A study into situated learning through community legal companionship

Against the background of the current graduate skills agenda and its considered importance in relation to a UK law degree, this article considers the value of the CLOCK Community Legal Companion scheme, a collaborative social justice project involving law students, legal services providers, third sector advice agencies and law courts based in two areas of the country namely; Canterbury and Brighton. In recent years, the UK Government has significantly cut civil legal aid in areas such as housing, family and welfare benefits, with a view to easing the strain on the deficit. These cuts have been opposed by many, including lawyers, who have raised concerns that the most vulnerable within our communities could be left unrepresented in court and as a consequence an undue burden placed on our civil justice system. CLOCK therefore provides an opportunity for those within our communities who are caught in the so-called ‘justice gap’, to gain support and guidance from law students when they attend court unrepresented. The findings of a small-scale research project into the perceived benefits of Community Legal Companionship, conducted at two UK law schools; Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Brighton, indicate that the socio-legal experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate law students presented by such initiatives, are also valuable in terms of legal skills acquisition. The research shows that the scheme not only enables law students to use their legal knowledge for the benefit of their local community, but also through analysis of their own perceptions, demonstrates how such a community-based project can provide undergraduate law students with valuable employability skills. Experiences of setting up a Community Legal Companion scheme, together with an overview of how the scheme operates in the Canterbury and Brighton County Courts, as well as students’ reflections of participating as Community Legal Companions drawn from the empirical qualitative research, are evaluated in this article

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Situated learning through the CLOCK legal companion scheme

This paper introduces the CLOCK Community Legal Companion scheme, a collaborative social justice project involving law students, law firms, third sector advice agencies and law courts. Initiated by Keele University’s law school due to concerns over the rise in the number of self-represented litigants, following implementation of the Legal Aid Sentencing & Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO Act) and the associated reduction in legal aid, the scheme is designed to assist self-represented litigants at courts local to the participating laws schools in the post-LASPO era. Law students acting as Community Legal Companions assist self-represented litigants with legal form-filling; bundle preparation; signposting to appropriate legal and third sector services and accompany litigants in person to hearings along McKenzie Friend principles by taking notes for them. Drawing on the experiences of the scheme at two of the participating universities: Canterbury Christ Church University and the University of Brighton, Ben Waters and Jeanette Ashton outline the role of the Community Legal Companion and how the scheme operates in their respective court centres. They share their experiences of setting up the scheme and of their students’ reflections on volunteering as Community Legal Companions. Situated within a pedagogical context of experiential learning and clinical legal education, the paper also reflects upon the project based research undertaken at both institutions. This includes the responses provided by the students to an initial questionnaire about their experiences as they embarked upon their Companionship role, and the responses received to a follow-up questionnaire after students had undertaken the role for the three-month period. When presenting the research findings, consideration is given to students’ perceptions of the Community Legal Companion role; their motivations for volunteering for the scheme; the preparation and training they received from academic leads, legal partners, third sector partners and the courts; the challenges presented by the role; the supportive link made to their academic studies and the opportunities for key skills acquisition. Perceptions of employability enhancement and the likely impact of the role in supporting students’ future careers are also considered. Whilst there is a considerable body of literature on the well-known and perhaps more established clinical legal education model i.e. that of the university-based law clinic, this paper contributes to the research from the perspective of experiential learning in the context of the court environment through situated learning opportunities. It is argued that such socio-legal active learning initiatives enable law students to learn about law in context, in this case by assisting self-represented litigants who are often at their most vulnerable, with some having poor levels of literacy and many being thoroughly bewildered by the court process. The findings of the study reveal that the CLOCK Community Legal Companion scheme, as well as bringing benefits to the wider community, enables law student volunteers to develop key skills, build links with legal and third sector partners and to feel part of a community of practice

Letter written by B. J. Waters to Thomas M. Nichol

Mr. B. J. Waters writes of financial problems due to the failure of an enterprise that he was involved with. He asks Mr. Nichol for money to help tide him over until he can get back on his feet.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/tj_ks_territorial_docs/1017/thumbnail.jp

Variability and nature of the binary in the Red Rectangle Nebula

We present new observations of the central binary inside the Red Rectangle nebula. The detection of zinc in the optical spectrum confirms that the peculiar photospheric abundances are due to accretion of circumstellar gas. Grey brightness variations with the orbital period are observed. They are interpreted as being due to the variation of the scattering angle with orbital phase. The small orbital separation of the system is not compatible with previous normal evolution of the primary on the AGB. We point out the similarity of the orbital history of this and other similar systems with those of some close Barium stars and suggest that the nonzero eccentricity of the orbit is the result of tidal interaction with the circumbinary disk.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, A&A Letters accepte

The absence of the 10 um silicate feature in the isolated Herbig Ae star HD 100453

We analyse the optical and IR spectra, as well as the spectral energy distribution (UV to mm) of the candidate Herbig Ae star HD100453. This star is particular, as it shows an energy distribution similar to that of other isolated Herbig Ae/Be stars (HAEBEs), but unlike most of them, it does not have a silicate emission feature at 10 um, as is shown in Meeus (2001). We confirm the HAEBE nature of HD100453 through an analysis of its optical spectrum and derived location in the H-R diagram. The IR spectrum of HD100453 is modelled by an optically thin radiative transfer code, from which we derive constraints on the composition, grain-size and temperature distribution of the circumstellar dust. We show that it is both possible to explain the lack of the silicate feature as (1) a grain-size effect - lack of small silicate grains, and (2) a temperature effect - lack of small, hot silicates, as proposed by Dullemond (2001), and discuss both possibilities.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; accepted by A&

The Thermal Structure of the Circumstellar Disk Surrounding the Classical Be Star gamma Cassiopeia

We have computed radiative equilibrium models for the gas in the circumstellar envelope surrounding the hot, classical Be star $\gamma$Cassiopeia. This calculation is performed using a code that incorporates a number of improvements over previous treatments of the disk's thermal structure by \citet{mil98} and \citet{jon04}; most importantly, heating and cooling rates are computed with atomic models for H, He, CNO, Mg, Si, Ca, & Fe and their relevant ions. Thus, for the first time, the thermal structure of a Be disk is computed for a gas with a solar chemical composition as opposed to assuming a pure hydrogen envelope. We compare the predicted average disk temperature, the total energy loss in H$\alpha$, and the near-IR excess with observations and find that all can be accounted for by a disk that is in vertical hydrostatic equilibrium with a density in the equatorial plane of $\rho(R)\approx 3$ to $5\cdot 10^{-11} (R/R_*)^{-2.5} \rm g cm^{-3}$. We also discuss the changes in the disk's thermal structure that result from the additional heating and cooling processes available to a gas with a solar chemical composition over those available to a pure hydrogen plasma.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures high resolution figures available at http://inverse.astro.uwo.ca/sig_jon07.htm

The propagation of a surfactant laden liquid plug in a capillary tube

This paper considers the propagation of a liquid plug, forced by a driving pressure ΔP, within a rigid tube. The tube is already lined with a liquid precursor film of thickness 2.h̄2. Both the plug and the precursor film, as well as the interface, contain small amounts of surfactant whose concentrations are assumed to be near equilibrium. Since the motions are slow, we seek asymptotic solutions for small capillary number, Ca≪1,Ca≪1, and also assume that sorption kinetics control the surfactant flux to the interface compared to bulk diffusion. An additional asymptotic assumption is that the Stanton number, St, is sufficiently large such that β∝Ca1/3/St≪1,β∝Ca1/3/St≪1, which relates the importance of sorption kinetics to convection. The surfactant strength is measured by the surface elasticity, E = M/βE=M/β where M is the Marangoni number. The results of the analysis are that, for a given plug Ca, ΔP increases with increasing E but decreases with increasing 2.h̄2. The trailing film thickness, 1,h̄1, increases with ΔP, but at a slower rate when E is larger. For 1<2,h̄1<h̄2, criteria for plug rupture are established. This model is relevant to delivery of surfactants into the lung by direct instillation into the bronchial network as is done in surfactant replacement therapy and the use of surfactant solutions to carry other substances (e.g., genetic material) into the airways. © 2002 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69965/2/PHFLE6-14-2-471-1.pd

The effects of dust evolution on disks in the mid-IR

In this paper, we couple together the dust evolution code two-pop-py with the thermochemical disk modelling code ProDiMo. We create a series of thermochemical disk models that simulate the evolution of dust over time from 0.018 Myr to 10 Myr, including the radial drift, growth, and settling of dust grains. We examine the effects of this dust evolution on the mid-infrared gas emission, focussing on the mid-infrared spectral lines of C2H2, CO2, HCN, NH3, OH, and H2O that are readily observable with Spitzer and the upcoming E-ELT and JWST. The addition of dust evolution acts to increase line fluxes by reducing the population of small dust grains. We find that the spectral lines of all species except C2H2 respond strongly to dust evolution, with line fluxes increasing by more than an order of magnitude across the model series as the density of small dust grains decreases over time. The C2H2 line fluxes are extremely low due to a lack of abundance in the infrared line-emitting regions, despite C2H2 being commonly detected with Spitzer, suggesting that warm chemistry in the inner disk may need further investigation. Finally, we find that the CO2 flux densities increase more rapidly than the other species as the dust disk evolves. This suggests that the flux ratios of CO2 to other species may be lower in disks with less-evolved dust populations.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, accepted in A&