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	Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law

The Electronic Classroom - A Personal Account of Learning the Law by Email

Author:	Murray Wheater School of Law, Murdoch University
Issue:	Volume 1, Number 1 (1993)

I intend to describe, from a student's perspective, one university law course which has attempted to incorporate an electronic teaching medium within its syllabus and the consequences of its use. The law course in question is L369 Legal Practice & Documentation (LPD), a fourth year course conducted for the first time in 1993 by the School of Law at Murdoch University.

1. Information Technology in Legal Practice

There exists a widespread belief that law firms, and lawyers generally, lag behind the rest of society in terms of computer usage and literacy. However, this perception is being challenged by a massive increase in the incidence and usage of computers in legal practices recently. Computers are no longer just used by secretarial and other support staff. More and more lawyers have a computer terminal on their desk. Their computers are often connected to those of other staff within the firm by means of a local area network(1)(LAN) and may even be connected to offices in other cities within a national partnership or federation. Lawyers predominantly use their computer networks for email, precedent and research database retrieval and even small word processing jobs. Many firms are currently attempting to develop computer cultures among their legal practitioners.(2)

In order to prepare law students for private practice, as well as government and non-legal environments, relevant computer skills other than basic word processing skills (as has been required of most law students for some years now) should be conveyed to students by universities. The obvious medium to do this is a LAN within the law school due to their increased importance in the outside world. The issue is how to incorporate such a system into the law school curriculum.

2. The LPD Course Structure

The LPD course was essentially intended to convey useful information and skills relevant to legal practice. The emphasis was on knowledge of the process of legal problem-solving rather than knowledge of the law in a quantitative and substantive sense.(3) The unit also intended to expose students to collaborative, co-operative learning which is both a useful learning technique and relevant to practice groups in legal service providers. The LPD course utilised the law school's LAN of IBM compatible machines with hard and floppy drives and a central directory  containing email, word processing and  other miscellaneous software.

The LPD course consisted of two major components. First, students were assigned randomly to groups of ten people. Every three weeks the groups were required to produce an item of work. These group projects included drafts of common legal documents, critiques of other groups' documents and summaries of legal research. Each group provided the lecturer with a central document, a practitioner's checklist and a sourcelist or bibliography. These group efforts were conveyed to the lecturer by means of email on the LAN. Some group projects required co-operation with another group such as the settlement of a sale of land contract or the negotiation of a film contract for a minor. Students soon discovered that in these joint projects the setting of agendas and meeting places for the individuals involved was also most effectively conducted via the email system. Rough drafts of group work were also distributed among group members via the email system. The analogy with contemporary legal practice is readily apparent.

Second, each student was required to submit two items of individual work every week. This was changed in the second semester to just one item per week. These items took various forms but were derived from group work or material covered in the weekly two hour lecture. These assessed items were also submitted to the lecturer via the law school's email system and were returned, with grade attached, to the student's personal email address. The instructions for both individual and group work was received by email and students were informed as to their grade in the same way.

Each semester the students enrolled in the course were examined on the content of the course covered in the lectures or in the group workshop problems. One of the assignments submitted by individual students during semester was a multiple choice question on some substantive aspect of the course. These questions were accumulated within a directory created within the WordPerfect facility on the LAN. Students were able to read those sample questions on their screens or download them for revision purposes.

Thus the law school's email system (used in conjunction with the LAN's word processing software) was used by students to submit their individual assignments to the lecturer, organise and submit group projects and to communicate generally with each other on academic and other matters.

3. Impressions of the Course

Although the usual problems of any university course run for the first time did exist during the year the student response to the computerised classroom was generally favourable. The foremost benefit that was generally perceived to have arisen from the use of the email network was an increased confidence in the use of computers generally and word processing and email systems specifically. Problems such as amalgamating documents, attaching files to email messages maintaining an email address all had to be solved by students either individually or in their respective groups. It was also widely accepted that the LAN provided students with an improved method of co-ordinating, preparing and submitting group work. Work could be emailed by each individual to appointed members of the group and collated by them or alternatively several students could sit in front of a monitor to develop the group response to the allocated problem. Email was also a common means of letting other group members know of any additional meetings arranged and receiving feedback and instructions from the lecturer.

However, I would submit that the benefits obtained from the computerised classroom were often more subtle and less tangible than those already mentioned. Over the two semesters of the LPD course there developed a much more co-operative atmosphere between the students. This was largely caused by all students having to work in unfamiliar groupings and having to enter their individual assignments into the computers together in one room, often at the same time. Additionally, there was greater social and academic communication between students due to the provision to each student of a personal email address (confidentiality was maintained through the use of personal passwords). Lecture and summary notes were emailed between students, social events were arranged and the computer system's graphics package was used to great effect and often hilarity. In fact the Jackson McDonald Computer Laboratory is now a popular meeting place for fourth year law students at Murdoch.

Many students appreciated the fact that the course was conducted, with some minor exceptions such as the course outline, entirely without the use of paper. However, many students still tended to generate printouts of work that was to be examined in the end of semester tests. Students with their own computers also benefited from the electronic classroom, subject to issues of compatibility. Those students were able to work on their computer assignments at home (or in the library for those with laptops) and then simply download their work onto the law school's computer system and then attach the word processing files to an email message sent to the lecturer. Indeed one law student managed to complete the second half of the course without ever being in Australia. She was attending the University of North Carolina for a semester on a student exchange but was able to submit her assignments for the course by means of the "Internet" network. Some of the assessments had to be altered somewhat due to her inability to attend lectures but otherwise she was able to communicate effectively with the lecturer in order to complete the course.

4. Future of Information Technology in Law Teaching

Thus it appears that electronic teaching in law schools by means similar to those already in existence at Murdoch University has two major benefits. First, it provides students with experience of a means of communication and information retrieval that is to be found increasingly in legal practice. Computer skills (and word processing and email skills specifically) are as relevant to law graduates as the ability to draft a mortgage or research an obscure point of court procedure. Indeed law firms are already demanding basic computer literacy of law graduates in light of their more highly computerised work environments. Second, it provides students with an alternative means of learning from others and by themselves. By fourth year, student enthusiasm can, and may need to, be sustained by alternative teaching methods such as the one described above. Especially in combination with group-based learning students are placed in an environment where it is much easier to share ideas than is the case for traditional home alone written assignments.

It must be noted that email networks are not the only means available to law teachers to utilise computer communications. Other possibilities include electronic bulletin boards, electronic conferencing systems, public online information service access networks, electronic discussion groups and even online universities.(4) However, the major limitation on the potential utilisation of these learning techniques is the infrastructure available to instructors. This can be overcome to some extent by sharing equipment between faculties or even between tertiary institutions.(5)

The electronic classroom of the near future and beyond will also be able to access "electronic journals". Electronic journals accessed via international computer networks are tipped to be the next revolution in academic research and publication. In the United States particularly electronic journals are appearing in the hundreds, soon thousands. These journals contain not only completed articles but also academic work in progress. After electronic publication of work in progress the authors can receive feedback from interested subscribers and then may go on to publish the completed work in light of comments received. Before the commencement of 1994 Australia will have an electronic law journal in the form of E Law - the Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law available via the "Internet".(7)

In conclusion, due to the expansion of information technology within legal firms and the increase in computer resources available to Australian law schools, it would appear that the electronic classroom is becoming increasingly relevant and even cost effective. I would encourage all legal academics to investigate the possibility of utilising, to some extent, computer technology in the presentation or assessment of their courses.(8)

Notes

(1)See RA Szymanski et al, Introduction to Computers and Information Systems, Columbus, Ohio: Merrill Publishing Company. 1988) 220.

(2) For example see M Pinner, LAN at law firm, The West Australian, July 14, 1992 43.

(3) A Zariski, Legal Practice and Documentation: Course Outline and Study Guide (Perth: School of Law, Murdoch University, 1993) 3-4.

(4) RW Maule, "The Network Classroom," Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century 2 ('Listserv' access code: listserv@guvm.georgetown.edu - maule ipctv 1n1).

(5) Ibid, at 13.

(6) See J Franks, "What is an Electronic Journal?," Public Access Computer Systems Forum, January 21, 1993 ('Listserv' access code: Listserv@uphuvm1.uh.edu).

(7) C Simmonds, "Law closes in on electronic journal," The Australian, May 4, 1993 16.

(8) See for example, M McComb, "Augmenting a Group Discussion Course with Computer-Mediated Communication in a Small College Setting" (1993) 1(3) Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal for the 21st Century ('Listserv' access code : listserv@guvm - mccomb ipctv1n3). For an Australian secondary school perspective see P Chandler, "A Way Forward to Teach and Learn with (not about) Computer Communications," (1993) 1(3) The Arachnet Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture ('Listserv' access code: LlSTSERV@Kentvm.Kent.edu).