Presenter: Craig Laverick
For a number of years, there has been a growing expectation that technology will be incorporated into the teaching of law at university level. This is partly due to a growing need for graduates to leave law school as ‘digital lawyers’; with ‘specialist, technical and transferrable skills’. Significantly, it is also expected that our digital law graduates will have the necessary skills to keep up with evolving technological trends, and therefore be able to use any new programme or equipment that is brought out in the immediate future. However, recent studies into the curricula of UK law schools have suggested that there is a gap between what is expected and what we are delivering, and therefore we are failing to prepare our students for digital lawyering.
This paper examines these concerns and asks (and hopefully addresses) the following questions:
- What specifically is expected of law graduates when it comes to their ability to use technology in legal practice?
- How can we use technology-enhanced teaching/learning in our classrooms to deliver on these expectations?
- How do we strike an appropriate balance between using technology in the classroom to teach the law, and not just teaching students about tech?
In addressing these questions, and examining ongoing research in the area, it is hoped that we can work towards bridging the gap between legal practice and legal education; thus preparing our students for digital lawyering upon graduation, and in the future.
