writing – Public understanding of law

So, we near the end…

September 4, 2024 PeteLeave a comment

Of writing this book. Or at least, the draft I’ll submit!

What does it look like?

Intro- looking ahead to the book. Sets the context- the importance of law and the need for people to know it, challenges to the university and law school, engagement as one way to respond to both of those those areas. Underlying idea is the law school *can* respond to challenges, but in a systemic and co-operative way- a challenge in market environment…

History- a *very* broad overview of university and law school history, focusing on England. Highlighting the current challenges of neoliberalism, the liberal / vocational divide, and how that divide can be- and has been- transcended. Roles of the university and law school- teaching, research, engagement.

Engagement- again, a *very* broad history- of engagement this time. Defining engagement- connecting with the world, understanding the world, responding to the world. The public understanding of law as an aspect of engagement, with a closer look at public legal education and information. The wider institutional context of engagement- organisational systems, ideals and values, and options and choices. The delivery of engagement- ideals and outcomes, methods and people. The challenges of engagement. How engagement can be delivered. This chapter might be split up…

Public understanding of law- defining publics- as groups both created by issues and the work of law schools, and as creating themselves. How the law school connects with, forms an understanding of, and responds to publics. How the public experiences and sees the law. How the law school works with the law. What understanding the law is- using ideas of legal literacy, capacity, and capability. What delivering understanding aims at, what it looks like, and how you know it’s worked (or not…) This chapter might be split up…

Examples- drawn from various law schools. Includes law clinic and other areas *not* about public understanding of law, but PUL is the focus. Common elements are identified.

Model- drawing on institutional context and critical realism, broader issues are covered- structure. agency, culture. Focusing on engagement delivery, activity theory is adapted to look at elements from examples. The two are then connected. To see this in action, two imaginaries- the Hilltop and Riverside law schools- are used- looking at how they respond as institutions, and how they deliver engagement.

Conclusions- summary of the book, and some alternatives- ways of being a university (commons, co-ops) and of moving beyond the university.

Structure, ideas, panic

June 21, 2024 PeteLeave a comment

Why yes, I do go for a ‘lost electropop album title vibe’ for post titles 🙂

Couple of months to deadline and the MS is a mix of the nearly done and the 3 : ??? stages. My process, such as it is, remains constant.

At this stage, new ideas float in and out. Especially about the structure and the ‘golden thread,’ the way it all hangs together. So, where are we to with that?

Well, there are a few basic ideas:-

1 Engagement is important and valid. But it is not necessary that everyone do it, or do it in the same way.

2 To realise 1, a system approach is needed. And a collaborative one at that. Thinking of law schools as a whole, with some doing engagement in one way, others in another; some doing more basic research, others building on it. Difficult in a competitive world of HE, but doable I think.

3 Engagement needs to be rooted in mutuality- of understanding, of effort, of respect for knowledge, and of outcome.

4 Engagement in the law school often expresses something of the ‘signature pedagogy’ of the law school-problem solving and advice. So, it’s law clinics and its policy. And this is good. But a ‘clinic +’ approach takes in Streetlaw / PLE, information creation, discourse support; connecting engagement to the idea that it is ‘real people’ with ‘real issues’ who are the core of clinic, not (simply) ‘law firm like experiences.’ Such thinking also allows for emerging ideas around legal design to find a place.

So to the structure. The base is good old questions- why, who, what / how? Why do engagement, who’s involved, what are they doing? Literature, examples, and interviews help answer them. Why is all about ideals, values, motivations; who about the law school and the publics; what is about how things are done, but also about the underpinning assumptions and techniques of how we do engagement. And around them all, the possibilities-affordances of the law school.

Then another question- what does it mean? How can we bring all this together? It’s here that models / philosophy appear, however lightly sketched. Realist ways of thinking about the institution and its why-who-what; and activity theory helping us think about engagement on the ground, and the why-who-what there. With a bit of knowledge mobilisation and boundary work added in.

Then the imaginaries- Rutland re-revisited and the new Riverside. How could the model be applied to both describe, analyse, and deliver engagement in a law school? What would happen in curriculum and research design? How might it affect organisations, reward systems?

There’s currently things in the MS which may need to be trimmed down. I need to discuss decolonisation for example, as it relates to engagement and the ways in which it can assist the law school; but mainly point to existing work in the field.

Panic? Yes, always some low level panic. But having a structure to work within, even where it means giving some things up… well that helps a bit 🙂

Wrangling, but not writing

March 20, 2024 PeteLeave a comment

So, yes, I’ve not done so much writing recently. A lot more ‘wrangling’ and thinking about writing.

So, following the previous post I’ve been wrangling the structure / flow. The imagined audience for the book is legal academics, mainly but not only in the UK. These academics are also interested in public engagement- they may even be doing it. They will appreciate a model, but are not necessarily looking for a lot of in your face theory.

The structure then:

Intro- what is coming up? what are you going to get out of this? Broad international background leading to an English focus, moving from university and engagement generally to the specifics of the law school, before moving back out to a model. The model can be used to plan and analyse engagement.

History and nature- bit of background on the university and law school. This has been done elsewhere in much more detail; this chapter is a summary of this and sets the scene for my approach to the university and law school. Introduce the ‘missions’ of the university- teaching, research, engagement- as aspects of knowledge.

Engagement- pick up the broad discussion in History / nature chapter and develop it. What is engagement? What does it look like? And what does it look like in law? What challenges arise? Distinguishes various forms of clinical education and engagement- separating service from education-information– as well as looking at policy work, design, and provision of space / resources. Leading in to 3 chapters which look at aspects of public understanding of law as the educational / informational engagement contribution of the law school.

Public- who are the publics of public engagement? How do they come into being? How do they relate to the law school?

Law- what do the publics think the law is, and how do they engage with it? And how does the law school?

Understanding- what does it mean to understand the law? How does this relate to engagement?

Examples- bringing together the public / law / understanding chapters by seeing how these elements are reflected in examples of public engagement with law work. In these examples, the works will be set in broader institutional contexts. They will also be linked to how the law school teaches and researches.

Modelling- drawing on the examples to model the university-law school elements of systems, ideas, and opportunities (institution) and the engagement elements of people, aims, ways of delivery, and relationships (works.) These are then presented via the imaginaries of Rutland (drawing on Twining) and Riverside, discussing how law schools deal with their context and how this leads to particular engagement works.

Summary- what have you read? What does it mean? What next?

The underlying theory aspects… critical realism (system / ideas / opportunities being structure, culture, agency) and activity theory (modified for engagement,) Plus elements of boundary work, knowledge mobilisation, and decentering approaches to law.

As ever comments welcome. I will do some writing soon 😉

Structure, paths, readers

March 18, 2024 Pete2 Comments

I’ve been doing a lot of writing! Or, to be accurate, repurposing of older work. Things written for one purpose / audience, things which were put aside but are now useful. But they need to be reworked for the new audience and purpose.

This has meant changing the tone some times. At others it’s the assumptions; things need a bit more spelling out for the book, but then again not too much. For example, there’s a very detailed history of English legal education. That needs to be covered, but there also needs to be some stuff on other jurisdictions. This means editing down the existing chapter and rejigging it to incorporate the new material.

And then there is the ongoing structure / flow issue. Moving from the general issues to the particular, keeping a consistent thread to help the reader along. That thread is examples+model, without getting too heavily into the model early on and not giving too much detail about the examples either, until the right time.

Topic sentences, discussions, topic recaps. Repeat, link. move on.

In other practical news, waiting for ethics clearance to do some interviews. These will give a bit of life to the discussion of examples, and a bit of richness to what would otherwise be a lit review plus what I reckon 😀

Making a start

January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 PeteLeave a comment

The blank screen or sheet. How to fill it? I confess, I don’t find writing easy. To get past this I have at times used dictation, so I’m just speaking rather than writing, and speaking is something I’m not bad at.

But… you still need the ideas. And I have them of course. The book isn’t starting from nowhere after all. But how to organise those ideas? What is the narrative I want to present, what is the flow I want to establish?

A mixture of speaking and writing, just getting the ideas down at first- it worked in the thesis and so I’m going to keep using that approach. The ideas sometimes emerge as I write, or better ways of organising them become clear as I try to build the flow.

And so this afternoon I type and talked to make some sort of start, and I put together an outline of the chapters. I just wanted to get some ideas down and set out an idea of how the work will move from idea to idea. I’ve already got colleagues who’ve agreed to read such drafts. You can download the outline from here , in case any of you readers want to leave comments. Such comments, whoever from, will help me take that start and make it better!