¹ Singapore is one such jurisdiction. The undergraduate law education takes four years (three years for students who enter law school after having completed another degree) and is conducted by academic institutions (currently only NUS locally), typically under the governance rubric of “education”. To obtain practice certification, law graduates must further undergo a course conducted by the Board of Legal Education, an institution under the governance rubric of the “profession” or “industry”. In addition, law graduates must undergo a period of pupillage or internship. Legal Profession Act (Cap. 161, 2001 Rev. Ed. Sing.), ss. 11-14.

² At the ASLI Symposium, one theme that was echoed in papers presented by deans from leading law schools in Taiwan, the People's Republic of China, Japan, Indonesia and Thailand was the shortcomings of the traditional lecture system in fostering active learning.

³ In addition to recommending changes in the skills component of the curriculum, which will be the focus of this paper, the review also recommended enhancing and emphasising the perspectives component of the curriculum. The changes in the latter category, which included the launch of a compulsory introductory level jurisprudence course and comparative law course, have also been important in rounding out the desired skill set of NUS students. Cognitive abilities addressed by such courses include the ability to critically evaluate systems, the ability to evaluate the socio-political context of legal rules and the ability to compare rules and approaches across jurisdictions.

⁴ The nomenclature is admittedly unfortunate. I am often asked whether the job of the Programme is to teach English, which it most assuredly is not. Writing-across-the-curriculum is a pedagogical movement that began in the United States in the 1980s as a response to a perceived deficiency in literacy among college students (John C. Bean, Engaging Ideas, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001) [Bean] at xvii). Writing programmes evolved as educationists came to appreciate the power of writing as a means of engaging students and helping them develop their thinking skills. At their most sophisticated, they are “everything-to-do-with-thinking programmes” rather than “just-writing programmes”. The writing programmes in American law schools come from this tradition. The focus of the NUS Legal Writing Programme is probably better encapsulated in the module title of the first-year foundational course which is its cornerstone - Legal Analysis, Writing and Research [LAWR].

⁵ In arguing that it is imperative that Asian law schools focus attention on the teaching of legal skills, I do not in any way intend to suggest that our schools must implement stand-alone legal skills or legal writing courses. Another (arguably more effective) model is for legal skills to be taught through doctrinal modules (the so-called “embedded” approach). While the embedded approach makes for a more holistic process for the student, the reality in the medium term is that Asian law schools are unlikely to have a minimum critical mass of doctrinal teachers who are dedicated to incorporating skills learning into their courses. In such a context, stand-alone legal skills courses run by teachers trained in the pedagogy of skills teaching is a better option for jump-starting legal skills acquisition.

⁶ A quick Google search of “Singapore, problem-solving, critical thinking” yielded a first page of educational policy pronouncements from primary through tertiary institutions.

⁷ A good example of such a curriculum is the Diploma in Law and Management offered by Temasek Polytechnic. The teaching methodology relies heavily on Problem-based-learning and the problems simulate real-life legal processes in great detail. Learning is hands-on and extremely specific. Eg. an IP course might require a student to actually register a patent, thereby ensuring that the student is familiar with current principles, forms and procedures. Some practitioners/firms I have spoken to have voiced the (arguably heretical) opinion that they get “better value” from such graduands than from NUS Law students.

⁸ Bloom, Benjamin S. et al, Cognitive Domain, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1 (New York: David McKay, 1956)Google Scholar.

⁹ In Bloom's taxonomy, application is a Level 3 cognitive ability. In law, there are probably two kinds of application. One kind (direct application of a stated/established rule to a matching fact patterns) is equivalent to Bloom's Level 3 application. The other kind (application of rules to novel fact patterns, including ability to extract novel rules) is probably a combination of Level 3, 4 and 5 abilities. This second kind of application is exercised and assessed through the teaching methodology of hypotheticals and is arguably the heart of common law reasoning.

¹⁰ This is due in part to the tendency to use a doctrinal course design formula as a template for the design of legal skills courses. In the United States, the emphasis on articulating specific skills is in the process of refinement. In 2004-2005, the American Bar Association's accreditation standards were tweaked to provide greater specificity about what it means to provide a rigorous legal writing programme. Even then, the tweaking tended to be at the microscope-level.

See Interpretation 302-1 of Standard 302(a) (recent revisions underlined):

Factors to be considered in evaluating the rigors of writing instruction include:

(i) the number and nature of writing projects assigned to students;

(ii) the opportunities a student has to meet with a writing instructor for purposes of individualised assessment of the student's written products;

(iii) the number of drafts that a student must produce for any writing project; and

(iv) the form of assessment used by the writing instructor.

Also, arguably, the Asian model of knowledge transmission from a learned master is not optimally conducive to the systematic acquisition of legal skills.

¹¹ Educationists disagree on many issues but very few would argue that prompt, specific and constructive feedback promotes learning by allowing learners to re-direct their efforts. When learners are able to see the deficiencies in their performance, are given guidance on how to improve their performance and are given opportunities to quickly attempt improvement, their confidence and sense of achievement are palpable. Huba, Mary E. and Freed, Jann E., Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses: Shifting the Focus from Teaching to Learning, (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000) at 154–155 Google Scholar.

¹² Ostensibly, the students are required to “conduct a moot” or to “write an office memorandum”.

¹³ Sequencing of learning objectives in a spiral design is not limited to skills learning. Very few of us progress in a linear fashion from low level appreciation of a doctrinal subject (just knowing the rules) to a deep critical understanding. Rather, our learning proceeds in a spiral fashion -additional knowledge contributing to deeper understanding, and increased understanding in turn allowing us to absorb and analyse data better.

¹⁴ Kemp, Jerrold E., Instructional Design, A Plan for Unit and Course Development, 2nd Ed. (Belmont, California: Fearon Publishers Inc., 1977, Chapter 3)Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Before launching the programme, I met extensively with colleagues and students. The vast majority described our students in these terms.

¹⁶ Many colleagues who have attempted to implement the Socratic method teaching without taking cultural factors into account and without consciously addressing them have been disappointed with the response (or lack thereof). At the ASLI Symposium, quite a few speakers advocated the Socratic method as an antidote to passive, rote learning. I would argue that merely employing the Socratic method may not break lifetime habits of silence; the method has to be employed as part of a larger strategy for inculcating habits of discourse.

¹⁷ The Association of Legal Writing Directors and the Legal Writing Institute [LWI] provide a forum for American law schools to recruit legal writing faculty. The prescribed form for such recruitment requires the potential hirer to specify the average size of the “sections” to be taught. The four categories set out in the prescribed form are: (a) below 30; (b) 30 to 44; (c) 45 to 59; (d) above 59. Most of the recruitment advertisements on the LWI website are in category (b). See http://www.lwionline.org/resources/jobsearch.asp (10 November 2005).

¹⁸ The use of small groups in teaching has been divided into three categories: casual use (eg. spontaneous use of buzz groups for one-off exercises); frequent use of structured activities (also sometimes referred to as cooperative learning); and transformative use of small groups on a sustained basis (also referred to as team-based learning). Fink, L. Dee, “Beyond Small Groups: Harnessing the Extraordinary Power of Learning Teams” in Michaelson, Larry K. et al, ed., Team-Based Learning (Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, LLC, 2004) at 5–7 Google Scholar. The NUS Legal Writing Programme utilises variants of all three modes of group work to facilitate active learning. The instances described in this section are examples of the first two kinds of use. A variant of the third “transformative” use is described in the section on our research process.

¹⁹ Casual groups (such as buzz groups and break-out groups) can be effectively used to introduce interactivity into even large-class teaching. In our second-year Trial Advocacy module, we are experimenting with such techniques in the context of large-class lectures.

²⁰ Bean, supra note 4 at 175.

²¹ Schultz, Nancy L. and Sirico, Louis J. Jr., Legal Writing and Other Lawyering Skills, 4th Ed., (LexisNexis: Newark, NJ, 2004)Google Scholar [Shultz] at Chapter 3; Glaser, Cathy et al., The Lawyer's Craft, An Introduction to Legal Analysis, Writing, Research, and Advocacy, (Anderson Publishing Co.: Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002)Google Scholar [Glaser] at Chapter 13; and Stott, David, Legal Research, 2nd Ed., (Cavendish Publishing Limited: London, 1999) at Chapter 2Google Scholar.

²² Again, the (principally American) models that we consulted did not explicitly address these kinds of issues, perhaps from an assumption that incoming cohorts would have acquired research and opinion-forming skills from their undergraduate education and/or general acculturation and would principally need to adapt those skills to a legal context, rather than to awaken them.

²³ From time to time, tutors might comment on the quality of the questions asked and the discussion. E.g. if the managing partner team failed to demand authority for a legal proposition or issued instructions that were insufficiently specific. Other than that, students were left to make their own decisions - and mistakes!

²⁴ Two modules in the second-year curriculum build on this foundational introduction to research skills in a spiral manner. The first of these second-year modules includes a component of nonlegal (factual) research that challenges students to extend their legal research skills to a different subject matter. The second of these second-year modules includes a legal research task requiring students to analyse a question in an area of law that they have not been taught at all.

²⁵ The paradigm has several variations. One well-known variant is the so-called IRAC formula which recommends that one discuss legal justifications in the following framework- Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion. The variants all correctly recognise that the heart of most black-letter legal reasoning consists of articulating a rule governing a particular issue, substantiating that rule via a call to authority or precedent and then applying that rule to the facts. IRAC (and its close cousin CRuPAC - ie. Conclusion, Rule, Rule Proof, Application, Conclusion) can be found in most American legal writing textbooks. See Wellford, Robin S., Legal Reasoning, Writing, and Persuasive Argument (Newark, New Jersey: LexisNexis, 2002) [Wellford] at 130 Google Scholar for a diagrammatic representation of this framework; see also Neumann, Richard K. Jr., Legal Reasoning and Legal Writing, 5th Ed. (New York, New York: Aspen Publishers, 2005) [Neumann] at Chapters 10-13Google Scholar.

²⁶ Most American legal writing textbooks recommend that this process of objective analysis be taught in the context of “writing an office memorandum”. So, around this time in the syllabus, they also provide a format for such office memorandum. Wellford ibid. Chapters 10-14; Neumann ibid. Chapters 7-9; Shultz supra note 21 at Chapters 10-14; and Glaser supra note 21 at Chapters 8-9. Not surprisingly, our students also took quite readily to using such formats with gratifying faithfulness.

²⁷ “Level of proof” refers to the detail with which one should explain one's analysis. The general principle, simply, is: “Just enough to convince the sceptical reader.” Depending on how settled any issue might be, the level of proof could range from the cursory “conclusory” level” to a medium “substantiating level” or to a “comprehensive” level. Neumann, supra note 25 at Chapter 11.

²⁸ In Neumann supra note 25 at 164-165, the author engages in a very useful discussion on how to choose among different formulations of the rule that a series of cases might stand for. Interestingly, there is no discussion of how to generate the possible formulations (he provides six in this section ranging from very narrow to very wide). The unspoken assumption is that when asked to “generate possible formulations”, Neumann's students would have been able to.

²⁹ Ho Khai Leong, Shared Responsibilities, Unshared Power, The Politics of Policy-Making in Singapore (Singapore: Times Media Private Limited, 2003) at 20.

³⁰ Role-play also (quite independently of the cultural effect described above) promotes critical thinking by “decentering” the ego-centric thinker and challenging her to step outside of the assumptions of her own world. Bean, supra note 4 at 127.