Law Teacher and ALT Annual Seminar Prize 2023
Law Teacher and ALT annual seminar prize 2023, 6 September 2023
Assessment in Legal Education: towards an inclusive, diverse, and authentic strategy
Call for Papers
If you could change assessment methods in legal education to offer a more inclusive, diverse, and authentic experience for staff and students, what would you do?
We are hosting a one-day conference at the University of Leicester on 06 September 2023 to explore this very issue.
Assessment in legal education is a perennial topic of discussion amongst law teachers and is commonly featured in the academic literature. However, despite assessment being a relatively well-trodden subject, there have been several recent catalysts causing assessments in legal education to change significantly:
- the Solicitors Regulatory Authority no longer regulates assessment methods in law schools in England and Wales, meaning that a more diverse strategy is now possible
- the global COVID-19 pandemic forced assessments to become solely online
- environmental considerations drive a more sustainable assessment strategy within Higher Education Institutions
- the impact of artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGTP) on assessments
- the implementation of SQE
Additionally, in the wake of the global pandemic, law schools must now decide how to assess their students. Whether that is returning to the status quo and relying on traditional in-person closed book assessments and coursework as the predominant assessment method, moving wholly online following the changes brought about by the pandemic, or a middle-ground somewhere between these two positions.
Given these deliberations, we will bring legal academics and other key stakeholders to discuss how assessments in legal education within England and Wales may be reformed to offer students a more inclusive, diverse, and authentic assessment experience. The proposals/papers discussed at the conference will, individually and as a whole, make a significant and theoretical contribution to the field of legal education research. We will invite contributions around the above-mentioned contemporary themes.
Applications
We invite potential contributors to submit a 250–500-word abstract/proposal (Word file or PDF) outlining how you would change assessments in legal education to ALTseminar2023@leicester.ac.uk by 23 June 2023.
Successful contributors are to submit a 1,500-word proposal/brief by 04 August 2023. Where appropriate, we also encourage contributors to submit examples of assessment questions within their proposal/brief. All contributions will be shared with delegates in advance of the conference.
On the day of the conference, each proposal will be workshopped for an hour. Contributors will briefly introduce their proposal for 5–10 minutes. Following this, an invited respondent will talk to/respond to the proposal/paper for 10–15 minutes, followed by an open-roundtable discussion led by the co-chairs.
The organisers are unable to provide funding for any cost related to participation at the conference. Attendance is free, and a seated lunch and refreshments will be provided throughout the day.
If you are interested in attending, but not contributing, please ALTseminar2023@leicester.ac.uk by 23 June 2023. Places are limited so that we can facilitate the roundtable discussion format.
Publication opportunities
Following the conference, we are planning for each proposal/paper to feature in a special issue of The Law Teacher.
Contributors will develop their proposal into an article (word limit of 6000–8000 inc. footnotes).
Respondents will formally reply to each submission (word limit of 2000–3000 inc. footnotes).
Further details will be provided following the conference.