This article discusses the Law in the Community module, which has recently been introduced into the curriculum at Northumbria University. In this module, the students attend fortnightly workshops with their university tutor and volunteer each week at their local Citizens Advice. The aims of the module are to develop the students’ knowledge and professional skills and appreciation of access to justice challenges, whilst simultaneously advising members of the community through their volunteer work at the Citizens Advice. The purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to present and discuss data from a semi-structured interview with the academic responsible for the design and delivery of the module during the first year of its inception. Secondly, to evaluate the pedagogical benefits and the benefits to the wider community.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on an analysis of direct age discrimination cases by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the UK courts and employment tribunals over an 11-year period. The paper focusses upon age stereotyping towards older workers and analyses whether it is endorsed at the European level and/or national level. Design/methodology/approach This research has analysed a sample of 100 employment tribunal judgments concerning direct age discrimination together with 28 CJEU decisions on direct age discrimination. Findings This paper highlights that there are a number of cases in which age stereotyping has been endorsed at the CJEU level. By contrast, the UK courts and employment tribunals have adopted a more robust approach. Research limitations/implications The main limitation is that it only considers case law from the European Court and the influence on the UK case law, without analysing the eventual decisions of the other EU member states. Originality/value The paper contributes to the debate with regard to the approach of the CJEU and the UK courts and employment tribunals in tackling age stereotyping and is the first to examine the influence the CJEU decisions has had on the UK jurisprudence over the period studied.

The Student Law Office (SLO) at Northumbria University has recently incorporated a Policy Clinic (PC) into its existing, and well established, clinical legal education (CLE) programme. This innovative PC model was introduced in order to broaden the reach of the CLE programme, appealing to those students who want to focus on law reform and/or who are unsure about whether they wish to enter the legal profession. This teaching method aims to deepen a student’s understanding of the law as they learn not just about the legal framework but also how laws are actually made and influenced.

In order to review the teaching and assessment of reflection within the Student Law Office (SLO) at Northumbria University, an integral consideration must be the insight into experiences and perspectives of those directly involved with the students: the clinical supervisors. Clinical supervisors at Northumbria University explored the reflective aspect of the SLO teaching and assessment over the course of four, one-hour group discussions. This paper explores the themes that emerged from the group discussions and offers a consideration of how issues of reflective practice can be addressed to optimise the teaching, learning and assessment of reflection.

Police services in England and Wales have developed varied approaches to the use of conditional cautions, and this study examines the effectiveness of one set of reforms: a Revised Conditional Caution Framework. With an overall aim of diverting offenders from the Criminal Justice System and addressing offenders’ criminogenic needs, various programmes of meaningful activity were mandated for offenders. The Revised Conditional Caution Framework refers offenders to a relevant ‘pathway’, to address their offending behaviour(s). If an offender fails to complete the activity within the relevant pathway, without good reason, they revert back through the court system. The aim of the Revised Conditional Caution Framework was to apply meaningful conditions to the conditional caution (e.g. alcohol educational intervention), to focus upon addressing the root cause of the offending behaviour. In this study, the authors evaluated the effectiveness of the Revised Conditional Caution Framework in reducing reoffending. The research was conducted between January 2018 and May 2019 and adopted a mixed methodology of qualitative and quantitative research; notably, focus groups with police officers, semi-structured interviews with offenders and pathway providers and an analysis of police data on offender compliance levels. We found that the Revised Conditional Caution Framework is perceived by many professionals and offenders to provide a platform for tackling the root cause of recidivism and thereby reducing reoffending. It is argued that the premise of Revised Conditional Caution Framework is one that conceives of offending in individualistic terms that pay insufficient attention to the social and economic context in which offending is situated. The article also raises questions about the impact of the Revised Conditional Caution Framework on police professionalism and argues that it might be understood as a restriction on the exercise of discretion since it further restricts officers’ scope to respond to offenders and criminal behaviour.