Preparing Law Students for Global Practice: An Innovative Model for Teaching Lawyering Skills and Social Justice in a Large Enrolment Law Course

Abstract

This article describes how the authors collaborated to create a large enrolment law course that had equally weighed pedagogical goals: to teach Thai law students how to read, understand and communicate legal terms using English, to teach social justice and to teach fundamental lawyering skills employing clinical legal education methodologies. The article demonstrates how such goals can be accomplished in large enrolment courses in which students are unfamiliar with participatory learning models. In the context of discussing innovations in a 300 student Legal English course, the article illustrates how a law course can both impart knowledge and help students develop a wide range of lawyering skills as well as develop their identity as thoughtful, reflective, professional practitioners for whom social justice is a value, regardless of their professional goals.