Development of legal expertise

Abstract

In a comprehensive empirical investigation (N = 71,405) we analyzed the development of legal expertise in a critical 1-year period of academic legal training in which advanced law students start practicing to solve complex cases. We were particularly interested in the functional form of the learning curve and inter-individual differences in learning. Performance increases monotonically with the number of practice exams following a slightly concave learning curve without any considerable kinks. Considering the performance development over time, however, the curve is not monotonic and shows intermediate drops in performance. We provide evidence which suggests that these drops are due to cyclic drops in motivation. There are about equally sized marginal effects of practicing law exams in general and practicing exams in the specific area of law. However, students with high (vs. low) initial performance profit more from practicing exams within a specific area of law whereas students with low initial performance profit more from practicing exams in general. The concave increase in performance with the number of practicing exams is mainly driven by individuals with low initial performance. Those with high initial performance mainly display a linear learning trend. We discuss the practical implications of these findings for academic legal training.

Examining recovery experiences as a mediator between physical activity and study-related stress and well-being during prolonged exam preparation at university

“…Mock exams represent an additional stressor during exam preparation and this stress may have had such a strong impact on students at t2 that negative effects on well-being and recovery experiences were evident. This explanation relates to a study that found cyclic motivational drops as students progressed with their exam preparation [ 9 ]. Therefore, lower levels of motivation might also have affected the relationship between both physical activity and well-being as well as recovery experiences.…”

“…The German system of legal education at university-level is a particular example of a state examination format that requires students to undergo a long preparation time to finish their formal studies and pass their first state examination [ 9 , 10 ]. Exam preparation takes about 18 months for most students and it is necessary to study an extensive amount of material and to take mock exams to practice solving legal cases.…”

Research Comparing Novice Tertiary Law Students With Legal Academic Experts and Preliminary Research Findings of Pedagogical Designs to Support Novice Student Learning

“…The study of expertise is not new, however relatively few recent studies have examined the development of legal expertise. Glöckner et al (2013) highlight two potential reasons for this, including challenges in the effort and cost potentially required to recruit subjects with varying levels of legal expertise. They also highlight a challenge in finding a reliable outside criterion for performance in solving complex legal cases.…”