International Journal of Public Legal Education

Editorial

Sarah Morse — 2022-10-17

From the Field: Law-Related Education as a Branch of Civics Education in the United States

Latia Ward — 2022-10-17

Law-related education is “education to equip nonlawyers with knowledge and skills pertaining to the law, the legal process and the legal system, and the fundamental principles and values on which these are based.” Law-related education is a branch of civics education although there is overlap between law-related topics and civics topics because both areas include the study of the Bill of Rights, the study of the function of government institutions, and the study of one’s rights with respect to voting, jury duty, etc. Often, the terms law-related education and civics education are used interchangeably. However, there is a trend for law-related education to be associated with violence prevention. In this article, I provide an overview of the origin of law-related education, a discussion of a law-related education program that I developed for K-12 students, my reflections on implementing the program, key resources that I found during my planning, an overview of state laws that address K-12 law-related and civics education requirements, an analysis of North Carolina’s civics education requirement, and an overview of civics education programs outside the K-12 classroom.

The Journey To Legal Capability: Challenges for Public Law from Public Legal Education

Abiodun Michael Olatokun — 2022-10-17

Citizens whose rights are infringed by a public authority are often unable to attain a court judgment to challenge those adverse decisions. The trite explanation is the most compelling; judicial review is a prohibitively expensive process. This high cost of litigation combined with the fees charged by public lawyers can make fighting for one’s legal rights inaccessible to those without independent means or publicly funded legal representation. There is no question that this is a complete explanation for many instances of unmet legal need, but this paper seeks to raise another important barrier to access to justice that is seldom discussed in the recent literature.

Legal capability is defined as the knowledge, skills and confidence required to participate in legal systems and to deal with one’s legal issues. It is thought to be improved through programmes of Public Legal Education (PLE). Whilst the author reiterates that legal education is no replacement for state-funded legal advice for the poor, PLE is a crucial tool in helping people to challenge public decision making.

The Power of Teaching Police through the Prism of Human Rights

Sean Molloy — 2022-10-17

As part of their training in England and Wales, police recruits are required to engage with a complex mix of law, often with no prior background in legal education. In addition, they must learn, understand, and apply the content of a highly descriptive national police curriculum (NPC). The combination of these tasks, amongst other things, can limit the extent to which police training can cultivate critical thinking, a central objective of efforts to professionalise the police in recent times. In this article and based on the author’s experience of teaching law to police recruits, the challenges of the current approach to police training are explored through Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed and what he terms the banking model of education. After drawing connections between this model and the current approach to police training, a human rights-based approach to police teaching is offered as an example of Freire’s preferred problem-solving method. Central to this model is utilising the views of recruits regarding the role of the police in balancing rights to help understand the law as it exists.

The Art of Adapting Open Educational Resources for Street Law: Copyright the Card Game a Case Study

Jane Secker — 2022-10-17

The Street Law community is well practiced in designing bespoke activities for particular community groups. Starting with a blank canvas can often be the easier forma. How often do we consider inviting our Street Law students to adapt works, games, and materials designed for one purpose or audience (i.e. not Street Law) and transform them into a different format? This paper highlights a case study involving undergraduate law students adapting an openly licensed card game originally designed for use with academic librarians, and using it as a tool to raise awareness with sixth form students about the laws and issues of copyright.

UK and Ireland Street Law Conference 2022 Review

Ruth Nwosu — 2022-10-17

The UK and Ireland Street Law Conference brings together academics, lawyers, students, and other Street Law enthusiasts to promote, support and celebrate public legal education (PLE) and the progress being made in this important field. Normally held annually, this was the first conference since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, taking place over the 7th and 8th April 2022 and hosted in Edinburgh by the Law Society of Scotland.

The conference was centred around Street Law’s commitment and desire in helping the lay person to ‘understand their rights and responsibilities in a world full of increasingly complex and obtuse legal systems.’ The ethos of the conference was to provide a valuable resource within the PLE community for those who were present across the two-day conference and for future guidance. As students and Street Law initiators, it was gratifying to be a piece and player on the chessboard - to interact, connect and understand the multitude of approaches to teaching and learning in a Street Law context. In accordance with the principle of collaboration and to promote open education, this article aims to collate the insightful topics and discussions from the key-note sessions. This article will then move on to discuss the value of the conference from the perspective of students as well as wider stakeholders in PLE programmes. Further, we will explore how the conference could be improved moving forward with suggestions as to how students and future lawyers and/or professionals, can contribute to PLE in the future.