Putting Learning at the Centre of Legal Education

This book analyses legal education from a pedagogical perspective. Using Canada as a casestudy, it sets out the dominant teaching and evaluation methods used in law schools and explains the factors that influence individual law teachers’ pedagogical choices, including their conceptions of teaching, institutional factors such as class size and course type, institutional cultures that insufficiently value teaching and learning, and student expectations and evaluations. The work suggests that learning should be at the centre of legal education, and demonstrates how the lack of explicit attention to learning has many significant consequences. It proceeds to recommend ways in which we can improve legal education by putting learning at the centre of it, both at the levels of the individual teacher and the institution. Whether law programmes aim to educate citizens and jurists or train lawyers, improving student learning will ensure that all of those aims are met. It is hoped that putting learning at the centre of legal education might also alleviate the legal profession’s concerns about legal education, numerous law professors’ dissatisfaction with the teaching aspect of their job, and students’ lack of motivation and satisfaction.

This book analyses legal education from a pedagogical perspective. Using Canada as a casestudy, it sets out the dominant teaching and evaluation methods used in law schools and explains the factors that influence individual law teachers’ pedagogical choices, including their conceptions of teaching, institutional factors such as class size and course type, institutional cultures that insufficiently value teaching and learning, and student expectations and evaluations. The work suggests that learning should be at the centre of legal education, and demonstrates how the lack of explicit attention to learning has many significant consequences. It proceeds to recommend ways in which we can improve legal education by putting learning at the centre of it, both at the levels of the individual teacher and the institution. Whether law programmes aim to educate citizens and jurists or train lawyers, improving student learning will ensure that all of those aims are met. It is hoped that putting learning at the centre of legal education might also alleviate the legal profession’s concerns about legal education, numerous law professors’ dissatisfaction with the teaching aspect of their job, and students’ lack of motivation and satisfaction.