Street Law in Ireland: The effectiveness of a Street Law programme in developing critical thinking skills amongst undergraduate law students

Increasingly, there has been more expectations for Higher Education Institutions to
review their curricula to ensure that critical thinking (CT) and other transferable skills are
given a high priority with the intention of increasing graduate employability. Critics have
long complained that law students lack the practical skills required to practice law
successfully. This study investigated whether Irish undergraduate law students developed
CT skills from participating in a Street Law programme; a form of clinical legal education
recommended as a pedagogical technique to enhance transferable skills. This Street Law
programme is the first to be introduced at undergraduate level in the Republic of Ireland.
This study utilised a descriptive exploratory single case study design with a mixed method
convergent approach to enhance validity and reliability. The Legal Studies Reasoning
Profile (LSRP) test instrument was used as a pre-test and post-test quantitative measure
to assess the law students CT skills and dispositions. Additionally, focus group interviews
were conducted at the end of the programme to explore the law students’ perceptions
regarding the development of their CT skills from participating in the programme. With
the acknowledgement that no robust statistical inference could be drawn, the results
showed an improvement in law students overall CT skills, with significant improvement
in CT dispositions and an improvement in induction and evaluation. Findings from the
focus groups partly supported the quantitative aspect of the study as students indicated
that they perceived they had developed transferable skills including CT skills due to
participation in the Street Law programme. However, the analysis revealed a lack of
purposeful discussion on the development of the students CT skills, and students did not
detail how the various elements of the programme developed those skills. The study
concludes by reviewing the limitations of the research and recommendations for future
research are outlined.