The editors of the Journal of Legal Education welcome articles and reflections on the methods of law teaching in different legal cultures.
Law is taught as an undergraduate/first degree course in much of the world, and as a graduate/postgraduate course in some places, as in the United States. Legal education is considered by some to be a professional degree, designed to teach students skills and analytical tools that can be applied across a range of practice areas. Elsewhere, it is more akin to a field of the humanities, where the intellectual discovery of arguments, theories and schools of thought is the object of learning, rather than the practice of law. Different approaches to legal education commend different teaching methods. Some are the product of tradition; some are designed to develop specific professional skills in an evolving profession. Even the subject matters of legal education vary across cultures. In many ways, the law–and legal education–are very much situated in a local political, social and economic context. Yet, in a globalized world where legal professionals in training increasingly seek a multinational and multicultural education, there are likewise opportunities for law teachers to share methods and pedagogical approaches.
This issue calls upon legal educators worldwide to share experiences, experiments and theoretical perspectives on the value of different approaches to legal instruction. These might include different forms of experiential education, models for integrating legal practice and theoretical learning, novel ways to engage students with legal doctrine, building interdisciplinarity in the legal curriculum, formats for skills-oriented courses, and more. Also of interest are full-scale imports of programs, such as the creation of PhDs in law in the United States or the creation of a US-style Juris Doctor program in China.
Authors are invited to submit their manuscript by August 31, 2022 to be considered for this themed issue.
Submissions are subject to the journal’s usual peer-review process. Submissions must be exclusive to the Journal of Legal Education, and the editors make every effort to provide a decision in a timely fashion, typically less than a month after submission. For general submission information, please visit jle.aals.org. Please note that the JLE uses the Bluebook style of citation. Questions may be directed to [email protected].
