Communal reflections on the workplace: Locating learning for the legal professional

There is an increased public expectation that Australian universities should assume responsibility for ensuring that their graduates are work-ready. Victoria University (VU) in Melbourne has implemented a commitment to Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) which requires that 25 percent of all courses be assessed by situated learning. The LiWC approach seeks to achieve an enriched learning experience for students through workplace learning, an increased industry engagement with curriculum and an enhanced transition to employment. Workplace training has a long tradition in legal education. The real work environment is seen as basic to the training of legal professionals, through legal clinics, post-degree practical legal training and apprenticeship models such as articled clerkship. In effect, the legal workplace has been regarded as an actual, physical testing ground that serves to assess whether the law student “can actually be a lawyer” (Hyams, 2006)- a site of summative rather than formative assessment. In the Bachelor of Laws degree at VU, typical of many law degrees, work placements are often extra-curricular and so have been invisible in terms of measurable learning outcomes or measurable LiWC components of a course. Law in Practice (LiP) is a unit of study that accredits the workplace experience and identifies and assesses the learning that occurs in the legal workplace. Through structured online learning activities and communal bloggin