The Calling of Law: The Pivotal Role of Vocational Legal Education

by Fiona Westwood (Editor), Karen Barton (Editor)

Overview

As one of the ’learned’ professions requiring advanced learning and high principles, law enjoys a special standing in society. In return for its status and rank, the legal profession is expected to exhibit the highest levels of honesty, trust and morality, the very values which underpin the legal system itself. This, in turn, entrusts to legal education a particular problem of addressing, not only the substantive elements of the body of law, but a means through which the characteristics of the ’calling’ of law are imparted and instilled. At a time when the very essence of the legal profession is under threat, this book calls for a realignment of the legal curriculum and pedagogies so as to emphasise the development of culture over industry; character over eloquence; and calling over skill. Chapters are grouped around the core content and key themes of Curiosity, Calling, Character and Conscientiousness, Contract, and Culture. The volume includes contributions from leading experts, drawn internationally and from other professional disciplines in order to present alternative approaches aimed at tackling common issues, providing insight, and provoking debate.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138247802
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/09/2016
Series:	Emerging Legal Education
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Fiona Westwood qualified as a solicitor in 1976 and practised for more than 20 years as a commercial lawyer. Since 2000, she has been involved in post-graduate vocational skills development where her particular areas of research, business and academic publications relate to practice leadership and management, professionalism and the development of professional judgement. In addition to running her own management consultancy, Westwood Associates, she is the Director of Continuing Professional Education, the School of Law, the University of Glasgow. Karen Barton has had a long-term interest in teaching and learning; e-learning; professional learning and the use of IT within legal practice, and as a result, has published widely and carried out a number of funded research projects in these areas. She has led a number of innovative teaching and learning projects involving transactional, web-based simulations as well as multimedia and webcast environments and is currently the Head of UH Online, the University of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Online Distance Learning. The editors have collaborated and published successfully together since 2004.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Karen Barton; Part II Calling; Chapter 1 The Global Contest for Legal Education, John Flood; Chapter 2 Vocational Legal Education — Its Pivotal Role in the Future of the Legal Profession, Fiona Westwood; Part III Character and Conscientiousness; Chapter 3 Calling, Character and Clinical Legal Education: Inculcating a Love for Justice from Cradle to Grave, Donald Nicolson; Chapter 4 Public Interest Vocationalism: A Way Forward for Legal Education in Canada, Richard Devlin, Jocelyn Downie; Part IV Contract; Chapter 5 Professions and their Social Contracts: A Basis for Teaching Lessons of Professionalism from Medicine, Sylvia R. Cruess, Richard L. Cruess; Chapter 6 Enabling Fitness to Practice in Medical Education, Sam Leinster; Part V Culture; Chapter 7 Collaboration: A Crucible for Cultivating Common Understanding in Professional Legal Education, Craig Collins, Suzanne Webbey; Chapter 8 Standardized Clients in Asia — University of Hong Kong's Experience, Wilson Chow; Chapter 9 Teaching Professionalism Online — An Australian Professional Legal Education Experience, Margie Rowe, Moira Murray; Chapter 10 We Must Make Law Students Client-ready, John Burwell Garvey, Anne F. Zinkin;