Nigel Duncan
Course Director, LLM in Professional Legal Skills
Nigel Duncan is Professor of Legal Education at The City Law School, City University, London. He is Course Director of the LLM in Professional Legal Skills. His main teaching is on the Bar Professional Training Course where he supervises the FRU Option which involves students in representing real clients in the employment tribunals. He also teaches an LLM in Criminal Litigation and supervises student dissertations. He is Academic Lead for Assessment for City University and a university Teaching and Learning Fellow.
Earlier in his career he established the first Law Access course in the UK and taught on undergraduate courses. A particular interest there was designing interactive teaching methods to develop problem-solving and intellectual skills as well as critical understanding of the law in context. This led to developing clinical courses whereby students learn through real and realistic work with clients. To develop these interests and a focus for justice and human rights he was engaged in the development of new organisations: the Clinical Legal Education Organisation and the Global Alliance for Justice Education.
His research has recently focussed on the preparation of ethical professional lawyers. His work in this field has led to a number of conference presentations, including recently at the Learning in Law Annual Conference, Warwick, 2011; the Association of Law Teachers Conference, Cardiff, 2011; The Society of Legal Scholars Conference, Cambridge, 2011 the 6th Global Alliance for Justice Conference, Valencia, 2011 and the 4th International Legal Ethics Conference, Stanford, 2010.
He has introduced a new website designed as an interactive resource and forum for those interested in the education and training of legal professionals - www.teachinglegalethics.org
He is editor of the refereed journal The Law Teacher and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Legal Education Review. He was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies and has acted as Chair of the Association of Law Teachers. He is Secretary of the Academic and Professional Development Committee of the International Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was until recently a member of the Advisory Board and Strategy Committee of the UK Centre for Legal Education.
He is editor and main contributor to Employment Law in Practice (10th ed., OUP 2012), co-editor of Opinion Writing and Case Preparation (OUP 2010) and is, with H Brayne and R Grimes, author of Clinical Legal Education: Active Learning in your Law School (Blackstone 1998). He is the author of many articles, predominantly in the field of legal education, professional development and ethics.
Publications:
- 'Addressing emotions in preparing ethical lawyers' in Teaching and Reaching the Whole Student - the Impact of Emotions on Learning (and Teaching) the Law. Ed. Paul Maharg and Caroline Maughan (2011, Dartmouth, Ashgate).
- 'Developing reflection on values as a foundation for a business career' (with Alwyn Jones) in Handbook of Research on Teaching Ethics in Business and Management Education, Eds. Charles Wankel and Agata Stachowicz-Stanusch, (2011, Hershey, Information Science Reference).
- 'Addressing lawyer competence, ethics, and professionalism' in The Global Clinical Movement: Educating Lawyers for Social Justice, ed. Frank Bloch (2010, New York, OUP)
- 'Preparing ethical lawyers: A prescription and a practical proposal' 2010, 13 Legal Ethics p. 79.
- 'Batting for a future: An ethics approach to the challenges facing law schools' 2010 Notts. L J. p. 1.
- 'Remedies for unlawful discrimination' in Remedies ed. Emmet (OUP).
- 'The letter and spirit of the Code' in Professional Ethics, ed. Browne, (OUP).
- 'Preparation: a forensic skill' in Opinion Writing and Case Preparation, ed. Duncan and Wolfgarten (OUP).
- 'Presentation for the practitioner' in ibid.