Legal education in Scotland

UKCLE in Scotland

As part of our nations strategy UKCLE supports activities of a country specific nature:

• events programme - we aim to organise two events in Scotland during each academic year; a conference on Enhancing legal education in Scotland took place in Edinburgh on 5 November 2009
• Nations Fund - support for initiatives in learning and teaching, including research and the development of resources with a Scottish flavour
• research projects - the UKCLE project on The pedagogic impact of law school sabbaticals was awarded additional funding in order to include two Scottish universities

In September 2009 we appointed our first Scottish consultant - Michael Bromby (Glasgow Caledonian University) will be working with us during 2009-10 on issues relating to legal education in Scotland. Michael is also a member of the Academy Scotland Practitioners Forum.

Services for law teachers:

• register with UKCLE to to receive our monthly e-newsletter, keep up to date with developments in legal education or get involved in UKCLE activities
• interested in attending an event outside Scotland? the Academy Scotland travel fund offers support for events organised by UKCLE and the rest of the Higher Education Academy network

Resources on legal education

• Legal education in Scotland in a rocky landscape: Scotland the Brave? - keynote address by Margaret Ross (University of Aberdeen) at the UKCLE conference in Scotland in November 2009
• The future of legal education, training and lifelong learning - details of the Law Society review; for more download Changes to the route to qualification (PDF file) and see Halfway to the Big Bang, an article outlining the changes
• Bucking elitism: access to law in Scotland - blog post from the Law Society on their approach to widening participation, 23 July 2009
• The changing role of the law school - article in the Law Society's Journal, 20 April 2009
• PEAT1 Community of Practice - community of providers of professional legal education
• The Scottish legal education context - outlines key learning and teaching issues
• A profile of Scots law students 2002-05 - summary of the findings of the Law Student 2002 project
• Vocational legal education in Scotland: a model of partnership in action - opening address at UKCLE's fourth Vocational Teachers Forum (2005)
• Quality enhancement the Scottish way - overview of quality assurance procedures and an introduction to the enhancement themes

Case studies:

• Using the SIMPLE application: introducing simulation learning at Glasgow Graduate School of Law and the University of Stirling (2009)
• Second guessing: is there a context for Second Life in legal education? - introducing virtual worlds on a legal IT module at Glasgow Caledonian University (2009)
• Getting started with e-portfolios: Glasgow Graduate School of Law (2008)
• Stopping to think: reflections on the use of portfolios - describes a pilot project into the use of portfolios at Glasgow Graduate School of Law (2006)
• Pathways to the Professions - profile of a widening participation initiative at the University of Edinburgh (2005)
• Presence, emergence and knowledge objects: user interaction in a virtual learning environment - describes the use of webcasts at Glasgow Graduate School of Law (2005)
• Virtual learning environments in action - using webcast lectures as a learning environment at Glasgow Graduate School of Law (2004)
• Legal and multimedia: enhancing student learning - creating multimedia resources for a legal skills course at Glasgow Graduate School of Law (2001)

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Law schools in Scotland

Our Directory of legal education in the UK includes an overview of learning law in Scotland and links to law schools.

Academy Scotland

Academy Scotland, the Higher Education Academy's Scottish arm, produces a regular newsletter and details of events in Scotland, and you can also follow Academy Scotland on Twitter. Its work is focused on a number of areas, including employability and personal development planning.

Academy Scotland also operates at the discipline level through its Practitioners' Forum. Currently the Forum is exploring three key work areas:

1) Discipline-specific aspects of the “Graduates for the 21^st Century” and “Lecturers for the 21^st Century” Enhancement Themes.

2) Revisiting earlier Enhancement Theme outcomes and putting a different (discipline) slant on them.

3) Staff and student discussions about learning and teaching issues: troublesome knowledge and threshold concepts.

Recent resources:

• Graduates for the 21st century, a presentation by Alastair Robertson at the UKCLE conference in Scotland in November 2009, with useful background on the changing nature of the student experience

Useful links

• Scottish Government higher education website
• Scottish Funding Council
• Universities Scotland
• Enhancement Themes - initiative aimed at enhancing the student learning experience by identifying areas for development
• Quality Assurance Agency in Scotland
• sparqs - supports student engagement in quality and the learning experience
• Faculty of Advocates
• Law Society of Scotland
• Society of Writers to the Signet
• Scots Law News and Scottish Law Reporter - weblogs
• Scottish Law Online - portal; includes a Scots Law Students Zone