Legal education

We need a stretch of the imagination and draw on a new basis the model of legal education.

A) In the education of a lawyer legal skills should have the same importance of legal knowledge.

B) In law schools students learn legal knowledge. Little time is spent learning legal skills.Alongside the teaching of legal disciplines (civil law, criminal law, etc.), it’s important to activate courses, workshops, clinics, role playing and simulations devoted to the different abilities: at least the more important as legal writing. More generally we can say that the university should move not by what teachers know (disciplinary knowledge), but from what students should know and be able to do after completion of studies.

C) We need to start thinking about teaching methods and legal skills. Legal knowledge is learned through language. Legal skills are learned through mechanisms such as observation, imitation, experience. The traditional lecture can not exhaust the range of teaching approaches. Alongside this there must be experiences that re-create the environments favoring the acquisition of skills.

D) We need to start thinking about didactic technologies and legal skills. The manuals are means to entrusting the acquisition of knowledge. Are also the only tool? The manual does not ensure the learning of ‘knowing how’. This objective can be achieved by innovative teaching tools such as virtual simulations.

E) Consideration should be given to assessment method that not only test the possession of legal knowledge but also the possession of legal skills.