TDG – Adding Realism to Legal Education at the University of Hong Kong: A Pilot Run of a Simulation e-Learning Platform and Standardized Clients in Professional Legal Education

Abstract

The Department of Professional Legal Education of HKU piloted a project in the spring semester of 2012-13 with an aim to adding realism to the legal education in Hong Kong. The project consists of two initiatives which are ground-breaking, and in this sense innovative, in Hong Kong and in Asia. The first one involves an open source virtual learning environment known as SimPLE which stands for Simulated Professional Learning Environment for transactional learning in law. Transactional learning, in this context, refers to active learning by doing legal transactions. The other is known as the Standardized Clients (SCs) who are people lay to the law discipline but are trained to present standardized scenarios to students and then comment on and assess students’ communicative competence. SimPLE transactions were designed and put in use and the first group of local SCs was trained to assess students in action. Students’ evaluation shows that in general they welcome the new initiatives but they would be more in favour of a higher level of resemblance to reality in their learning experience, whether or not technology is being employed.

Deliverables