we find ways of ensuring the people who are the most vulnerable or have little voice can avail themselves of the protection in law to improve their social, cultural, health and economic outcomes as befits civilised society? Better Law for a Better World answers this question by looking at innovative practices and developments emerging within law practice and education and shares the skills and techniques that could lead to confidence in the law and its ability to respond. Using recent research from Australia, practice initiatives and information, the book breaks down ways for law students, legal educators and law practitioners (including judicial officers, law administrators, legislators and policy makers) to enhance access to justice and improve outcomes through new approaches to lawyering. These can include: Multi-Disciplinary Practice (including health justice partnerships); integrated justice practice; restorative practice; empowerment modes (community & professional development and policy skills); client-centred approaches and collaborative interdisciplinary practice informed by practical experience. The book contains critical information on what such practice might look like and the elements that will be required in the development of the essential skills and criteria for such practice. It seeks to open up a dialogue about how we can make the law better. This includes making the community more central to the operation of the law and improving client-centred practice so that the Rule of Law can deliver on its claims to serve, protect and ensure equality before the law. It explores practical ways that emerging lawyers can be trained differently to ensure improved communication, collaboration, problem solving, partnership and interpersonal skills. The book explores the challenges of such work. It also gives suggestions on how to reduce professional barriers and variations in practice to effectively, humanely and efficiently make a difference in people’s lives. The book builds essential skills and new approaches to lawyering for law students, legal educators, new lawyers and seasoned lawyers, judicial members and law administrators to equip them to better respond to community need. It looks at the law in context by also exploring the role of the law in improving the social determinants of health and socially just outcomes.

There is a myth that lingers around legal education in many democracies. That myth would have us believe that law students are admitted and then succeed based on raw merit, and that law schools are neutral settings in which professors (also selected and promoted based on merit) use their expertise to train those students to become lawyers. Based on original, empirical research, this book investigates this myth from myriad perspectives, diverse settings, and in different nations, revealing that hierarchies of power and cultural norms shape and maintain inequities in legal education. Embedded within law school cultures are assumptions that also stymie efforts at reform. The book examines hidden pedagogical messages, showing how presumptions about theory’s relation to practice are refracted through the obfuscating lens of curricula. The contributors also tackle questions of class and market as they affect law training. Finally, this collection examines how structural barriers replicate injustice even within institutions representing themselves as democratic and open, revealing common dynamics across cultural and institutional forms. The chapters speak to similar issues and to one another about the influence of context, images of law and lawyers, the political economy of legal education, and the agency of students and faculty.

Thinking About Clinical Legal Education provides a range of philosophical and theoretical frameworks that can serve to enrich the teaching and practice of Clinical Legal Education (CLE). CLE has become an increasingly common feature of the curriculum in law schools across the globe. However, there has been relatively little attention paid to the theoretical and philosophical dimensions of this approach. This edited collection seeks to address this gap by bringing together contributions from the clinical community, to analyse their CLE practice using the framework of a clearly articulated philosophical or theoretical approach. Contributions include insights from a range of jurisdictions including: Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Ethiopia, Israel, Spain, UK and the US. This book will be of interest to CLE academics and clinic supervisors, practitioners, and students.

University can be a psychologically distressing place for students. Empirical studies in Australia and the USA highlight that a large number of law students suffer from psychological distress, when compared to students from other disciplines and members of the general population. This book explores the significant role that legal education can play in the promotion of mental health and well-being in law students, and consequently in the profession. The volume considers the ways in which the problems of psychological distress amongst law students are connected to the way law and legal culture are taught, and articulates curricula and extra-curricula strategies for promoting wellbeing for law students. With contributions from legal academics, legal practitioners and psychologists, the authors discuss the possible causes of psychological distress in the legal community, and potential interventions that may increase psychological well-being. This important book will be of interest to legal academics, law students, members of the legal profession, post-graduate researchers as well as non-law researchers interested in this area.

This book makes the case for a more legally literate society and then addresses why and how a law school might contribute to achieving that. Moreover examining what public legal education (PLE) is and the forms it can take, the book looks specifically at the ways in which a law school can get involved, including whether that is as part of an academic, credit-bearing, course or as extra-curricular activity.Divided into five main chapters, the book first examines the nature of PLE and why its provision is so central to the functioning of modern society. Models of PLE are then set out ranging from face-to-face tuition to the use of hard-copy material, including the growing importance of e-based technology. One model of PLE that has proven to be very attractive to law schools – Street Law – is described and analysed in detail. The book then turns to look at the considerations for a law school wishing to incorporate PLE into its offerings be that as part of the formal curriculum or not. The subject of evaluation is then raised – how might we find out if what we do by way of PLE is effective and how it might be improved upon? The final chapter reaches conclusions, some penned by the book’s author and others drawn from key figures in the PLE movement. This book provides a thorough examination of PLE in a law school context and contains a set of templates that can be implemented and/or adapted for use as the situation and jurisdiction dictate. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to law students, legal academics, practising lawyers, community activists and all those interested in PLE.

This book makes the case for a more legally literate society and then addresses why and how a law school might contribute to achieving that. Moreover examining what public legal education (PLE) is and the forms it can take, the book looks specifically at the ways in which a law school can get involved, including whether that is as part of an academic, credit-bearing, course or as extra-curricular activity.Divided into five main chapters, the book first examines the nature of PLE and why its provision is so central to the functioning of modern society. Models of PLE are then set out ranging from face-to-face tuition to the use of hard-copy material, including the growing importance of e-based technology. One model of PLE that has proven to be very attractive to law schools – Street Law – is described and analysed in detail. The book then turns to look at the considerations for a law school wishing to incorporate PLE into its offerings be that as part of the formal curriculum or not. The subject of evaluation is then raised – how might we find out if what we do by way of PLE is effective and how it might be improved upon? The final chapter reaches conclusions, some penned by the book’s author and others drawn from key figures in the PLE movement. This book provides a thorough examination of PLE in a law school context and contains a set of templates that can be implemented and/or adapted for use as the situation and jurisdiction dictate. An accessible and compelling read, this book will be of interest to law students, legal academics, practising lawyers, community activists and all those interested in PLE.

How as a society can we find ways of ensuring the people who are the most vulnerable or have little voice can avail themselves of the protection in law to improve their social, cultural, health and economic outcomes as befits civilised society? Better Law for a Better World answers this question by looking at innovative practices and developments emerging within law practice and education and shares the skills and techniques that could lead to confidence in the law and its ability to respond. Using recent research from Australia, practice initiatives and information, the book breaks down ways for law students, legal educators and law practitioners (including judicial officers, law administrators, legislators and policy makers) to enhance access to justice and improve outcomes through new approaches to lawyering. These can include: Multi-Disciplinary Practice (including health justice partnerships); integrated justice practice; restorative practice; empowerment modes (community & professional development and policy skills); client-centred approaches and collaborative interdisciplinary practice informed by practical experience. The book contains critical information on what such practice might look like and the elements that will be required in the development of the essential skills and criteria for such practice. It seeks to open up a dialogue about how we can make the law better. This includes making the community more central to the operation of the law and improving client-centred practice so that the Rule of Law can deliver on its claims to serve, protect and ensure equality before the law. It explores practical ways that emerging lawyers can be trained differently to ensure improved communication, collaboration, problem solving, partnership and interpersonal skills. The book explores the challenges of such work. It also gives suggestions on how to reduce professional barriers and variations in practice to effectively, humanely and efficiently make a difference in people’s lives. The book builds essential skills and new approaches to lawyering for law students, legal educators, new lawyers and seasoned lawyers, judicial members and law administrators to equip them to better respond to community need. It looks at the law in context by also exploring the role of the law in improving the social determinants of health and socially just outcomes.

This book discusses the opportunities and challenges facing legal education in the era of globalization. It identifies the knowledge and skills that law students will require in order to prepare for the practice of tomorrow, and explores pedagogical shifts legal education needs to make inside and outside of the classroom. With contributions from leading experts on legal education from various jurisdictions across the globe, the work combines theoretical depth with practical insights. Seeking to understand the changing landscape of legal education in the era of globalization, the contributions find that law schools can, and must, adopt educational strategies that at least present students with different understandings of what studying and practicing law is meant to be about. They find that law schools need to offer their students choices, a vision of practice that is not driven entirely by the demands of the marketplace or the needs of major international law firms. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this book makes a significant contribution to the impact of globalization on legal education, and how students and law schools need to adapt for the future. It will be of great interest to academics and students of comparative legal studies and legal education, as well as policy-makers and practitioners.

In an age when everyone aspires to teach critical thinking skills in the classroom, what does it mean to be a subversive law teacher? Who or what might a subversive law teacher seek to subvert – the authority of the law, the university, their own authority as teachers, perhaps? Are law students ripe for subversion, agents of, or impediments to, subversion? Do they learn to ask critical questions? Responding to the provocation in the classic book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Postman and Weingartner, the idea that teaching could, or even should, be subversive still holds true today, and its premise is particularly relevant in the context of legal education. We therefore draw on this classic book to discuss, in the present volume, the consideration of research into legal education as lifetime learning, as creating meaning, as transformative and as developing world-changing thinking within the legal context. The volume offers research into classroom experiences and theoretical and historical interrogations of what it means to teach law subversively. Primarily aimed at legal educators and doctoral students in law planning careers as academics, its insights speak directly to tensions in higher education more broadly.

In an age when everyone aspires to teach critical thinking skills in the classroom, what does it mean to be a subversive law teacher? Who or what might a subversive law teacher seek to subvert – the authority of the law, the university, their own authority as teachers, perhaps? Are law students ripe for subversion, agents of, or impediments to, subversion? Do they learn to ask critical questions? Responding to the provocation in the classic book Teaching as a Subversive Activity, by Postman and Weingartner, the idea that teaching could, or even should, be subversive still holds true today, and its premise is particularly relevant in the context of legal education. We therefore draw on this classic book to discuss, in the present volume, the consideration of research into legal education as lifetime learning, as creating meaning, as transformative and as developing world-changing thinking within the legal context. The volume offers research into classroom experiences and theoretical and historical interrogations of what it means to teach law subversively. Primarily aimed at legal educators and doctoral students in law planning careers as academics, its insights speak directly to tensions in higher education more broadly.

How we interpret and understand the historical contexts of legal education has profoundly affected how we understand contemporary educational cultures and practices. This book, the result of a Modern Law Review seminar, both celebrates and critiques the lasting impact of Peter Birks’ influential edited collection, Pressing Problems in the Law: Volume 2: What is the Law School for? Published in 1996, his book addresses many critical issues that are hauntingly present in the 21st century, amongst them the impact of globalisation; technological disruption; and the tension inherent in law schools as they seek to balance the competing interest of teaching, research and administration. Yet Birks’ collection misses key issues, too. The role of wellbeing, of emotion or affect, the relation of legal education to education, the status of legal education in what, since his volume, have become the devolved jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – these and others are absent from the research agenda of the book. Today, legal educators face new challenges. We are still recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our universities. In 1996 Birks was keen to stress the importance of comparative research within Europe. Today, legal researchers are dismayed at the possibility of losing valuable EU research funding when the UK leaves the EU, and at the many other negative effects of Brexit on legal education. The proposed Solicitors Qualifying Examination takes legal education regulation and professional learning into uncharted waters. This book discusses these and related impacts on our legal educations. As law schools approach an existential crossroads post-Covid-19, it seems timely to revisit Birks’ fundamental question: what are law schools for?

Thinking About Clinical Legal Education provides a range of philosophical and theoretical frameworks that can serve to enrich the teaching and practice of Clinical Legal Education (CLE). CLE has become an increasingly common feature of the curriculum in law schools across the globe. However, there has been relatively little attention paid to the theoretical and philosophical dimensions of this approach. This edited collection seeks to address this gap by bringing together contributions from the clinical community, to analyse their CLE practice using the framework of a clearly articulated philosophical or theoretical approach. Contributions include insights from a range of jurisdictions including: Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Ethiopia, Israel, Spain, UK and the US. This book will be of interest to CLE academics and clinic supervisors, practitioners, and students.

There is a myth that lingers around legal education in many democracies. That myth would have us believe that law students are admitted and then succeed based on raw merit, and that law schools are neutral settings in which professors (also selected and promoted based on merit) use their expertise to train those students to become lawyers. Based on original, empirical research, this book investigates this myth from myriad perspectives, diverse settings, and in different nations, revealing that hierarchies of power and cultural norms shape and maintain inequities in legal education. Embedded within law school cultures are assumptions that also stymie efforts at reform. The book examines hidden pedagogical messages, showing how presumptions about theory’s relation to practice are refracted through the obfuscating lens of curricula. The contributors also tackle questions of class and market as they affect law training. Finally, this collection examines how structural barriers replicate injustice even within institutions representing themselves as democratic and open, revealing common dynamics across cultural and institutional forms. The chapters speak to similar issues and to one another about the influence of context, images of law and lawyers, the political economy of legal education, and the agency of students and faculty.

In the last few decades university teaching has been recognised as an activity which can be studied and improved through educational scholarship. In some disciplines this is now well established. It remains emergent in legal education. The field is rich with questions to be answered, issues to be raised. This book provides the first overall review of legal education scholarship. The chapters outline the history of legal education research and provide a detailed analysis of the trends in areas of publication. Beyond this, the book suggests a typology for further conceptualising the field and a series of suggested paths for future research. The book originated from the 2017 UNSW conference "Research in Legal Education: State of the Art?" It features internationally respected authors who bring their perspectives on how legal education – as a field of research – should be conceptualised. The collection is arranged into three themes. First, a historical view is taken of the emergence of legal education scholarship and its roots that predate modern educational theory. Secondly, the book provides overviews of the extant field of publications, highlighting areas of interest and neglect, and delineating the trends in current publication. Thirdly, the book provides a set of suggested typologies for describing legal education research and a series of essays for future directions which both critique current approaches and provide inspiration for future directions.The State of Legal Education Research represents an authoritative introduction to the field, a set of conceptual tools with which to describe it, and inspiration for researchers to expand and grow research into legal education.

Bringing together the current international body of knowledge on key issues for educating for well-being in law, this book offers comparative perspectives across jurisdictions, and utilises a range of theoretical lenses (including socio-legal, psychological and ethical theories) in analysing well-being and legal education in law. The chapters include innovative and tested research methodologies and strategies for educating for well-being. Asking and answering the question as to whether law is special in terms of producing psychological distress in law students, law teachers and the profession, and bringing together common and opposing perspectives, this book also seeks to highlight excellent practice in promoting a positive professional identity at law school and beyond resulting in an original contribution to knowledge, and new discourses of analysis.

This visually rich, experience-led collection explores what design can do for legal education. In recent decades design has increasingly come to be understood as a resource to improve other fields of public, private and civil society practice; and legal design—that is, the application of design-based methods to legal practice—is increasingly embedded in lawyering across the world. It brings together experts from multiple disciplines, professions and jurisdictions to reflect upon how designerly mindsets, processes and strategies can enhance teaching and learning across higher education, public legal information and legal practice; and will be of interest and use to those teaching and learning in any and all of those fields.

How we interpret and understand the historical contexts of legal education has profoundly affected how we understand contemporary educational cultures and practices. This book, the result of a Modern Law Review seminar, both celebrates and critiques the lasting impact of Peter Birks’ influential edited collection, Pressing Problems in the Law: Volume 2: What is the Law School for? Published in 1996, his book addresses many critical issues that are hauntingly present in the 21st century, amongst them the impact of globalisation; technological disruption; and the tension inherent in law schools as they seek to balance the competing interest of teaching, research and administration. Yet Birks’ collection misses key issues, too. The role of wellbeing, of emotion or affect, the relation of legal education to education, the status of legal education in what, since his volume, have become the devolved jurisdictions of Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland – these and others are absent from the research agenda of the book. Today, legal educators face new challenges. We are still recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on our universities. In 1996 Birks was keen to stress the importance of comparative research within Europe. Today, legal researchers are dismayed at the possibility of losing valuable EU research funding when the UK leaves the EU, and at the many other negative effects of Brexit on legal education. The proposed Solicitors Qualifying Examination takes legal education regulation and professional learning into uncharted waters. This book discusses these and related impacts on our legal educations. As law schools approach an existential crossroads post-Covid-19, it seems timely to revisit Birks’ fundamental question: what are law schools for?

This book explores the distinctive nature of clinical legal education in a range of global contexts.The emergence of law school-based clinical legal education has been recognised as a major innovation in modern legal education. At its best, it integrates the academic rigour of university-based learning with the practical, ethical and social justice insights that come from structured work with clients. This book examines what makes clinic different from other aspects of legal education and how it differs from experiential learning in other disciplines, particularly in its emphasis on social justice. It provides an analysis of various models that support student learning in community settings from 66 contributors across the globe. Learning goals, teaching methods, focus areas, forms of student involvement, engagement with lawyers and the challenges faced are all identified as important in giving clinical legal education its local flavour. Exploring the role of technology in clinic and the significant growth in technology-based clinics, the book reviews the ways in which clinics harness technology to serve diverse client communities and extend the global reach of clinical legal education, particularly in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.This book will be of particular interest to researchers in the fields of clinical legal education and the use of emerging technologies in legal education.

This book explores the distinctive nature of clinical legal education in a range of global contexts.The emergence of law school-based clinical legal education has been recognised as a major innovation in modern legal education. At its best, it integrates the academic rigour of university-based learning with the practical, ethical and social justice insights that come from structured work with clients. This book examines what makes clinic different from other aspects of legal education and how it differs from experiential learning in other disciplines, particularly in its emphasis on social justice. It provides an analysis of various models that support student learning in community settings from 66 contributors across the globe. Learning goals, teaching methods, focus areas, forms of student involvement, engagement with lawyers and the challenges faced are all identified as important in giving clinical legal education its local flavour. Exploring the role of technology in clinic and the significant growth in technology-based clinics, the book reviews the ways in which clinics harness technology to serve diverse client communities and extend the global reach of clinical legal education, particularly in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.This book will be of particular interest to researchers in the fields of clinical legal education and the use of emerging technologies in legal education.

The practice of teaching international law is conducted in a wide range of contexts across the world by a host of different actors – including scholars, practitioners, civil society groups, governments, and international organisations.This collection brings together a diversity of scholars and practitioners to share their experiences and critically reflect on current practices of teaching international law across different contexts, traditions, and perspectives to develop existing conversations and spark fresh ones concerning teaching practices within the field of international law. Reflecting on the responsibilities of teachers of international law to engage with and confront histories, contemporary crises, and everyday events in their teaching, the collection explores efforts to decenter the teacher and the law in the classroom, opportunities for dialogical and critical approaches to teaching, and the possibilities of co-producing non-conventional pedagogies that question the mainstream underpinnings of international law teaching. Focusing on the tools and techniques used to teach international law to date, the collection examines the teaching of international law in different contexts. Traversing a range of domestic and regional contexts around the world, the book offers insights into both the culture of teaching in particular domestic settings, aswell as the structural challenges and obstacles that arise in terms of who, what, and how international law is taught in practice.Offering a unique window into the personal experiences of a diversity of scholars and practitioners from around the world, this collection aims to nurture conversations about the responsibilities, approaches, opportunities, and challenges of teaching international law.

The practice of teaching international law is conducted in a wide range of contexts across the world by a host of different actors – including scholars, practitioners, civil society groups, governments, and international organisations.This collection brings together a diversity of scholars and practitioners to share their experiences and critically reflect on current practices of teaching international law across different contexts, traditions, and perspectives to develop existing conversations and spark fresh ones concerning teaching practices within the field of international law. Reflecting on the responsibilities of teachers of international law to engage with and confront histories, contemporary crises, and everyday events in their teaching, the collection explores efforts to decenter the teacher and the law in the classroom, opportunities for dialogical and critical approaches to teaching, and the possibilities of co-producing non-conventional pedagogies that question the mainstream underpinnings of international law teaching. Focusing on the tools and techniques used to teach international law to date, the collection examines the teaching of international law in different contexts. Traversing a range of domestic and regional contexts around the world, the book offers insights into both the culture of teaching in particular domestic settings, aswell as the structural challenges and obstacles that arise in terms of who, what, and how international law is taught in practice.Offering a unique window into the personal experiences of a diversity of scholars and practitioners from around the world, this collection aims to nurture conversations about the responsibilities, approaches, opportunities, and challenges of teaching international law.

The place of emotion in legal education is rarely discussed or analysed, and we do not have to seek far for the reasons. The difficulty of interdisciplinary research, the technicisation of legal education itself, the view that affect is irrational and antithetical to core western ideals of rationality - all this has made the subject of emotion in legal education invisible. Yet the educational literature on emotion proves how essential it is to student learning and to the professional lives of teachers. This text, the first full-length book study of the subject, seeks to make emotion a central topic of research for legal educators, and restore the power of emotion in our teaching and learning. Part 1 focuses on the contribution that neuroscience can make to legal learning, a theme that is carried through other chapters in the book. Part 2 explores the role of emotion in the working lives of academics and clinical staff, while Part 3 analyses the ways in which emotion can be used in learning and teaching. The book, interdisciplinary and wide-ranging in its reference, breaks new ground in its analysis of the educational lifeworld of situations, communities, actors and interactions in legal education.

As one of the ’learned’ professions requiring advanced learning and high principles, law enjoys a special standing in society. In return for its status and rank, the legal profession is expected to exhibit the highest levels of honesty, trust and morality, the very values which underpin the legal system itself. This, in turn, entrusts to legal education a particular problem of addressing, not only the substantive elements of the body of law, but a means through which the characteristics of the ’calling’ of law are imparted and instilled. At a time when the very essence of the legal profession is under threat, this book calls for a realignment of the legal curriculum and pedagogies so as to emphasise the development of culture over industry; character over eloquence; and calling over skill. Chapters are grouped around the core content and key themes of Curiosity, Calling, Character and Conscientiousness, Contract, and Culture. The volume includes contributions from leading experts, drawn internationally and from other professional disciplines in order to present alternative approaches aimed at tackling common issues, providing insight, and provoking debate.

Leadership includes the ability to persuade others to embrace one’s ideas and to act upon them. Teaching law students the art of persuasion through advocacy is at the heart of legal education. But historically law schools have not included leadership studies in the curriculum. This book is one of the first to examine whether and how to integrate the theory and practice of leadership studies into legal education and the legal profession. Interdisciplinary in its scope, with contributions from legal educators and practitioners, the book defines leadership in the context of the legal profession and explores its challenges in legal academia, private practice, and government. It also investigates whether law students need to study leadership and, if they should, why it should be offered as part of the curriculum. Finally, it considers how leadership should be taught and how it should be integrated into classes. It evaluates new leadership courses and the adaptation of existing courses to reflect on how to effectively blend law and leadership in doctrinal, clinical, and experiential classrooms. The book includes a foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and noted leadership scholar, James MacGregor Burns and a foundational essay by prominent leadership scholar and one of the founders of the International Leadership Association, Georgia Sorenson. It will be a valuable resource to anyone interested in leadership, education policy and legal ethics.

What role can resources that go beyond text play in the development of moral education in law schools and law firms? How can these resources - especially those from the visual and performing arts - nourish the imagination needed to confront the ethical complexities of particular situations? This book asks and answers these questions, thereby introducing radically new resources for law schools and law firms committed to fighting against the moral complacency that can all too often creep into the life of the law. The chapters in this volume build on the companion volume, The Arts and the Legal Academy, also published by Ashgate, which focuses on the role of non-textual resources in legal education generally. Concentrating in particular on the moral dimension of legal education, the contributors to this volume include a wide range of theorists and leading legal educators from the UK and the US.

In Western culture, law is dominated by textual representation. Lawyers, academics and law students live and work in a textual world where the written word is law and law is interpreted largely within written and printed discourse. Is it possible, however, to understand and learn law differently? Could modes of knowing, feeling, memory and expectation commonly present in the Arts enable a deeper understanding of law's discourse and practice? If so, how might that work for students, lawyers and academics in the classroom, and in continuing professional development? Bringing together scholars, legal practitioners internationally from the fields of legal education, legal theory, theatre, architecture, visual and movement arts, this book is evidence of how the Arts can powerfully revitalize the theory and practice of legal education. Through discussion of theory and practice in the humanities and Arts, linked to practical examples of radical interventions, the chapters reveal how the Arts can transform educational practice and our view of its place in legal practice. Available in enhanced electronic format, the book complements The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life, also published by Ashgate.

In the last few decades university teaching has been recognised as an activity which can be studied and improved through educational scholarship. In some disciplines this is now well established. It remains emergent in legal education. The field is rich with questions to be answered, issues to be raised. This book provides the first overall review of legal education scholarship. The chapters outline the history of legal education research and provide a detailed analysis of the trends in areas of publication. Beyond this, the book suggests a typology for further conceptualising the field and a series of suggested paths for future research. The book originated from the 2017 UNSW conference "Research in Legal Education: State of the Art?" It features internationally respected authors who bring their perspectives on how legal education – as a field of research – should be conceptualised. The collection is arranged into three themes. First, a historical view is taken of the emergence of legal education scholarship and its roots that predate modern educational theory. Secondly, the book provides overviews of the extant field of publications, highlighting areas of interest and neglect, and delineating the trends in current publication. Thirdly, the book provides a set of suggested typologies for describing legal education research and a series of essays for future directions which both critique current approaches and provide inspiration for future directions.The State of Legal Education Research represents an authoritative introduction to the field, a set of conceptual tools with which to describe it, and inspiration for researchers to expand and grow research into legal education.

Bringing together the current international body of knowledge on key issues for educating for well-being in law, this book offers comparative perspectives across jurisdictions, and utilises a range of theoretical lenses (including socio-legal, psychological and ethical theories) in analysing well-being and legal education in law. The chapters include innovative and tested research methodologies and strategies for educating for well-being. Asking and answering the question as to whether law is special in terms of producing psychological distress in law students, law teachers and the profession, and bringing together common and opposing perspectives, this book also seeks to highlight excellent practice in promoting a positive professional identity at law school and beyond resulting in an original contribution to knowledge, and new discourses of analysis.