Who said that learning law is boring? Bringing Creative Teaching Methods into Legal Education

Over the next eight weeks, the SLSA blog will feature a series of posts exploring creative teaching in legal education. This first post from the series editors outlines the motivation behind the series and shares more details about the blogs that will be featured.

SJ Cooper-Knock, University of Sheffield

Katie Jukes, Manchester Metropolitan University

Maria Moscati, University of Sussex

Keywords: Legal Education; Creative pedagogy; belonging; creative skills

Introduction

 

Transformative, creative pedagogies are urgently needed in legal education.  Far from the cutting-edge of pedagogical practice, legal education is heavily shaped by conservative notions of ‘professionalism’.^[1] There is a risk that this learning environment disenfranchises a significant part of our student body, for example, students from non-traditional backgrounds, first generation scholars and other minoritised groups as well losing the creative potential of its teaching staff.  There is also a risk that this environment  has often constrained the pedagogical imagination of staff who teach in the field. Where cutting-edge practices are present, they are rarely captured in literature on legal education. Increasingly, scholars and practitioners are pushing for changes in legal education that could enable students to learn differently, creating forms of ‘professionalism’ that demonstrate a deep commitment to social justice and inclusivity.^[2]

Arts-based teaching in law

This blog series explores how arts-based, affective and embodied teaching methods can deepen students’ learning of law and enrich socio-legal teaching. It starts from the premise that everyone is creative, and that taking creative approaches to legal education can build critical analytical, vocation, and civic skills.   It also explores whether there is value in teaching students creative skills and giving students the opportunity and ‘right conditions’ in which to find their own voice within their future professional lives, thus enhancing their sense of belonging within their chosen profession. 

The idea of the blog series came up from our own personal experiences, as we each have a background in creative practice, and we are committed to bring our own creative experiences and approaches into legal pedagogy, and to explore what they might offer legal education. Our hopes were inspired by examples of creative teaching that we encountered in our own work and networks. Yet we found practical guidance on how to use creative methods in legal education difficult to find. So, we came together and we asked colleagues and friends, who share our same commitment to bring arts into legal teaching, to join us in this series.  Where we found a wealth of anecdotal evidence of creative practice in law teaching and assessment, there was a lack of literature and discussion to guide development and innovation for those interested in developing their creative teaching practice.

Some interesting (non-exhaustive list!) examples of creative pedagogy in legal education include a project using feminist and queer experiences to inspire zine making[i], Joy Twemlow’s use of zines[3], Senthoran Raj’s use of emotion[4] in teaching, and further Maharg and Maughan’s exploration of affect in the legal classroom[5]

The series showcases an excitingrange of creative teaching practices including, but not limited to dance, poetry, painting, photography. Each post draws upon practical examples from our classroom experiences of using creative methods across a range of taught law modules, including, but not limited to dispute resolution, human rights law, aboriginal law and public law.

Conclusion

Through the series, we hope to share ideas, practical resources, and experiences that can support others who want to experiment with creativity in their teaching. More, we hope to inspire students to feel free to express their creativity and enhance their sense of belonging while studying law.

^[1] Faulconbridge, James and Muzio, Daniel, Legal Education, Globalization, and Cultures of Professional Practice (December 1, 2009). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1516314 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1516314

^[2] Ashford, C. (2021) 'Gender, Sexuality and the Law School: (Re)Thinking Blackstone’s Tower with Queer and Feminist Theory', in Amicus Curiae Vol. 2 No. 3 (2021): Series 2

[3] Diyingender, 'About Us' <https://diyingender.org> accessed 4 August 2026

[4] Senthorun Raj, ‘Legally Affective: Mapping the Emotional Grammar of LGBT Rights in Law School’ (2023) 31(2) Feminist Legal Studies 191.

[5] Maharg P and Maughan C, Affect and Legal Education: Emotion in Learning and Teaching the Law (Ashgate 2011).