Abstract
Abstract Standards of professional legal education are developed by different organizations: in some countries these are governmental bodies, in others these are professional associations. Apart from a country these standards include Learning Outcomes which shape law schools’ curricula. Both American and European standards mention, to different extent, written and oral communication in the legal context, but a number and contents of subjects directed at developing and mastering professional communicative competency differ a lot. There are disciplines totally devoted to the competency named (e.g. legal writing) as well as courses in which communicative skills are an integral constituent for their successful completion (e.g. basis of negotiations/mediation/client consultation). The article goal is to find a place and role of a Legal English (LE) course in achieving learning outcomes connected with professional communicative competence. The methodology incorporated desk and field studies. The literature review is aimed at identifying current state of affairs in American law schools, as they provide first-class legal education recognized all over the world, and in Russian law schools, as the author works in this system and is interested in its development. A questionnaire was designed to explore Russian law school graduates’ assessment of practicality of subjects they had studied for their professional activities. The analysis of literature and Internet sources allowed to specify the ways of teaching written and oral communication in American law schools and to highlight the situation in Russian legal education. It shows that the Russian system is characterized by predominance of teaching theory of substantive and procedural rules of law and lack of curriculum disciplines aimed at cultivating skills and competencies. A survey of Russian law schools’ recent graduates indicates that most of communicative, in a broad sense, skills, which they use in their everyday work, were obtained within their LE classes. So, complementing a LE course with modules devoted to different aspects of legal writing and specific patterns of lawyer-client, lawyer-lawyer, lawyer-judge communication will definitely contribute to achieving learning outcomes which are put forward by legal education standards.
Highlights
Higher education is aimed at preparing a competent specialist and legal education is not an exception
These standards include learning goals, tasks, and outcomes which shape law schools’ curricula. Both American and European standards mention, to different extent, written and oral communication in the legal context, such communication is named among the ten fundamental lawyering skills (MacCrate, 1996: 645)
Some disciplines are totally devoted to framing and developing the named competency, for instance, “Legal Writing”, others are aimed at training such lawyering skills as client counseling and negotiation but communicative skills are an integral constituent for their successful completion
Summary
Higher education is aimed at preparing a competent specialist and legal education is not an exception. A baccalaureate professional training program of higher education developed at Saratov State Law Academy (major – jurisprudence 40.03.01) (Saratov n/d) was used to analyze the situation with teaching skills in Russian law schools This curriculum is worked out in conformity with the FSES and includes general remarks, requirements to learning outcomes in the form of competences formed within the program, overviews of disciplines’ syllabi, etc. Foreign language (FL) is a skill-oriented course and it can be amplified by elements, tasks, and assignments aimed at mastering lawyering skills, especially those which compose communication and analysis categories As it is mentioned above, learning outcomes can be assessed by a graduates’ survey, as one of the ways of evaluation. What else can be done in a LE classroom to increase graduates’ competitiveness and enhance their professionalism?
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