A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

364 ❘
Teaching in the disciplines
CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND
There are a number of features of law as a discipline of study in higher education that have
had a significant impact on the curriculum and the way in which it is taught. Many of
these are shared with other discipline areas and include, for example: the impact of
universities with different missions; the tension between teaching and research; and
balancing knowledge and skills. However, in recent years perhaps the most influential
factors as far as law is concerned have been the academic/vocational divide, the level of
resource available to law schools, and the pressures, allied to attempts to counter the
charge that law is ‘elitist’, of widening access.
The academic/vocational divide
Law as an academic discipline is a relative newcomer to the academy. Traditionally, study
at university was always allied to training for the legal professions and it was not until
the early to mid-twentieth century that it started to establish itself as an independent
academic discipline (see Twining, 1994). Perhaps as a consequence of this, the discipline
sometimes appears to be uncertain as to its status and focus, leading to ongoing debates
and disagreements about the purpose of legal study at undergraduate level. Specifically,
to what extent should the curriculum cater to the needs of the professional bodies? Many
law academics feel strongly that it is not the place of the law school to prepare students
for practice and that law is an academic subject in its own right which can be studied in
isolation from any vocational concerns or influences. Others feel equally strongly that
law cannot be properly understood without an appreciation of how it is applied and
practised in the real world. Both arguments have their merits but are so vociferously
stated and defended that they are each in danger of restricting the development of
alternative positions which seek to draw on the strengths of both, combining academic
rigour with an understanding of law in its practical context and recognising that to fully
engage with law as a subject it has to be studied in all its forms, both theoretical and
applied.
Professional bodies
Lying behind these debates about the purpose of legal education is the role of the Solicitors
Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board in regulating the undergraduate law
degree, which is currently represented primarily through the Joint Statement on
Qualifying Law Degrees (Law Society/Bar Council, 2004). The main requirement of the
Joint Statement is that the Foundation of Legal Knowledge subjects must be taught for a
degree to have qualifying status. These subjects are:
1 Public law
2 Law of the European Union
3 Criminal law