Learning by writing: Exploring authentic legal learning through case summaries

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Original abstract

We use authentic learning as a pedagogical framework in a collaboration between our law school and the national Supreme Court of a Southeast Asian country, which facilitates law students’ development of their legal analytical and writing skills, and helps them better bridge the gap between existing legal curricula and the needs of legal practice. Akin to a writing apprenticeship, students write summaries on selected Supreme Court judgments, with their output reviewed by faculty as well as judicial law clerks from the court. The results are published on the court’s website and circulated to other stakeholders. In the post-exercise survey, participating students agreed that the exercise embodied two key features of an authentic learning experience: emulating professional legal work, and connecting learners with real-world legal professionals beyond the classroom. Our findings also suggest that students gained a deeper comprehension of both the law and the judicial thought process, as well as improved in their writing and communication skills. Our study adds to the literature on the usefulness of the authentic learning approach in the context of legal education, specifically in improving law students’ understanding of legal judgments, as well as their skills in writing and communication. It also provides some implications and suggestions for the future of legal education, specifically on how the authentic learning approach can be leveraged to further develop law students’ analytical, writing and communication skills through law school, and to better prepare them for the working world.

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