Ephebagogy and Clinical Legal Education

This article will seek to examine whether if one of the reasons why Clinical Legal Education (CLE) is so effective as a teaching methodology is the age of the students participating with it. The perceived norm would be those students who are engaged in CLE will be predominantly aged between 18-25 years. The central thread of this article will examine ephebagogy as a teaching philosophy for educating this age group; discuss the main objectives of ephebagogy and explain how these align with CLE. This article will then explore whether ephebagogy can further enhance CLE as a teaching methodology and contribute to its ascendance to the fore front of legal education by drawing upon the accepted benefits of CLE and expand on the objectives and principles of ephebagogy as advocated by Sara Flowers

‘It’s both a blessing and a curse’: law firm attitudes to Qualifying Work Experience in England & Wales

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a published work that appeared in final form in [Asian Journal of Legal Education]. To access the final edited and published work see http://dx.doi.org/[doi journal link].With the advent of the Solicitors’ Qualifying Exam (SQE), Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) allows for flexibility in the journey to qualification as a solicitor in England & Wales that was not previously permitted by the Period of Recognised Training. This development was heralded as a lever to widening access to the profession, with the potential to assist those who may not have been recruited onto traditional graduate-level training programmes in securing a qualified legal role. This paper discusses the findings of empirical research conducted by the authors with a view to understanding the perceptions of, and attitudes towards, QWE of those responsible for recruitment in UK law firms. It reveals a friction between the perceived, and actual, value of QWE obtained via non-traditional routes and exposes the threat that law firm stances on QWE pose to the regulator’s aim of widening access to the profession

Qualifying Work Experience Guidance for University Law Clinics

In order to help law clinics navigate the new regulations, a small working group from CLEO have put together this draft guide to the QWE. In developing this guide, we recognise that the new routes to qualification are controversial and we are not endorsing or expressing approval for these routes to qualification. As an organisation, CLEO is committed to developing clinical legal education as a rich and innovative method for teaching law. Legal education, in particular for undergraduates, is about much more than qualifying as a solicitor and indeed many law graduates do not go onto qualify as legal professionals. However, we are aware that many of our members will be offering qualifying work experience, or may be asked by senior management to offer qualifying work experience and we therefore want to develop guidance for our members to assist with navigating the new regulations. This guidance is to assist university law clinics only, when encountering a student’s claim for QWE