Full Description
This book explores one of the pressing questions in legal education today: how assessment can be reimagined to better support learning, promote equity, and reflect the realities of modern legal practice. The collection focuses on reforming assessment in legal education in England and Wales, aiming to promote more inclusive, diverse, and authentic assessment strategies that recognise assessment's role in driving student experience, engagement, and professional formation.
The book adopts a distinctive dialogic format where contributors outline proposals for redesigning elements of legal assessment, grounded in their pedagogical experience and responsive to concerns of fairness, accessibility, professional relevance, and student voice. Each proposal is followed by a commentary from an academic in a different jurisdiction, offering comparative insight and reflective critique. This structure brings international perspectives into conversation with domestic debates, highlighting shared challenges whilst identifying context-specific solutions across diverse legal education systems.
This volume will be essential reading for legal educators, curriculum designers, and academic administrators seeking evidence-based approaches to assessment reform. It serves academics in legal education, higher education policy researchers, and practitioners involved in curriculum development, whilst providing valuable insights for law schools internationally looking to enhance their assessment practices and promote more equitable learning outcomes. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Law Teacher.
Contents
Introduction 1. Developing a curriculum-wide assessment strategy 1a. A response to Kerin "Developing a curriculum-wide assessment strategy: Assessment in Legal Education Back to the future 2. Reassessing land law: introducing greater authenticity to undergraduate assessment and the challenges of innovation 2a. A response to Cahill-O'Callaghan et al "Reassessing land law" 3. Generative AI, law schools and assessment: where next? 3a. A response to Lorber: Do students need an AI toolkit? 4. Ipsative assessment - the legal journey, not the destination 4a. A response to Rhodes "Ipsative assessment - the legal journey not the destination" 5. Of babies and bathwater: in defence of the traditional essay 5a. A response to Guth and Shipton "Of babies and bathwater: in defence of the traditional essay" 6. There is no baby, just lots of bathwater: an argument against summative assessment 6a. A response to Cartwright's plea against summative assessment: The didactic aim of assessment
