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"Preface" [2016] ELECD 962; in van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus (eds), "Academic Learning in Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) xiii

Book Title: Academic Learning in Law

Editor(s): van Klink, Bart; de Vries, Ubaldus

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784714888

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Preface
The original idea of this book on academic learning in legal education
resulted from a discussion meeting in Utrecht in the Spring of 2012 and
at various academic conferences. What appeared to us, as editors, was
that at conferences usually research topics are discussed, but the other
main task of legal academic activity ­ teaching ­ is often neglected as a
research topic.
Too often, research comes first and teaching second. However, in most
law schools, we believe, teaching is essentially the core business as each
year we `raise' a new generation of lawyers that will shape tomorrow's
laws and, thereby, the whole political and legal system. Therefore, we
believe that we should reflect more on our role as teachers, what it means
to create an academic legal curriculum and design courses, how we
should and could teach law, what type of lawyers we want to raise and
about the nature of academic legal education.
The initial step was to dedicate a special issue of the journal Law and
Method to academic learning in legal education, which was published in
the Spring of 2013. It consisted of five contributions and it seemed to
have hit a note.
Hence, we decided to draft a book proposal in which we could extend
and expand upon the themes addressed in the journal's special issue. The
result is this book, published by Edward Elgar, in which theoretical
perspectives about the nature of academic legal education is comple-
mented by contributions about innovative courses ...