Teaching Law Students How To Be Lawyers

Law students as well as the companies that recruit recent graduates have identified a gap between what is taught in the classrooms and the actual practice of law as a professional. Although there has been much written about the transition between law school and the labor market, there is a lack of literature on how recent graduates are to acquire and develop skills to better prepare them for their entry into the labor market. Developing authentic performances and simulations, this paper presents an innovative pedagogical approach which seeks to address this issue by creating a greater synergy between what is taught in universities and the actual processes that a lawyer that has specialized in the administrative field will be undertaking. We found that students were able to build knowledge departing from their own experience, as they faced problems related to their everyday life that involved role assumption. This allowed them to develop the skills required to excel at the workplace as well as to get motivated to study law.