ALT News
- 26 January 2018: ALT submitted a statement to the Legal Services Board (LSB) on the SRA Application for Regulatory Change to education and training, further endorsing and expanding on the joint statement with SLS, CHULS and SLSA on the SRA's Application to the LSB for approval of the Solicitors Qualification Exam (SQE). These submission highlight seven major problems with the proposed SQE1: (1) Unprecedented, unproven and without justification; (2) Limiting not widening access; (3) Increased cost; (4) Quality; (5) Absence of risk assessment; (6) The absence of a requirement for a Law Degree or Graduate Diploma in Law (or the equivalent); (7) Prematurity. The ALT’s further concerns are linked to equality and diversity; impact on the Law School Curriculum and the knock-on effect on areas of practice; and the timing and scope of the SRA’s application.
- 10 January 2018: nominations are now open to the Routledge/ALT Teaching Law with Technology Prize. It rewards and champions innovation in teaching and learning, with a £1,200 cash prize. The competition is free to enter, and is open to all law teachers in the UK. Application deadline is 5 March 2018.
- 8 January 2018: The ALT submitted a response to the BSB consultation on the Curriculum and Assessment Review. The full text can be found on ALT Policy page.
- 4 December 2017: Proposals are now invited for papers and posters to be delivered at the Association of Law Teachers Annual Conference, taking place at Keele University during 26-27 March 2018. The full call for papers is available from the conference website: www.keele.ac.uk/alt2018
- 9 June 2017: OCR Law Conference 2017, organised in association with the ALT, took place for the second year at the Supreme Court in London. The ALT was represented by Robert Hiscocks and Liz Polding, both from BPP Law School, who spoke about teaching Tort Law and how the ALT could assist the delegates in developing their own teaching practice. Tort is a new element to the A-level syllabus (Component 2), to the development of which the ALT contributed. The OCR’s new A level in Law is a linear qualification with three exams taken at the end of two years study. The teaching on the new syllabus begins in September 2017.
- 9 May 2017: The ALT issued a Press Statement about the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) consultation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), questioning the quality of the SRA’s analysis of the received responses. This was reported by a number of media outlets, including the Law Society Gazette, Lawyer2B and Legal Cheek.
- 9 January 2017: The ALT submitted a response to the SRA consultation 'A new route to qualification: the Solicitors Qualifying Examination’ (2017). The full text can be found on ALT Policy page.
- 3 Nov 2016: The 2017 Annual Lord Upjohn lecture ‘Is the legal landscape changing? Reflections from the UK and South Africa’ took place on Thursday 3 November 2016 in The City Law School. It was delivered by Dame Linda Dobbs DBE, who, following a successful career at the Bar, in October 2004 became the first non-white high court judge in the UK. In 2013 Dame Linda stepped down from the Bench to pursue her various interests, including training of judges and lawyers internationally (in particular, in the Caribbean and Africa), and commercial mediation. She is a patron of a number of charities (including two in Sierra Leone and two in South Africa), holds five honorary doctorates and sits on a number of advisory committees.
- 10 June 2016: On Friday 10 June 2016, the OCR Law Conference, organised in association with the ALT, took place at the Supreme Court in London. The conference was well received by the attendees, who were UK teachers from as far and wide as Truro, St Helens and South Shields.
- 12 April 2016: The 2015 annual Lord Upjohn Lecture by Prof Rebecca Huxley-Binns ‘Tripping over thresholds; capturing the legal learning process in outcomes’ has been published in the Law Teacher. You can find full video recording of the event here.
- 23 March 2016: It is confirmed! The 2017 ALT Annual Conference 'Foundations and Futures' will take place at the School of Law, University of Portsmouth, during 10-11 April 2017. The main conference dinner will be held on the historic HMS Warrior 1860. The call for papers will open on 12 September 2016, and conference registration will commence on 12 October 2016.
- 22 March 2016: the 2016 ALT Annual Conference ‘Promoting Collaboration’ took place during 20-22 March 2016 at the School of Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. It examined the ways in which legal educators and trainers could work together and explored collaborative links between legal education and the legal profession, law students, other professions and the community. For more about the conference, please click here.
- 4 March 2016: ALT submitted a response to the SRA consultation ‘Training for Tomorrow: Assessing Competence’. The full text can be found on ALT Policy page.
- 3 February 2016: ALT are delighted that five out of six finalists for the 2016 Oxford University Press Law Teacher of the Year Award are our members! Congratulations to Jo Boylan-Kemp, Steve Evans, Lucinda Ferguson, Yvonne McDermott Rees and Lisa Webley: this is a fantastic acknowledgement of their passion and commitment to legal education. The OUP Law Teacher of the Year Award has been running since 2008. Previous winners include Luke Mason (2014) and Becky Huxley-Binns (2010), both of who are actively involved in the ALT Committee.
- 2 February 2016: We have extended the deadline for the Stan March bursaries to 15 February 2016. For more information, see Grants / Awards.
- 13 October 2015: The ALT Committee is seeking expressions of interest from universities wishing to host our annual conferences in 2017 and 2018. The conference usually takes place during the Easter break each year. Expressions of interest, written on the ALT Tender Template, should be sent to the ALT Chair, Professor Chris Ashford, by Friday 11 December 2015.
- 29 October 2015: We are delighted to announce that the Call for Papers and Posters for the 2016 ALT Annual Conference Promoting Collaboration is now online! The Conference will take place during 20-22 March 2016 at the School of Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne. It will examine the ways in which legal educators and trainers can work together and will explore collaborative links between legal education and the legal profession, law students, other professions and the community (amongst others). Paper abstract submission deadline is 11 December 2015; while poster proposal summaries can be sent until 1 February 2016. As always, Stan Marsh Prizes will be awarded for the best contributions.
- 13 November 2015: The 2015 Lord Upjohn Lecture was delivered by Professor Rebecca Huxley-Binns the Chair of the 2015 QAA Law Subject Benchmark Statement Review and former Chair of the Association of Law Teachers. The lecture Tripping over thresholds; capturing the legal learning process in outcomes explored the nature of law as a learned discipline.
- 7 October 2015: the summary findings from the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Teaching & Learning in the Disciplines research project, in which the Association of Law Teachers participated with 22 other professional and subject bodies, have been published online. The Report highlights the key challenges faced in higher education across the various disciplines by students, staff and institutions, and considers the future demands of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL), employability skills and Internationalisation. The HEA supported this project as part of its programme of research with learned societies and professional bodies mapping the current range of disciplinary and subject-specific issues in higher education teaching and learning. The facts presented and views expressed in this report are, however, those of the authors and participants in the research, not necessarily those of the HEA.
- 12 June 2015: The Association’s journal,The Law Teacher: The International Journal of Legal Education, won the Legal Journals Award at the recent British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) Annual Conference. More details can be viewed here.
- 30 March 2015: We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Stan Marsh Prize for Best Paper at the 2015 Annual Conference was Patricia Pattison (Texas State University)
- 30 March 2015: We are delighted to announce that the winners of the Stan Marsh Prize for Best Poster at the 2015 Annual Conference were Jeanette Ashton, Alison Bone and Juliet Turner (University of Brighton) for their poster entitled ‘Responding to the LETR: the development of communication skills and commercial awareness’.
- 30 March 2015: We are proud to once again partner Routledge to offer the Routledge/ALT Teaching Law with Technology Prize. The 2015 winner was Michael Doherty (University of Central Lancashire). You can read about his project, OpenLawMap, which is a user-generated geographical map of sites of legal significance, here.