Transforming legal education: learning and teaching the law in the early twenty-first century

Transforming legal education: learning and teaching the law

in the early twenty-first century

Professor Paul MahargGlasgow Graduate School of Law

ISAGA, Nijmegen 2007 2

1. Summary of book’s chapters & themes2. Scope of simulation implementation3. Professionalism, ethics, shifting identities & simulations


book outline

Part 1: In(ter)disciplines

1. Trading Zones

2. The Empty Quarter: Interdisciplinary Research and Practice

Part 1 Conclusion: Elasticity and Obstacle


book outline

Part 2: Laminations

3. The Road not Taken: Realists and the Curriculum

4. ‘By the End of This Module …’: The Intimate Dimensions of Ethical Education

5. Codex to Codecs: The Medieval Web Redivivus

Part 2 Conclusion: Adjacencies


book outline

Part 3: Metaverse

6. Simulations and the Metaverse7. Transactional Learning in Action8. Relational Objects: Transactions, Professionalism, E-

mergence9. Multimedia and the Docuverse of Law: Learning and

the Representation of KnowledgePart 3 Conclusion: Simulation and Transformation

Afterword: Elective Affinities: Experience, Ethics, Technology, Collaboration


book themes

Transformation Transactional learning: Dewey, Stenhouse, Garrison,

constructivists, situated learning, etc Rhetoric and communications theory Legal educational history: meditations on failure and

difference Technology as saturated learning environment


John Dewey

E.L. Thorndike


simulations in legal learning…

Are close to the world of practice, but safe from the (possible) realities of malpractice and negligent representation.

Enable students to practise legal transactions, discuss the transactions with other tutors, students, and use a variety of instruments or tools, online or textual, to help them understand the nature and consequences of their actions

Facilitate a wide variety of assessment, from high-stakes assignments with automatic fail points, to coursework that can double as a learning zone and an assessment assignment

Encourage collaborative learning. The guilds and groups of hunters in multi-player online games can be replicated for very different purposes in legal education.

Students begin to see the potential for the C in ICT; and that technology is not merely a matter of word-processed essays & quizzes, but a form of learning that changes quite fundamentally what and how they learn.


scope of the implementation
















personal injury negotiation project

Administration: 280 students, 70 firms, 7 anonymous information

sources 70 document sets, 35 transactions students have 12 weeks to achieve settlement introductory & feedback lectures discussion forums FAQs & transaction guideline flowcharts voluntary face-to-face surgeries with a PI solicitor


PI project: assessment criteria

We require from each student firm a body of evidence consisting of:

fact-finding – from information sources in the virtual community)

professional legal research – using WestLaw + paperworld sources

formation of negotiation strategy – extending range of Foundation Course learning

performance of strategy – correspondence + optional f2f meeting, recorded








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Total correspondence 2000/2001 sent by all firms


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Settlement amounts


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Correspondence timelines


PI project: (some of) what students learned

extended team working real legal fact-finding real legal research process thinking in the project setting out negotiation strategies in the context of (un)known

information writing to specific audiences handling project alongside other work commitments structuring the argument of a case from start to finish keeping cool in face-to-face negotiations more effective delegation keeping files taking notes on the process...


PI project: what students would have done differently…

‘In tackling this project I think that our group made two main mistakes. The first mistake we made was in approaching the task as law students as opposed to Lawyers. By this I mean we tried to find the answer and work our way back. Immediately we were thinking about claims and quantum and blame. I don't think we actually initiated a claim until a week before the final settlement. I think the phrase "like a bull in a china shop" would aptly describe the way we approached the problem. […] Our group knew what area of law and tests to apply yet we ended up often being ahead of ourselves and having to back-pedal

The second mistake we made was estimating how long it would take to gather information. We started our project quite late on and began to run out of time towards the end. None of us appreciated the length of time it would take to gather information and on top of this we would often have to write two or three letters to the same person as the initial letter would not ask the right question.’


PI project: what students would have done differently…

‘At the beginning we thought we perhaps lost sight of the fact that we had a client whom we had a duty to advise and inform. On reflection we should have issued terms of engagement and advised the client better in monetary terms what the likely outcome was going to be.’

‘[…] unlike other group projects I was involved in at undergraduate level I feel that I derived genuine benefit from this exercise in several ways:1. reinforcing letter-writing, negotiation, time-management and IT

skills2. conducting legal research into issues of quantum3. working effectively in a group as a group - not delegating tasks at

the first meeting and then putting together pieces of work at the second meeting.’

Student comment on the environment…


transactional learning:Private Client project

General outline: Students wind up the estate of a deceased client who dies intestate,

via 4 assignments. Students drafted: Initial Writ Estate Valuation Correspondence Forms C1, IHT 200 & supplements a will

Resources: no lectures, no exams: instead, tutorials and coursework 50 scenarios virtual collection of the client’s estate online assessment & submission of assignments FAQ online tutor assessment on average, six outcomes per assessment



design methodologies?


authenticity as transactional learning

Five characteristics in our practice define transactional learning for us as:

1. active learning, 2. based on doing legal transactions, 3. involving reflection on learning, 4. deep collaborative learning, and 5. requiring holistic or process learning.


role of the simulation

Emerging identity as student/practitioner

Ardcalloch simulationActual practice reality









Diploma inLegal Practice

Diploma inLegal Practice


What is SIMPLE?


general aim of the SIMPLE platform

Enable staff and students to manage the educational and organizational issues that arise from the implementation of this environment, in particular those of:

personalized learning in a professional environment social presence and collaborative learning use of simulation spaces in programmes of study, and the relation

between simulation spaces and other learning spaces on a programme, including paper-based and online resources, face-to-face classes, and administration

use of rich media in online simulations – video, graphics, text, comms., etc.

authenticity in the design of simulation tasks, and effective assessment of professional learning


what does the SIMPLE platform help you to do?

Simulate professional tasks within an authentic environment.

Provide academic staff with software tools to design and build simulation blueprint and collate all of the resources required.

Provide a map and directory for a virtual town Enable communication between students and simulated

characters/staff. Offer monitoring and mentoring functions.


what will our SIMPLE project do?

Develop teaching, learning and assessment templates, including curriculum guidelines

Develop a process and tools which allow for highly structured, closed boundary simulations as well as loosely-structured, open-field simulations

Develop and integrate other approaches to e-learning with the SIMPLE platform.

Evaluate student and staff experiences in using the simulation environment


project Gantt chart

1 Project Management

2Transactional Project Specification Process

3Technical Requirements Specification

4Implementation of Systems Architecture and Hardware Requirements

5 Development of Environment

6 Test and Deployment

7 Maintenance and Bug Fixing

8 Development of TLPs

9 Educational Documentation

10 TLE Project Implementations

11 TLP and Project Evaluation

12 Dissemination

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24


large-scale implementation in disciplines

Discipline Degree programme Institution

Architecture BSc (Hons) / March, year 3 Strathclyde

Social Work MA (Hons), year 2/3 Strathclyde

Law LLB Glamorgan

Law LLB Glasgow & Stirling

Law LLBWarwick

Law LLB West of England

LawDiploma in Legal Practice, p/g

Strathclyde


Forthcoming projects in SIMPLE


the law projects

5 Law Projects Undergraduate modules Structure: transferring an existing paper based project & creating entirely new projects Significant co-operation amongst individual departments Projects include areas of contract, personal injury, criminal

justice and legal skills and practice. Various forms of assessment and experiential learning


What have we worked on to date?


project progress

To date… Assembled project team Worked with participating depts to construct narrative event diagrams Ahead of schedule on software build milestones Functional specification for learning environment now complete Beta version March 07 Currently working with depts to create data to populate virtual town

and support the simulated projects

Next steps… Build upon the Beta platform (virtual town tools, etc) and application

toolset (tools to create the transactions) Form community of practice






future directions… 2D

Liaison with international collaborators, eg Sieberdam:

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ROCS- CityBuild


... and 3D converged learning environments

An entire course can be built within a world, through use of applications such as PowerPoint, Word, Excel, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, etc within simulation environments

Experientiallearning

Resource-basedlearning


Not on its own... We need: Clear research evidence sim environments will enable

successful alternative approaches to knowledge, collaboration, professionalism, ethics... at reasonable cost.

Career-long assessment environments To address our successes and concerns directly those to

those with financial & decision-making powers, eg: institutional management regulatory bodies policy-makers


SIMPLE toolset, Beta version.wmv


further details

JISC site:http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_innovation/eli_simple.aspx

SIMPLE site:http://technologies.law.strath.ac.uk/simple

Email: [email protected]