UK Law Schools Research Articles

Access to business attire as a widening participation issue in UK law schools

ABSTRACT Despite the suit being the very iconography of the lawyer, access to business attire is a curiously overlooked aspect of academic work on our most marginalised aspiring legal professionals, namely widening participation (WP) students. This article seeks to address that omission. Taking an interdisciplinary approach drawing on fashion and textile studies, sociology, urban geography, cultural and gender studies, it frames the issue of formal attire and access to the same explicitly as a WP issue. It discusses the “hidden curriculum” surrounding professional dress, maps out the subtle and unexpected ways in which certain students can be excluded from the textiles marketplace, and problems within that marketplace itself. While recognising that WP categories can often intersect, the article takes a thematic approach, grouping the analysis around disability; gender; fast fashion, sustainability and class; the influence of the pandemic; and graduation. Although clothing loan schemes and limited bursaries are understandable solutions, the argument proposed is that these reproduce and exacerbate existing inequalities, and that choice, ownership and access to materials of quality which recognise the full funding implications of a professional wardrobe are essential if WP students are to have parity of access to correct and adequate attire with their non-WP peers.

Starting gendered career pathways early? Differences between women and men students in optional module composition among UK law school undergraduates

ABSTRACT Women’s inequalities in the legal profession are an enduring concern. Women are over-represented in junior positions and under-represented in senior roles, especially in large corporate firms. This pattern is compounded for women from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds in comparison to both men of all ethnicities and white women. This is informed not by ability, but by masculinity-privileging working cultures and practices. Women legal academics are also under-represented in senior roles. However, less is understood about women law students’ experiences, particularly in the UK and in recent research. This article reports on a new project which explored undergraduate student allocation on module options at York Law School, University of York, UK. There were marked gender differences in student composition in just over half (36) of the 66 different optional modules between 2014 and 2022. Women were under-represented on modules relating to commercial, corporate and financial law and over-represented on modules relating to family, health, social welfare, gender and sexuality. While there are many possible causal factors, there is clear resonance with the literature on gender inequalities in the legal profession and legal academia. The curriculum and careers guidance implications are considered, and a research agenda proposed.

Is using the term wellbeing with students a mistake? Evaluating a wellbeing intervention in a UK Law School - suggestions for repositioning strategies to address the impact of deficit-discourse

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates a curriculum-based and student co-created approach to improving student wellbeing and psychological resilience in a law school. The pilot employed an enhanced pedagogic framework informed by an evidence-based psychological literacy model compatible with self-determination theory (SDT). Level 4 students were introduced to a simple psychological model for recognising the role of emotion regulation in successful learning and the relevance to this of developing supportive connections and a sense of belonging within an inclusive learning community. Student “Wellbeing Champions” received further peer support and leadership training referencing this model and were then supported in developing the role primarily through community-building initiatives. Staff were also issued with a bespoke “Student Success” framework, encouraging them to support student motivation and success by incorporating activities for building relationships, creating a sense of community and belonging with safety to make mistakes, and scaffolding understanding of assessment and feedback. Recognising the limiting positions offered within a medicalised or deficit-focused narrative about wellbeing and mental health, the findings evaluate the effectiveness of the repositioning strategies represented within the pilot interventions, including a focus on learning success and leadership.

The value of a law degree – part 4: a perspective from employers

ABSTRACT Rising costs, an increasingly competitive graduate jobs market, and the introduction of alternative routes to highly skilled employment, have led many to question the “value” of higher education courses. This is the fourth in a series of papers which examines the value of a law degree from a range of perspectives: Part 1 explored theory from the marketing discipline in an attempt to identify the full range of possible value components; Part 2 analysed the online prospectus pages of over 50 UK law schools to understand which aspects of value were being articulated to the market; and Part 3 reported on life history interviews conducted with past and present students from a UK university, ultimately presenting a theory of value from a student viewpoint. This final paper provides a perspective from employers. It reports the findings of a qualitative study comprising 13 semi-structured interviews with people who have responsibility for trainee solicitor recruitment in England and Wales. The data reveals that whilst these influential individuals are guided by their own diverse range of value perceptions, they appear to reflect a common view that the legal profession is changing, and legal education needs to respond.

Gender, Sexuality and the Law School

This article will focus on exploring gender and sexuality within the law school. Largely silent from Twining’s ‘grand tour’, these two areas are now key parts of the law school landscape, having become firmly established as key elements of law school discourse and legal scholarship in the years since Blackstone’s Tower was published. The Blackstone’s Tower of Twining’s imagination was, Twining suggested, ‘holding up a mirror to a familiar world’, and it was a world that made only passing reference to gender and no reference to sexuality. Feminism is mentioned twice in 244 pages, whilst queer—still emergent within legal scholarship in 1994—is not referenced at all. A once radical and vital text can perhaps appear antiquated to today’s readers. Yet, this should not be regarded as a criticism of the text but rather a reflection of how the law school and legal scholarship has transformed since 1994. Whether in the number of gender and/or sexuality and law courses that now permeate through the UK law school, or the extraordinary growth first of feminist scholarship and more recently queer scholarship, the law school has been profoundly impacted by socio-legal shifts in gender and sexuality research. This is scholarship that does not merely serve as ‘another’ theory or an addendum to jurisprudence, for these theories have offered the ability to reshape the very architecture of the law school and to re-imagine Blackstone’s Tower for what it is and what it can be. This article seeks to explore that journey and offer a glimpse of future possibilities.
 Keywords: legal education; gender; sexuality; queer; feminism; gay; pedagogy; LGBTQ; teaching.

Maintaining Academic Standards and Protecting Student Interests in UK Law Schools Following Covid-19

Maintaining Academic Standards and Protecting Student Interests in UK Law Schools Following Covid-19

“They just have more of a vibe of being ‘one of us’”: undergraduate law student perceptions of PhD tutors

ABSTRACT This study examines undergraduate law students’ perceptions of tutorials delivered by PhD tutors. Enrolment in UK law schools has increased in recent decades and PhD tutors are playing an ever-expanding pedagogical role in undergraduate degree courses. At the same time, the implementation of the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework and the growing credence given to the results of the National Student Survey have increased UK universities’ focus on achieving consistently high teaching standards and improving the student experience. This makes a study seeking to ascertain undergraduate law students’ perceptions of PhD tutors timely and relevant. The empirical data collected via a questionnaire and then mapped against the existing pedagogical literature on effective teaching reveals students’ generally favourable view of PhD tutors and bolsters the view that PhD tutors are engaging in effective teaching practices. The respondents indicated that, in their experience, PhD tutors communicate clearly, employ novel teaching techniques, help them prepare for exams and set high academic expectations while being enthusiastic, approachable and relatable. While this research primarily draws on the experience of law students at the University of Leicester, the findings are applicable to similar institutions and to all current PhD tutors and PhD students who are considering teaching.

Of Density and Decline: State of the Nation Reflections on the Teaching of Environmental Law in the UK

In this paper, we use data from the top 100 UK law school websites and survey responses from environmental law scholars to show a decline in the provision of environmental law teaching in the UK and stasis in student numbers over time. We explore perceptions that environmental law is soft, asking if this is because environmental law scholars are seen as liberal ‘tree huggers’ and/or because environmental law is thought to be more about values than about law. We look at employability as a mission of modern universities, asking if studying environmental law at university can only ever be a ‘nice to have’ in this context. And we look at the feminisation over time in those who teach environmental law, asking if this says something broader about our discipline. We ask more questions than we can answer, but hope this piece is the start of an important debate.

Portraits of women of the law: re-envisioning gender, law and the legal professions in law schools

AbstractThis paper explores law school portraits of women in law as a way to challenge the over-representation of men in law. Portraiture is a long-standing means by which professions celebrate worthy individuals and reproduce institutional values. In relation to law and the legal professions, portraits are predominantly of men and link law with masculine attributes, contributing to the visual and actual marginalisation of women in law's past and present. The paper begins by setting out why portraits of women exhibited in UK law schools are an important way to challenge gender inequalities in law. It then provides a snapshot of the gender dimensions of university and law school portraiture in the UK, before analysing the Inspirational Women of the Law exhibition at Newcastle Law School as a method of disrupting the dominant gendered visual order in law, and bringing into focus women in legal history.

A study into situated learning through community legal companionship

Against the background of the current graduate skills agenda and its considered importance in relation to a UK law degree, this article considers the value of the CLOCK Community Legal Companion scheme, a collaborative social justice project involving law students, legal services providers, third sector advice agencies and law courts based in two areas of the country namely; Canterbury and Brighton. In recent years, the UK Government has significantly cut civil legal aid in areas such as housing, family and welfare benefits, with a view to easing the strain on the deficit. These cuts have been opposed by many, including lawyers, who have raised concerns that the most vulnerable within our communities could be left unrepresented in court and as a consequence an undue burden placed on our civil justice system. CLOCK therefore provides an opportunity for those within our communities who are caught in the so-called ‘justice gap’, to gain support and guidance from law students when they attend court unrepresented. The findings of a small-scale research project into the perceived benefits of Community Legal Companionship, conducted at two UK law schools; Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Brighton, indicate that the socio-legal experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate law students presented by such initiatives, are also valuable in terms of legal skills acquisition. The research shows that the scheme not only enables law students to use their legal knowledge for the benefit of their local community, but also through analysis of their own perceptions, demonstrates how such a community-based project can provide undergraduate law students with valuable employability skills. Experiences of setting up a Community Legal Companion scheme, together with an overview of how the scheme operates in the Canterbury and Brighton County Courts, as well as students’ reflections of participating as Community Legal Companions drawn from the empirical qualitative research, are evaluated in this article.

Understanding Research Impact in Law: The Research Excellence Framework and Engagement with UK Governments

Understanding how impact occurs is critical if research is to effectively inform law, policy and practice. Existing scholarship on impact has theorised the way impact occurs, but there is a dearth of information about practice, especially in law. This article examines the pathways to impact that legal scholars experience, and specifically focuses on the concept of engagement. Studying the REF 2014 data and, through surveys of researchers named in case studies and research directors in UK law schools, the article explores how researchers engage with UK governments, providing insights into access, processes, challenges and resources. It shows that successful engagement and impact in government is far more dependent on chance than is appropriate or necessary and contests the dominance of the ‘research impact’ model, arguing that ‘researcher impact’ provides a better framework. The results suggest that the enhancement of impact requires a better understanding of the interaction underpinning it.

Participatory Research and the Medicalization of Research Ethics Processes

This article illustrates how medicalized epistemologies and methodologies significantly influence the institutional ethical review processes applied to sociolegal research in law schools. It argues this development has elevated particular renderings of mental distress and objectivity to universal definitions, potentially placing a straitjacket on methodological innovation. The authors use two case studies from their experiences as researchers in a UK Law School, alongside a small-scale survey of sociolegal researchers in other UK law schools, to illustrate the problems that can arise in securing ethical approval for sociolegal research, in particular with participatory research designs that mobilize ideas of mental distress and objectivity not premised on conventional medical understandings. The article develops key proposals that the authors feel merit further inquiry. First, there should be a comprehensive evaluation of how the jurisdiction of ethical review for sociolegal research is established. Second, sociolegal scholarship can contribute to debates concerning the discursive, material and procedural constitution of institutional ethics approval processes. Finally, we might rethink the nature of, and relationship between, university-based research ethics committees and National Health Service research ethics committees, by placing both within wider ecologies of capacities for ethical decision-making.

Pro Bono and Clinical Work in Law Schools: Summary and Analysis

This article describes the results and implications of a survey carried completed in 2014 and looking at the nature and extent of pro bono and clinical work in UK law schools. The survey is one of an ongoing series conducted every 2–3 years on behalf of the influential NGO, LawWorks (The Solicitors Pro Bono Group). The findings of this, the most recent survey, shows clearly that more law schools than ever are engaged in pro bono and clinical initiatives – a trend that has been increasingly evident over the past 15 years. To date over 70% of UK-based law schools have clinics. Not only is it the rule rather than the exception to do so but the numbers and scope of clinics in law schools that participate have grown considerably. These developments were reported to an international conference in 2015 (GAJE, Turkey) and delegates there concluded that such a survey would have global appeal and that work should now be carried out with a view to implementing such an initiative. This would have the potential to encourage the growth of pro bono work and might influence policy beyond law schools amongst government and the legal profession – leading to improved levels of legal education and increased access to justice.

The importance of teaching dispute resolution in a twenty-first-century law school

ABSTRACTCivil justice reviews over the past 20 years have encouraged the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and particularly mediation. Mediation is arguably now becoming more mainstream in terms of dispute resolution process choice. In some instances law changes have been introduced requiring parties in dispute to consider using mediation; similarly, lawyers have an ethical responsibility to provide advice to their clients about the range of dispute resolution processes available. What is lacking however is a corresponding appreciation of the changing attitudes to the teaching of dispute resolution in the majority of UK law schools, where the promotion of adversarialism within the curriculum appears to remain the focus as the primary and only method of dispute resolution. The article argues that this is unreflective of current attitudes and thinking towards dispute resolution in most common law countries, where litigation is no longer necessarily the primary dispute resolution process of choice. Whilst there was token appreciation of the importance of mediation advocacy and its inclusion recommended within the Bar Practice Training Course (BPTC), the recent Legal Education and Training Review was silent on any suggestions about the inclusion of dispute resolution based curriculum content at any stage of legal education in England and Wales. The article will explore the historical development of lawyers’ attitudes to dispute resolution within the civil justice arena and academics’ teaching of curriculum associated with it in UK law schools. The article will pose questions on why recent legal history suggests that law schools should now perhaps take a more socio-legal approach to their curriculum content and embrace the teaching of dispute resolution as a defined subject area for the twenty-first-century law school.

Enhancing Interactivity in the Teaching of Criminal Law: Using Response Technology in the Lecture Theatre

Educational theorists have long recognised the limitations of the traditional didactic lecture as a basis for student learning and engagement with degree-level problems. Nonetheless, such lectures still dominate timetables within UK law schools. A common criticism of the lecture as a mode of teaching is that there is little scope for interaction between the student body and the lecturer, a marked change in educational environment for students fresh from secondary-level education. In an effort to address this issue, we undertook an action-research project using TurningPoint classroom response technology to generate interaction between the lecturer and students during large-cohort law lectures. This system allowed students to respond in real-time to multiple-choice questions posed in a lecture, thereby offering an alternative to more traditional methods of encouraging class participation in lectures, such as the Socratic method. In our study the use of these devices was trialled in first and second year undergraduate law lectures at Newcastle University (UK). Subsequently, students’ views on the use and benefits of the technology were investigated through questionnaires and focus groups. The results of these surveys suggest that such technology can enhance the student experience of large-cohort lectures.

Teaching professional ethics through popular culture

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.

Speaking in the classroom: the impact of gender and affective responses on oral participation

The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) Report highlights development of oral communication skills as essential to a legal undergraduate education and one of the top 25 skills and attributes required by all legal service providers. One area in which these skills may be developed within the law school setting is group discussions, which form part of the small class tutorial. A significant body of literature (primarily drawn from the US experience) has, however, identified that female undergraduate students participate in law school class discussions less than male students, and respond to law school by experiencing greater feelings of alienation and loss of confidence than their male peers. Drawing on the themes identified in the US literature, this paper presents the findings of a small-scale empirical study into issues of oral participation in the small class setting involving final year undergraduate students in a UK law school. It reports two key findings. First, the most significant barrier to participation is a lack of confidence. Second, female students are more likely than male students to report considerable anxiety at participating orally in a tutorial setting. The paper posits that female students are more likely to experience a negative affective response to oral communication in a small group setting. Disconnecting the typical tutorial function of “knowledge-checking” from oral communication skills development may serve to encourage increased oral engagement in classroom discussions by every student.

Assessing Law clinic – the use of digital patch text assessment as an alternative to traditional portfolios

<p>The paper presents the use of ‘patch text assessment’ as an innovative assessment method being ‘a series of integrated patch text assessments which are ‘stitched’ together with a final ‘patch’ to form a complete coherent piece of work. Each patch adds to the overall assessment.’ The use of patch text assessment is presented within the context of a year long research project which aimed to assess the use of digital media to enhance the use of patch text assessment within a law clinic module in UK Law School. This paper presents a brief outline of the context of clinical legal education in relation to its application within the Derby law clinic module, outlining the current influences within the field of higher education that guide the assessment process and context. The paper then briefly defines ‘traditional’ portfolios and the concept of patch text assessment before considering these each in turn more fully in relation to their advantages and disadvantages in terms of assessment strategy. The paper then progresses to outline the objectives of the research project and the methodology applied to achieve these. This is followed by an analysis of the project findings to conclude as to the effectiveness of digital media to enhance the use of patch text assessment and any benefits derived from this approach in comparison with ‘traditional’ portfolios for assessment.</p>

Embedding employability in assessment: searching for the balance between academic learning and skills development in law: a case study

Employability related indicators and measurements are now a fact of life for UK law schools. Despite the omnipresent spectre of the employability agenda, there has been relatively little consideration given to the relationship between assessment and employability. The traditional teaching method used at law schools relies heavily on participatory small group teaching. This lends itself to developing oral communication skills. Surveys of employers show oral communication to be one of the most highly valued employability skills. Research, however, suggests that law students do not feel that oral communication skills are given enough emphasis on law programmes. Using the example of a new approach to assessment of the European Law module at the University of Bolton, which adopts an oral assessment alongside a traditional written exam, consideration is given to the benefits and practicalities of embedding employability in assessment. The extent to which this approach can be reconciled to liberal ideals is considered alongside pedagogical rationales for the assessment. In the final section, the article goes on to analyse student feedback on their perception of different assessment methods and employability. The article concludes by suggesting that, by focusing on pre-existing features of a liberal legal education, employability can be successfully embedded in assessment.

Peer mentoring for international students in a UK law school: lessons from a pilot case study

This qualitative study discusses the impact of a support network for international students of culturally diverse backgrounds using a peer mentoring scheme. The scheme focused on facilitating cultural integration in the international student community in Newcastle and sought to engender a cooperative community among new students. Data obtained from focus groups revealed the success of the mentoring scheme in facilitating integration of first-year international students, engendering a community of international students in the school, and subsequently increasing the percentage of passes in the first-year examination while reducing the attrition rate.