Contemporary critical analyses of legal education indicate that legal education is undemocratic as it is based on a discipline that produces subjects who obey hierarchies, are free from the habit of criticism and are ready to self-sacrifice for promotion in the social hierarchy. At the same time, critical analyses offer the very passive vision of the law student as merely ‘being processed’ through the educational grinder. Paradoxically, in doing so they confirm the vision they criticize. This article argues that, by adopting a pragmatic philosophical perspective, it is possible to go beyond this one-sided picture. Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in ‘practical’ attitudes in legal education. Socrates’ model of didactics, clinical education and moot courts are giving rise to institutionalized ideas as structural elements of legal education, owing to which a purely disciplinary pedagogy may be superseded. All these practices allow students to accept and confront the viewpoints of others. Education completed in harmony with these ideas promotes an active, critical member of community, who is ready to advance justified moral judgements, and as such is compliant with pragmatic ethics of democracy.

In deze bijdrage bespreken de auteurs inhoudelijke en didactische aanknopingspunten voor de integratie van professionele ethiek in de academische juridische opleiding. Dat gaat wat de auteurs betreft verder dan (enkel) het leren van gedragsregels, maar betreft ook de (kritisch-)ethische reflectie (op de professionele rol) van de jurist en ethische oordeelsvorming. Aanknopingspunten uit rechtstheoretische en onderwijskundige literatuur vragen om een curriculum brede, stapsgewijze, inbedding met passende toetsing. Dit onderwijs dient idealiter een combinatie te zijn van afzonderlijke meta-juridische vakken over recht en ethiek, positiefrechtelijke vakken die ethische elementen bevatten, klinische training en specifieke vakken over beroeps- of professionele ethiek. In dit artikel bespreken de auteurs diverse methoden die kunnen worden gebruikt om het onderwijs vorm te geven en illustreren dit met enkele voorbeelden uit het Utrechts universitair juridisch onderwijs. Actieve participatie, reflectie en – idealiter – eigen ervaringen zijn daarbij van groot belang. Een aantal modellen uit niet-juridische disciplines kan behulpzaam zijn bij het bieden van structuur voor ethische reflectie, voor zover het morele sensitiviteit en morele oordeelsvorming stimuleert. Verscheidene toetsingselementen op het terrein van de ethiek zijn door het curriculum heen nodig. Leeractiviteiten en toetsing kunnen worden opgebouwd in het curriculum van kennis en begrip, naar competenties ten aanzien van ethische dilemma’s en moreel oordelen.

Legal ethics may be taught indirectly, given resistance to ethics as a separate and presumably merely subjective subject. This may be done by stressing the importance of facts (as the vast majority of legal issues relate to contested facts), of professional role consciousness and of the importance of formal and informal respect for all concerned. This indirect approach is best integrated into the whole of the legal curriculum, in moot practices and legal clinics offering perceptions of the administration of legal justice from receiving ends as well. Basic knowledge of forensic sciences, argumentation and rhetoric may do good here as well. Teachers of law are to set an example in their professional (and general) conduct.

Classic pragmatists like John Dewey entertained an encompassing notion of science. This pragmatic belief in the continuities between a scientific, ethical and cultural understanding of the world went into decline in the middle of the 20^th century. To many mid-century American and English philosophers it suggested a simplistic faith that philosophy and science could address substantive questions about values, ethics and aesthetics in a rigorous way. This critique of classic pragmatism has lost some of its force in the last few decades with the rise of neo-pragmatism, but it still has a hold over disciplines like economics and law. In this article I argue that this criticism of pragmatism is rooted in a narrow conception of what science entails and what philosophy should encompass. I primarily focus on one facet: John Dewey’s work on art and aesthetics. I explain why grappling with the world aesthetically, according to Dewey, is closely related to dealing with it scientifically, for instance, through the poetic and aesthetic development of metaphors and concepts to come to terms with reality. This makes his theory of art relevant, I argue, not only to studying and understanding law, but also to teaching law.

This article introduces the concepts of play and playfulness within the context of legal-philosophical education. I argue that integrating play and playfulness in legal education engages students and prepares them for dealing with the perpetual uncertainty of late modernity that they will face as future legal professionals. This article therefore aims to outline the first contours of a useful concept of play and playfulness in legal education. Drawing on the work of leading play-theorists Huizinga, Caillois, Lieberman and Csikszentmihalyi, play within legal education can be described as a (1) partly voluntary activity that (2) enables achievement of learning goals, (3) is consciously separate from everyday life by rules and/or make believe, (4) has its own boundaries in time and space, (5) entails possibility, tension and uncertainty and (6) promotes the formation of social grouping. Playfulness is a lighthearted state of mind associated with curiosity, creativity, spontaneity and humor. Being playful also entails being able to cope with uncertainty. The integration of these concepts of play and playfulness in courses on jurisprudence will be illustrated by the detailed description of three play and playful activities integrated in the course ‘Introduction to Legal Philosophy’ at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

Quantitative empirical research into legal decisions must be conducted using statistical tools that are appropriate for the data involved. Court decisions are one example of a domain where the data is intrinsically hierarchical (i.e., multilevel), since decisions are made on individual cases by decision-makers in courts located across geographical (or jurisdictional) areas. Past research into court decisions has often either neglected higher level variables or incorrectly used single-level statistical models to analyze multilevel data. The lack of a clear understanding about when and why multilevel statistical models are required may have contributed to this situation. In this paper, we identify the problems of estimating single-level models on hierarchically structured data, and consider the advantages of conducting multilevel analyses under these circumstances. We use the example of criminal sentencing research to illustrate the arguments for the use of multilevel models and against a single-level approach. We also highlight some issues to be addressed in future sentencing studies.

The aim of this article is to present a case study of the development process and its underlying theoretical fundaments of a research skills line in the law degree programme. Broader educational purposes of the article are to give managers and lecturers of law schools suggestions for implementing research skills in their curriculum. Accordingly, the article is aimed at stimulating students’ research skills. This article will discuss the background to the decisions that were made in the Utrecht School of Law, then discuss the ultimate end result, namely the implementation of a new research skills line and the publication of a standard research skills instruction. Furthermore, each section will commence with a brief outline of the theoretical framework, followed by an explanation of how this theory has been practically implemented in the Bachelor of Law in Utrecht.