The Moral Imagination and the Legal Life by Bankowski Zenon;Mar Maksymilian del; & Maksymilian Del Mar

Author:Bankowski, Zenon;Mar, Maksymilian del; & Maksymilian Del Mar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 5.2 SIMPLE environment

Currently at Strathclyde, students on the Diploma are formed into groups of four at the start of the academic year, each one being a simulated law firm. Sited on the south bank of the Clyde, the town acts as a complex simulation of the reality that surrounds actual legal transactions. For example, in the Personal Injury Negotiation Transaction (PI), the firms act for clients, as either the injured claimant or as the insurance company’s solicitors, in a personal injury negotiation that lasts almost a full semester (12 weeks in total). In order to negotiate the case, they need to engage in fact-finding by contacting characters and institutions within the virtual community, pooling the information they obtain. They then need to carry out legal research on issues such as liability and quantum, set out their negotiation strategy and perform the negotiation, either by email or through a face-to-face meeting. Discussion forums for both sides support students in the complex process of carrying out this legal transaction – a visiting professor, who is a solicitor specializing in personal injury practice and who is on both forums, answered student queries and provided information. Postgraduate students, trainees and newly-qualified solicitors are trained to answer emails in the guise of any one of around 12 different fictional characters and to give the appropriate information to students. They are supported by an online forum where the PI practitioner is present (the author of the scenario and many resources). If they wish, students can meet as a firm with either this tutor or another negotiation tutor to discuss strategy and performance before they negotiate with the other side. This meeting is in effect a form of small-group, salon learning. It is voluntary: there are no face-to-face interventions at all, apart from an introductory and general feedback lecture (students can also, if they wish, obtain feedback on performance from file assessors at the end of the project).

This is only one of a number of simulations that use the SIMPLE environment. There are at least another six transactions on the programme. Nor is this form of learning applicable to legal professional programmes only. It has been used successfully in undergraduate law programmes at Warwick, Northumbria and glamorgan University Law Schools, and in postgraduate Masters programmes and vocational programmes. It is not jurisdictionally specific: it is currently being used by the Law Workshop of the Australian National University and the University of New Hampshire Law School in the USA. It has also been used successfully, in the initial JISC/UKCLE SIMPLE project, in postgraduate Architecture and undergraduate Management Science modules.

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