[1995] 3 Web JCLI
Research Reports on Legal Education

Number One: - 
The Association of Law Teachers Legal Education Project.

The ALT Legal Education Project was founded in 1991. It is co-ordinated by Phil Harris of Sheffield Hallam University and Pat Leighton of Anglia Polytechnic University, and is composed of a group of legal education researchers from all parts of the UK and all sectors of further and higher education. Active researchers form the Steering Group for the Project. and the Steering Group meets twice yearly, usually in February and October.

The ALT project was established, in part, to break the mould of research in legal education by aiming to establish a coherent, dynamic and developmental approach. The project was also founded on the basis that research findings would be effectively disseminated, and discussions are in hand to set up an on-line database facility which is being co-ordinated by Sheffield Hallam University and the Law Technology Centre at Warwick University, with funding from the ALT and the Committee of Heads of University Law Schools.

The Project has attracted funding for a number of its constituent projects, from the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct, from the Committee of Heads of University Law Schools, from law publishers, the legal profession and a variety of educational institutions. 

Readers may already be aware of two recently - completed studies which arose from this Project. The first , which came out in 1993 is entitled A Survey of Law Teaching is published by the ALT and Sweet & Maxwell and is by Phil Harris and Steve Bellerby with Patricia Leighton and John Hodgson. This reported the results of a survey which covered a wide range of topics, including courses, student numbers and characteristics, law teachers, physical resources, student performance and career intentions, the teaching of legal skills and of European law. The second study, by Patricia Leighton, Tom Mortimer and Nicola Whatley, is entitled Today's Law Teachers: Lawyers or Academics? and is published in 1995 by Cavendish. It provides an account of law teachers in higher education, looking at their age, sex, background, qualifications and interests. It also examines how important teaching is to law teachers and what else goes to make up their professional life, before going on to look at what law teachers feel most strongly about and what changes they think might improve their professional experience. Another interesting aspect of the Project was the research into 'A' Level law undertaken by Vera Bermingham and Chris Hibbert, the results of which were published in two articles in The Law Teacher during the Summer of 1993.

Members of the Project are currently engaged in a number of other projects, including:-

 a study of legal education in Scotland and Northern Ireland, being conducted by Aidan O'Donnell of Glasgow Caledonian University

 a study of the europeanisation of law degrees by Sue Wall of Derby University 

 study of recruitment criteria and methods for access to law courses by Julian Webb of the University of the West of England and Vera Bermingham of Middlesex University  

For further information, contact the ALT Legal Education Project Liaison Officer:- 
Julian Webb, Faculty of Law, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol BS 16 1 QY
email <js-webb@uwe.ac.uk>