Law Graduates Research Articles

Developing a Taught Module on ‘Law, Religion, and Environment’

Building on the Arab Barometer seventh wave survey, which highlights the regional priorities on climate change, water resources, and environmental development in Middle East and North Africa, this paper explores the potential for a module on “Law, Religion and Environmental Sustainability”. The module aims to mainstream environmental sustainability in the legal education curriculum through forging the intersections between law, religion, and the environment. The growing body of interdisciplinary research on religion and environmentalism mainly involves scholars from academic disciplines such as sociology, theology, and religious studies, but not law. The Arab Barometer results indicate that citizens’ environmental concerns are mostly linked to the micro level, without directly reflecting on related macro level issues. However, religious beliefs and faith systems often cut across the micro and macro levels, and could potentially advance environmental and sustainable development objectives. Moreso, there have been pockets of non-international armed conflicts that are in some ways tied to religious beliefs and cultural values on access to natural resources such as land and water. This paper addresses how to train law students to embrace and contribute to the emerging field of religion and environmentalism. Such training would equip law graduates to (a) have a good understanding of the contemporary social, economic and political context of environmental governance and sustainable development laws; (b) appreciate the interlinkages between law, religion and environment at a theoretical and practical level; and (c) be better equipped to maximise the opportunities and resolve tensions that may arise from mainstreaming legal principles, including human rights and justice, in advancing sustainable development goals, including environmental sustainability. , , CurriculumDevelopment, MENA region, Legal Education,

The widening occupational space of jurists: differentiation and stratification of Danish jurists (1974–2019)

ABSTRACT This paper joins the discussion on differentiation and stratification of legal professionals through the lens of Danish law graduates and the evolution of their careers from the 1970s. Using register data, we analyse the job positions and wages of six cohorts 20 years after their graduation. This enables us to sketch an overview of, on the one hand, the professional spaces the law grads occupy at a specific point in time, and on the other, gain insight into the overall trajectories of the different cohorts, as well as the more specific trajectories of different professional groupings. These groupings are then examined in terms of their wages and corporate income to get an understanding of the degree of stratification of each group within each cohort, and thereby the social hierarchy structuring the cohort.

Higher legal education in Ukraine: vectors of reforms

It is indicated that the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which has been going on for the third year, and the progress of European integration processes taking place in our country, require overcoming challenges in the field of higher legal education. One of the important such challenges is the increase in demand from employers for qualified graduates of higher educational institutions who have modern theoretical and practical training in the fields of tax, administrative, contractual, economic and corporate law. At the same time, there is a high demand among employers for specialists who specialize in the field of corporate relations for legal support of the business activities of international corporations working in the agricultural and other sectors of the Ukrainian economy; participation in international and national arbitration and commercial courts in the consideration of corporate disputes in the interests of companies that do not fulfill their obligations in favor of counterparties that maintain relations with the aggressor state or sanctioned persons; judicial protection of corporate rights of foreign and domestic investors; protection in international arbitrations of the interests of Ukrainian business companies that supply material property for the Armed Forces of Ukraine in case of violation of their obligations to them by foreign companies; participation in legal proceedings regarding the recovery of funds and other assets from sanctioned persons in favor of Ukraine or its business entities, etc. The article examines ways of reforming higher legal education in the conditions of armed aggression of russian federation against Ukraine and its European integration into the European Union. The current requirements of employers for law graduates of higher educational institutions are analyzed. The proposed vectors of reforming the educational process, in particular, from the corporate law course, through the introduction of innovative educational programs that meet international world standards, including EU requirements in the field of higher legal education. The need to develop and use interdisciplinary educational programs for the training of lawyers is substantiated. It is recommended that a separate section in these programs provide for the teaching of a corporate law course. Suggested topics from this course include, in particular, corporate law under martial law; adaptation of Ukrainian corporate legislation to the legislation of the European Union - status and prospects; the accession of Ukraine to the European Union as a factor in its victory over russian aggressor country and other topics. A comparative analysis of EU directives and regulations and Ukrainian legislation regulating corporate relations was made.

Assessing law students in a GenAI world to create knowledgeable future lawyers

ABSTRACT Assessing law students has always been a challenging task, but the introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, compounds the problems already caused by increased student numbers, contract cheating and budget cuts in universities. As GenAI rapidly develops, legal educators must find ways to accommodate, and even incorporate, GenAI into their curricula and assessments so that law graduates can understand its capabilities and limitations within legal practice. Simultaneously, many jurisdictions, including Australia, have legislative obligations to deliver law graduates who satisfy legal knowledge-based “eligibility” requirements for admission into practice. This article introduces a knowledge framework for managing GenAI in legal education consisting of three pillars: Substantive Legal Knowledge, GenAI Ethics Knowledge, and GenAI System Knowledge. The authors argue this framework can assist legal educators in designing optimal assessments in an AI-disrupted world. The article employs the knowledge framework to examine the experiences and views of Australian law students’ engagement with GenAI outputs in completing a compulsory legal ethics assessment in 2023. This empirical case study demonstrates that effective assessment design incorporating GenAI can enhance law student and graduate outcomes despite the ongoing challenges for legal educators and the profession associated with GenAI.

Clinical Legal Education and Social Justice: Assessing the Impact on Law Students in a Law Clinic in Nigeria

One of the core missions of clinical legal education is to expose students to the legal needs of society while enhancing access to justice for indigent members of the community. This, the University of Ibadan Women’s Law Clinic (UI-WLC) does by offering pro bono legal aid to indigent women in the community who lack access to justice. In the process, law students are engaged in clinic experiences involving interaction with real clients and conduct of outreach programs for different target audiences within the community. Through these experiences, it is expected that professionalism, empathy, equality and and a sense of fairness is inculcated in the students. Students trained with these values ideally have a strong sense of what is just and fair, and are able to choose careers and lifestyles that support their immediate communities. Since its establishment, the UI-WLC has groomed over 960 law students; and currently has about 120 students spread over third, fourth and fifth year students, however, an assessment of the impact of social justice values which the clinic seeks to impart to the students through the training they receive at the clinic has not been carried out. This research seeks to achieve this aim through a mixed methods approach. Using a quota sampling method, 90 law graduates were identified and interviewed through self- administered pre-tested questionnaires and in-depth interview guides. Two sessions of focus group discussions were also conducted. Findings in this study revealed how participation in the UI-WLC through various activities and programs has had both positive and negative outcomes for the students. It also showed an aspect of group dynamics which has to be improved upon at the UI-WLC to better equip students to impact the society.

The impact of specialised translator training and professional experience on legal translation quality assurance: an empirical study of revision performance

ABSTRACT The relevance of translation and law degrees as pathways to professional legal translation is the subject of persistent debate, but there is limited research on the relationship between legal translators’ backgrounds and competence levels in practice. This study compares the revision performance of several groups of institutional translators (44 in total) according to their academic backgrounds (legal translation specialisation, translation degrees with no legal specialisation, law degrees or other degrees) and legal translation experience (more or less than three years). The scores of justified, missing and over-corrections, among other indicators, corroborate the crucial impact of legal translation specialisation and subject-matter knowledge in ensuring legal translation quality, while experience can serve to partially fill certain training deficits. Qualified translators with a legal specialisation stood out as the most efficient revisers, followed by law graduates, translation graduates without a legal specialisation and other translators. A subsequent holistic assessment of the revised target text yielded results globally in line with the revision scores, as well as mixed perceptions of the target text as potential machine output. The findings support the added value of legal translator training, and are of relevance for translator recruitment and workflow management. They also challenge the rationale behind ISO 20771:2020 qualification requirements.

Investigating and Understanding Library Data Services to Support Law Graduates Data Literacy Competencies: A Conceptual Framework

Data literacy is an important ability to have in our modern knowledge culture. Data literacy and its application are gaining traction in society. We need to consider a wide range of tools for accessing, converting, and altering data. It is also necessary to grasp relational databases (such as MS Access), statistical software tools (such as SPSS, STATA, Minitab, MS Excel, and so on), data manipulation techniques, and data presenting software tools (such as MS PowerPoint and MS Excel). The increase of available data offers distinct issues for library services. How might libraries help, for example, with reskilling efforts to build a data-driven mindset? This study examines the investigation and understanding of library data services in order to support law graduates' data literacy competencies. This article discussed data literacy and its connections to statistical literacy and information literacy. It also offers data library competencies for law graduates and demonstrates how to become data literate.

Missing the Wood for the Trees: How Indian Legal Education Fails to Deliver the Professional Lawyer?

In this work, we compare the Indian and American legal education systems, to argue that the former lacks the toolkit to impart professionalism among its graduates. ‘Professionalism’ in American literature means the internalization of legal skills along with values of public service. The formation of these cognitive attributes through law school and formative years is known as ‘professional identity formation’. We refer to the American discourse of professionalism and argue that Indian legal education should switch to the American Bar Association output-based model, thereby creating a clear goal but flexible pathways, allowing for faculty-led innovation in courses, curricula and pedagogy. We also underline other aspects of Indian legal education like faculty shortages and barriers between academia and profession as causative factors preventing the growth of professionalism in law graduates, which may eventually disadvantage them in the global workplace. We call for reform and discourse of the basic attitudes of the Bar Council of India and the legal educators.

THE IMPORTANCE OF GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES IN PREPARING LAW STUDENTS FOR LEGAL PRACTICE

The gap between university legal education and legal practice significantly contributes to the view that most law graduates are substantially underprepared for entry into legal practice. Consequently, this article suggests that an improvement in the training of law students, as far as preparing them for entry into legal practice is concerned, is necessary. It is argued that this preparation is supported by transformative constitutionalism – that is, after graduation, graduates will be expected to possess certain attributes that will ensure that they are ready for entry into legal practice. It is therefore necessary to investigate and evaluate such graduate attributes, as well as to ascertain the source of the need for such attributes. In this article, the Qualification Standard for the LLB degree, as the source stipulating the standard of proficiency for which the LLB degree should prepare graduates, is also discussed. This is followed by an evaluation of a baseline study into graduate attributes from the perspective of employers. Holistically seen, the qualification standard, as well as the graduate-attributes study, should provide an indication as to whether the LLB degree is adequately preparing law graduates for entry into legal practice. The qualification standard is set out and evaluated on whether, and to what extent, it aligns with the arguments put forth in this article. The research in this article has been conducted by way of a desktop study.

Law beyond the glass skyscrapers: Encouraging law students to embrace regional life and practice

The shortage of law graduates outside the city raises adverse implications for access to justice for Australian regional, rural and remote (RRR), and Aboriginal communities. This article discusses an extracurricular educational initiative implemented at the University of Adelaide Law School in 2021 and 2022 geared towards contributing to a solution for this problem. The initiative consisted of a series of immersion and exposure trips throughout regional South Australia for law students with interest in pursuing regional employment. This article discusses the initiative, the pedagogical rationale as well as the impact of the program, providing a blueprint for other universities considering similar initiatives.

A Bottom-Up Analysis of Societal Belief in Judicial Independence in Russia

The study represents a first effort to explore societal sources of support for judicial independence under authoritarianism. Contemporary Russia, which is characterized by legal dualism, under which judges pay close attention to the governing law when resolving mundane cases but routinely twist this law beyond recognition in politicized cases, presents an ideal case study. Drawing primarily on two national representative surveys, fielded in 2008 and 2018, the author finds that a majority of Russians believe their judges to be under the control of political officials. Higher education and prior court experience are key predictors of skepticism. The study complicates the relationship among these factors by singling out Russians with legal education. Despite their high levels of knowledge and experience, law graduates are more likely to believe in judicial independence than other university graduates. This suggests the importance of drawing a contrast between those with profound knowledge, such as lawyers, and those with superficial knowledge. Thanks to their educational socialization and deeper understanding of the messy reality of courts, Russian lawyers are more forgiving of the courts’ shortcomings.

Social justice in the Curriculum of Legal Education: Quo Vadis?

Objective: The purpose of this study is to This writing brings up the study on what is necessary to be included in the conventional curriculum of legal education to be able to produce law graduates who can be agents of change in the social construction of social and justice that is impaired. Method: The research methods used are conceptual approach, socio-legal approach, and hermeneutic to portray and analyze, and also to dissect the problems in curriculum of legal education and social justice education in particular as an attempt to answer the problems of law in the society. Results: Legal education is one of the vehicles to achieve the socially just society through the infusion of values and social justice study in the learning curriculum of law in law schools so that the institutions of legal education can create reliable profiles of graduates in practicing law in a sense that these graduates hold legal and social capacity to construct a socially just society.

Designing in students’ training in the field of law

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, there is an opinion among leading employers that only 8 % of professional educational organizations graduates are fully prepared to perform their job duties. Modern economy, especially in the stage of import substitution and sanctions, requires a strong and highly qualified competitive employee. Modern vocational education has special requirements, it needs transformation. Professional competencies of modern graduates continue to be the center of attention. Continuous development of techniques and technologies requires mobility, flexibility, and timely actualization from professional education. The study analyzes experience of Law project training of students as a way to increase the demand for law graduates in labor market. The analysis has been conducted on legal specialists training.

Nation-builders and market architects: How social origins mold the careers of law graduates over 200years in Norway.

This paper examines the types of work that jurists have historically undertaken and maps how opportunities for legal practice have been shaped by social origins across three centuries: after constitutional independence in the mid-1800s, during industrial capitalism in the mid-1900s, and at present-day advanced capitalism. I analyze historical archive data on law graduates from the 19th and 20th centuries in combination with administrative registry data from the 1990s onwards and employ correspondence analysis to explore how social backgrounds shape careers, considering transformations in class structures and the changing significance of juridical expertise over time. Within each period, jurists have served in very different roles including those that craft and cater to the institutional make-up of the state and the markets. My analysis shows that the impact of social origin on occupational outcomes has undergone significant changes, mirroring shifts in the broader social structure; from the importance of legal and political capital (within regional jurisdictions) in the 19th century to the significance of economic capital as the main structuring principle, but also a greater significance of cultural capital, in contemporary times. The ability to reach the most powerful positions among law graduates-within the polity in the 19th century, and the economy in the 21st century-has been differently structured by origins. I argue that expansion of the student body, the declining standing of the university, and heightened differentiation of the social structure and the juridical field have made intimate familiarity with the business world pivotal for forging mutually beneficial alliances between jurists and the increasingly dominant capitalist class. Today, a select group of jurists have managed to connect with and contribute to the rising power of private capital. Thus, the historical tale of jurists cannot be accurately captured by notions of uniform descent from national power structures.

Life as a Kiwi at the English Bar

In honour of Professor Smith's status as a member of the English bar, this article provides an insight into life at the English bar from the perspective of a New Zealander who has practised in England as a barrister for over 20 years. The author describes how the English bar and barristers' chambers operate, and her own path to becoming a King's Counsel, including some of her most memorable cases. The author graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in the mid-1990s with a BA and LLB(Hons), and was awarded the Chapman Tripp Sheffield Young prize for the top law graduate in her year. After completing the LLM at the University of Cambridge (and gaining the highest mark in her year), she worked for two years as a solicitor at Clifford Chance in London before transferring to the bar, where she has practised from Blackstone Chambers ever since. This article is an adaptation of a lecture given at the Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law in September 2022.

Visual communication technology on identifying consumers with functional cognitive impairment

BackgroundPatients with cognitive impairment have great inconvenience in their cognitive, recognition, and activity abilities, specifically manifested in memory disorders, attention disorders, perception disorders, and learning disabilities, which greatly hinder their communication, communication, and life activity abilities. The use of actively oriented intervention treatment methods in research has an improved effect on patients.Subjects and MethodsFirstly, 48 patients with cognitive impairment in a certain hospital were selected and randomly divided into a control group of 24 cases and an experimental group of 24 cases. Secondly, medication treatment, nursing, and rehabilitation treatment were taken, and the experimental group was supplemented with music therapy and the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA). The trial lasted for 8 weeks. Finally, SPSS23.0 was used for data analysis and t-test.ResultsThere was no significant difference in basic information and cognitive impairment between the two groups before intervention (P>0.05). After 8 weeks of intervention treatment, the total LOTCA score of the experimental group was significantly better than that of the control group (P<0.001). The results showed that cognitive impairment improved after rehabilitation treatment, and there was a lack of time observation intervention for subsequent life cognition and motor function.ConclusionsThe use of music therapy as an adjunctive therapy in research has significantly improved the condition of patients with cognitive impairment but has not significantly improved their life skills, motor function, etc. The research sample still has limitations and the intervention time is short. Further research is needed to follow up and explore treatment methods, treatment time, and other aspects.AcknowledgementZhongnan University of Economics and Law Graduate Research Innovation (No.202311106).

Deliberative Experience and the Civic Aspirations of Legal Education

AbstractAs law graduates wield significant influence in public life, law schools’ responsibility for cultivating students’ civic capacities and dispositions remains an important but often neglected project. Taking up this project, this article traces a thread of deliberative democratic aspirations within legal education scholarship and explores the potential of participation within law schools’ own political processes for realising these ideals. To do so, it examines law students’ experiences of an experiment with deliberative democracy’s leading institutional innovation – the deliberative mini-public – and demonstrates the ways in which participation fostered deliberative capacities, a more collective orientation, and increased confidence. Ultimately, the article illustrates the mutually reinforcing nature of civic and legal education, affirms law schools’ broader role within society and offers both theoretical and practical insights into the place of democratic innovation within the law school.

The Role of Digitalization in Enhancing Legal Competencies of Sharia Economic Law Graduates: A Case Study of graduate users in South Kalimantan

Abstract: This study aims to identify the needs of graduate users and also show the strategies adopted by the Sharia Economic Law Study Program at Antasari State Islamic University in designing innovative curriculum and learning processes to produce graduate standards that are under the needs and desires of users. The informants in this study were graduate users who were selected based on the criteria of having alumni working in both government and non-government (private) agencies in South Kalimantan. The results showed that the needs of graduate users of the Sharia Economic Law Study Program include integrity, professionalism, foreign language skills, information technology skills, communication skills, cooperation skills, and self-development skills. In addition, the integration of technology in the learning process has also increased efficiency and effectiveness in transferring legal knowledge and skills to students.Keywords: Legal Competence, Sharia Economic Law, Graduate Users, Science Integration. Abstrak: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengidentifikasi kebutuhan pengguna lulusan dan juga menunjukkan strategi yang ditempuh oleh Program Studi Hukum Ekonomi Syariah Universitas Islam Negeri Antasari dalam merancang kurikulum dan proses pembelajaran inovatif untuk menghasilkan standar lulusan yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan dan keinginan para pengguna. Informan dalam penelitian ini adalah para pengguna lulusan yang dipilih berdasarkan kriteria adanya alumni yang bekerja baik di instansi pemerintah dan non pemerintah (swasta) yang ada di Kalimantan Selatan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kebutuhan pengguna lulusan terhadap Program Studi Hukum Ekonomi Syariah meliputi integritas, profesionalisme, kemampuan bahasa asing, kemampuan teknologi informasi, kemampuan komunikasi, kemampuan kerjasama, dan kemampuan pengembangan diri. Selain itu, integrasi teknologi dalam proses pembelajaran juga telah meningkatkan efisiensi dan efektivitas dalam mentransfer pengetahuan dan keterampilan hukum kepada mahasiswa.Kata Kunci: Kompetensi Hukum, Hukum Ekonomi Syariah, Pengguna Lulusan, Integrasi Ilmu.

The untold story of the first Italian-Turinese female lawyer: Netflix’s The Law According to Lidia Poet

ABSTRACT The Netflix nineteenth-century period drama The Law According to Lidia Poet presents the adventures of a young Italian law graduate in her pursuit of solving murder cases. Lidia Poet is not a fictional character, but very little is known about her journey to become a lawyer- and the series only adds a little to this knowledge. This review has several aims. First, it will reconsider the implications of reel history. Second, it will add some context to Netflix’s introduction of Lidia Poet and compare her experiences accessing the legal profession with her English colleagues, such as Bertha Cave and Gwyneth Bebb. Attention will be paid to the courts’ rejections of their appeals.

中国应用型本科高校法学教育内涵式发展路径探析

Chinese applied undergraduate universities are the main body of cultivating socialist legal talents and play an important role in the law education system. However, due to the failure to export legal talents needed by society, the employment of law graduates has been depressed, and the contradiction between supply and demand of talents has existed for a long time. In recent years, law education has shifted from expanding the scale to improving the quality, and it has become a consensus to take the road of connotative development. Application-oriented undergraduate law majors should avoid homogeneity in the connotative development, locate their positions according to the economic and social development of the region where the universities are located, highlight the training direction of application-oriented and compound legal talents, and reform practical courses to build a team of teachers integrating knowledge and practice to achieve the goal of talent training.