![handle is hein.journals/unswform2020 and id is 1 raw text is:
Review: Imperatives for Legal Education Research
REVIEW: IMPERATIVES FOR LEGAL EDUCATION RESEARCH.
THEN, NOWAND TOMORROW (ROUTLEDGE, 2020)
SIMON RICE*
Review of Imperatives for Legal Education Research:
Then, Now and Tomorrow (Ben Golder, Marina Nehme, Alex Steel and
Prue Vines (eds), Routledge, 2020, ISBN 978-1-138-38780-5)
A fact I enjoy sharing is from David Weisbrot's invaluable monograph
Australian Lawyers: 'In New South Wales it was not until 1968 that yearly
admissions to practice tipped in favour of university graduates'.1 Until then, the
path to legal practice was principally by way of apprenticeship; many if not most
law teachers were practising lawyers, and 'legal education' was simply what they
did, which was deliver lectures and administer examinations.2
In that context, there wasn't much by way of 'legal education research'. In
Australia, the Journal of Professional Legal Education began only in 1983,
followed by the Legal Education Review in 1989. In England, The Law Teacher
began in 1967. But whether recently or for a long time, it is unsurprising that much
of what is written about legal education is about practice, experiment and
innovation in teaching. As Fiona Cownie says in the volume under review, writing
'which focuses on the improvement of practice performs a valuable function'.3
Kate Galloway, Melissa Castan and Alex Steel detail that value: such writing
addresses
the efficacy of legal education to serve society and the profession, while employing
and advancing contemporary educational imperatives and methods ... [it] functions
at the intersection of higher education, the law school, the legal profession, the law,
the community and law students.4
* Professor of Law, University of Sydney Law School.
1 David Weisbrot, Australian Lawyers (Longman Cheshire, 1989) 72, citing Committee of Inquiry into
Legal Education in New South Wales, Legal Education in New South Wales (Bowen Report, 1979) 184.
2 See David Barker, A History of Australian Legal Education (Federation Press, 2017) 45-6.
3 Fiona Cownie, 'The Reception of Legal Education Research in the (Legal) Academy' in Ben Golder,
Marina Nehme, Alex Steel and Prue Vines (eds), Imperatives for Legal Education Research: Then, Now
and Tomorrow (Routledge, 2020) 12, 21.
4 Kate Galloway, Melissa Castan and Alex Steel, 'Towards a Taxonomy of Legal Education' in Ben
Golder et al (eds), Imperatives for Legal Education Research: Then, Now and Tomorrow (Routledge,
2020) 120, 126-7.
[2020] No 1
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/unswform2020&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most