Disintermediation

Disintermediation is a concept well understood in almost all industries. At its simplest, it refers to the process by which intermediaries in a supply chain are eliminated, most often by digital re-engineering of process and workflow. It can often result in streamlined processes that appear more customer-focused. It can also result in the destruction of almost entire industries and occupations, and the re-design of almost every aspect of customer and client-facing activity. To date, legal education in particular has not given much attention to the process. In this article I explore some of the theory that has been constructed around the concept. I then examine some of the consequences that disintermediation is having upon our teaching and learning, and on our research on legal education, as part of the general landscape of the digital media churn; evaluate its effects, and show how we might use aspects of it in two case studies that are, effectively, versions of the future of legal education.     

Learning in Law Annual Conference Website – A Review

There is pressure to increase the substantive content covered in the business law curriculum. Yet, a content-laden curriculum risks students taking the “surface” approach of rote learning sets of disjointed legal rules without any real grasp of the relevant legal concepts involved or how legal knowledge can be applied to solve the dynamic and untidy problems they will face in their impending business careers. Drawing on relevant educational and legal literature, this article presents a case for more problem-based learning (PBL) to be used in undergraduate business law courses. It suggests that a hybrid form of PBL has the potential to promote deeper and more self-directed learning. PBL also provides an opportunity to make learning the law a more relevant, motivating and authentic experience for business students. Such an improved learning experience is likely to better prepare business students for the legal challenges they will face in their future careers.     

Negotiating the Web: Legal Skills Learning in a Virtual Community

The web is a powerful medium for simulation and role play. It can thus be used for transactional learning, provided that the activities are sufficiently interactive and are designed to support the transaction. This article focuses on the use of web simulation to facilitate learning in Personal Injury negotiation. The underlying model of the simulation is constructivist. Students were divided into 'firms' and negotiated with each other over several months using virtual offices and a web-based virtual community. The results, both qualitative and quantitative, prove that the web can be used successfully in a number of forms of legal skills learning. The results also reveal the need to provide not only integrated resources for learning on the web, but also to support students' divergent learning in simulations and enable their social construction of knowledge within such web-based environments.     

Through a screen,darkly: Electronic legal education in Europe

Abstract

Electronic legal education involves the use of information, communication and instructional technologies to enhance students’ learning of the law and to provide law teachers with environments and tools for teaching the law. With the fast growth of the Internet many Law schools and Law faculties are moving their education and training into web environments. This may open new ways of teaching and learning the law by providing students with an environment in which they can manage legal information and legal knowledge for their personal professional use. However, it is clear that throughout Europe there are divergent as well as convergent uses of the web and IT This article explores some of the issues inherent in this, and suggests a number of projects that would enable ICT in legal education to facilitate the aims of the Sorbonne‐Bologna process.     

Law,Learning, Technology: Reiving Ower the Borders

Serious consideration of our students' learning requires us to engage with the theoretical constructs of other disciplines, some of which have much to tell us about how we teach law, how we might teach it more effectively; how our students learn and what they understand as learning. This interdisciplinary understanding is an essential component in the dialectic between theory and praxis of teaching and learning, and the law. If this is true for what might be termed more traditional learning methods, it is even more the case for computerbased educational interventions. In computer-based learning, the management of learning on many levels becomes critical to educational success, and the understanding and application of interdisciplinary theory plays an important role in the design and development of materials and in the learning events themselves.