Steps to generate (digitally enhanced) change in legal education

Information exchange the old way*

My last two posts have featured a developing argument in favour of designing legal education within a 'digital context'. Initially I argued that the degree requires a shift from the silos of disciplinary categories to a more contextual approach to teaching and learning law. I then suggested that the imperatives of contemporary (and future) digital technologies and their integration into the fabric of our lives demanded a re-imagining of law and legal education within a digital context. Others have articulated this in different ways. See for example Paul Maharg; the IT Countrey Justice; Kris Greaves; and Richard Grant and Marc Lauritsen in the US context.

So far these are justifications for changing what we do but without much direction in how we might go about it. I'm cognisant of the reality for many academics that a lot of change is just hard work. However I believe that it is our job, our responsibility to keep abreast of change, to evaluate, to experiment and to lead. In this post I suggest a few steps that each of us can surely take to kick off a more wide-ranging change within the discipline.

Legal education in a digital context

Technology of the past? Or for the future?*

In my last post, I reflected on the future of legal education. I focussed on the importance of learning law in broader contexts and one of those contexts I called digital literacy. It was this idea that attracted the most attention on Twitter, and one that I am starting to work with in our own curriculum.

While I am not an expert in digital technologies, I am interested in thinking progressively about the law and justice, and consequently about legal education. Others are expert in digital pedagogies, e-publishing, legal informatics, information visualisation, altmetrics, coding, e-discovery, intellectual property, e-commerce, e-research and the future of legal practice. I seek to draw together these spheres of thought to develop a coherent discipline-specific and overarching rationale for digital literacies to inform the law curriculum.

In this post I will develop the idea of digital literacy in the law curriculum. I will explain what I think it might mean as a broader context for the study of law: as a lens through which to develop knowledge, skills and attributes central to the discipline.

The future of legal education

Are lawyers prepared for the future?*

At the 2014 Australasian Law Teachers' Association conference, I will be participating in a plenary panel discussing 'Creating a Better Future for Legal Education'. In this post I outline some of my thoughts on this topic, in the hope that readers might share their own views and challenge my own.

My focus here will be on where I would like legal education to go in the next 10 years, and what changes legal academics need to make now to achieve that vision. In short, in my view legal education must challenge the existing silos of doctrinal specialisation and embrace the broader context of the law. This aligns with calls to break down barriers between university disciplines themselves, to deal with the 'big problems'.

Buying a book: How hard can it be?

Books as things no longer?*

The news this week that ebooks purchased from Barnes & Noble will self-destruct upon the expiry of the purchaser’s credit card, again raises the question of what exactly is an e-thing, and what are we buying.

I’ve written before about the nature of virtual goods at law, and whether they constitute property or not.  The issue here is related.