Affiliation: Visiting Clinical Associate Professor of Law, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law
Country: USA
Abstract: Insights from Divinity School that May Offer Tools for Teaching Law Students Self-Reflective Practices to Engage in Ethical and Moral Inquiry
I would like to present on a course I taught at Loyola University, drawing on my Divinity School training at the University of Chicago. Grounded in self-reflection and ethical inquiry, this training is especially useful for law students. We studied religious leaders involved in the civil rights movement and the peace movement during the Vietnam War. We explored the context in which they lived, their religious commitments and life experiences that called them to this work, and the role that self-reflection played. Next, we read works by contemporary secular thinkers to aid in exploring our own context and how this context informs our lives both professionally and personally. I incorporated different tools for self-reflection that students could practice, including verbatim drafting, meditative practices, and reflections on the meaning of attentiveness and presence. Some questions explored included: How do we construct systems or improve systems? How do we understand what is just? How do we pivot when our work is causing harm? To whom and for whom are we accountable? What is the role of self-awareness, reflection, and collaboration?
Bio: Anita Maddali is a Visiting Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Interim Director for the Center for Externships at the Bluhm Legal Clinic. Her teaching and research interests include Clinical Teaching and Immigration. Prior to joining Northwestern, Anita served in various capacities within law schools, including as an Associate Professor of Law with tenure, Dean of Students, and Director of Clinics. Anita began her career as an Equal Justice Works Fellow at the Children and Family Justice Center and later worked as a Staff Attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Anita’s research on Immigration Law has been published in the Indiana Law Journal, Michigan Journal of Law Reform and the American University Law Review among others. With her additional Divinity School education and training, Anita currently serves on the ethics committee for Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Manager, Practice Ready Ontario, Touchstone Institute
Country: Canada
Abstract: Reflective Practice and Public Protection: Professional Identity Formation in Immigration Practice
This presentation with Beata Pawlowska and Cassandra Barber situates reflective practice at the intersection of professional identity formation, professional competence, and public protection. Taking immigration practice as its site of inquiry, it examines how reflective practice enables practitioners to interrogate their own assumptions, exercise judgment under conditions of uncertainty, and remain attentive to the technical, relational, and moral dimensions of practice. In this account, professional competence is not exhausted by technical proficiency; it includes disciplined reflection and the capacity to recognize how professional decisions are shaped by the lived realities of practitioners and those subject to immigration processes. The development of this dimension of competence becomes especially acute in the early years of practice, when the transition from learning environment to professional practice is often marked by uncertainty, readiness gaps, and heightened risk of attrition. From the perspective of a public-interest regulator, the cultivation of reflective competence is therefore integral to supporting professional identity formation, strengthening practice, and advancing public protection.
Bio: As Senior Manager of Practice Ready Ontario (PRO) at Touchstone Institute, I lead the team responsible for end-to- end program operations, strategic oversight, and the successful onboarding and assessment of internationally trained physicians entering Ontario’s healthcare system. My work focuses on building scalable processes, strengthening governance and partnerships, optimizing candidate and assessor experience, and ensuring program integrity through evidence-informed policy, assessment validity, risk management, and continuous improvement. With a strong foundation in regulated professional education, I bring nearly a decade of experience leading teams, developing competency-based assessments, and designing high-quality learning, assessment, and evaluation frameworks. Prior to joining Touchstone, I served as Manager of Professional Standards and Education at the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants (CICC), where I led a multidisciplinary team in delivering pre- and post- licensure education. My background includes instructional design, online learning, active learning strategies, and performance-based assessment across multiple sectors - including immigration, medical education, and allied health. I hold a Master of Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto and an Honours Bachelor of Forensic Science from the University of Windsor. I am passionate about system-level improvement, collaborative leadership, and shaping programs that meaningfully impact access to care across Ontario. I am committed to continued growth in roles focused on strategic vision, operational excellence, and stakeholder engagement that drive measurable outcomes.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Coach and Trainer, Practitioner and Educator
Country: England
Abstract: Borrowed Models, Blunt Tools: Rethinking Reflective Practice in Legal Education
In the context of increasing calls for people-centred and more-than-human justice, legal education faces a pressing imperative to cultivate reflective inquiry as a core competency rather than a peripheral pedagogical technique. While reflective practice is frequently referenced in legal education, its teaching remains fragmented, inconsistently theorized, and largely dependent on models imported from other disciplines. This paper argues that such multi-disciplinary borrowing, when undertaken without attention to the distinctive epistemic, regulatory, and cultural features of legal practice, results in reflective pedagogy that is conceptually incoherent and pedagogically haphazard. Drawing on empirical research, the paper advances the case for a model of reflective practice designed specifically for lawyers and legal educators. It introduces the ViewFinder Model of Legal Reflection as a domain-grounded framework that aligns reflective inquiry with learning, legal competencies, lived practice, and regulatory expectations and suggests that a coherent, discipline-specific model is essential for legal educators seeking to foster sustained, meaningful reflective capacity.
Bio: Dr. Bernadette McDonald is a practicing lawyer, educator and coach. For over 20 years, she trained lawyers using a form of collective reflective practice. The introduction of UK regulatory changes requiring solicitors to 'reflect on their practice' led to an MBA and a PhD focusing on the skills needed to reflect and the design of reflective practice teaching.
Where presenting: TBA
Affiliation: Senior Lecturer, Central Queensland University
Country: Australia
Abstract: Navigating the Complexity of Polycrisis as Legal Educators: Reflective Practice as a Transformative Process
This presentation is co-presented with Dr. Luke Price. Educational initiatives designed to develop law students’ reflective capacity offer opportunities for reflective practice in teaching and research. To illustrate this potential, we present a reflective enquiry of an international study tour in which students developed their understanding of wildlife law and protection via cultural immersion and applied legal research. We conducted research to understand student experience using transformative learning theory, and over three years, completed a cycle of data analysis and publication. Our understanding and relationship to this project evolved through challenge and conversation. Now, we turn the analytical lens upon ourselves to ask: ‘Was the experience transformative for us?’. In answering this question, we elucidate how our research facilitated our reflective practice and our understanding of polycrisis as an embodied reckoning of multiple power flows and pressures on our practice. We consider how reflective competence can support educators to navigate dimensions of polycrisis, including the implications of educational travel in the context of climate change and postcolonialism, and the impacts on regional student cohorts.
Bio: I am a Senior Lecturer in Law at the College of Law and Justice (CoLJ), Central Queensland University. I have expertise in online legal education, curriculum development, legal education research, and the needs of students living in regional and remote Australia. My approach to research is multidisciplinary, drawing on my background in law, anthropology, health, and community development. In 2022, I received a Vice Chancellor’s commendation for incorporating transformative learning principles into my teaching strategies. I was Learning and Teaching Coordinator for the CoLJ for two years (2023-2024). I look forward to contributing to this symposium by offering my reflections on and experience applying transformative learning theory in legal education, and a perspective informed by my experience as an academic working at a regional university.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Professor of Business Law, Adelaide University
Country: Australia
Abstract: Applying Reflective Frameworks to Environmental Law Teaching and Assessment Practice-New Innovations
Bio: Professor Jennifer McKay is a distinguished environmental law scholar, educator and author in water law, environmental governance, and sustainability law. She is based at Adelaide University and is adjunct Professor at ANU College of Law and UniFiji .She is a fellow of international water Association and senior Fellow of Higher education academy where she is recognized for excellence in teaching and academic leadership. She was made an AM for services to law and legal profession in 2023. Her current research includes legal education and the pedagogy of critical reflection by law students on the state of Australian law. This is in addition to the governance of natural resources and the adoption of measures to achieve net zero emissions. She has a profound interest in environmental defenders, free speech, and the human right to a clean healthy environment and climate litigation.
Where presenting: Australasian Law Academics Association
Affiliation: Dean of Law, Adelaide University
Country: Australia
Abstract: Design Thinking Pedagogy as Reflective Practice: Developing Human-Centred Legal Professionals for Complex 21st Century Challenges
Co-authored with Rachel Hews. Contemporary legal practice requires graduates to develop human-centred competencies and reflective habits alongside analytical skills, with lawyers now needing design thinking capabilities and emotional intelligence to navigate complex challenges effectively. Interviews with legal design educators reveal how approaches embracing critical reflection develop crucial professional competencies frequently overlooked in more traditional legal education. Our analysis shows that these participants' teaching practices inherently embed structured reflection throughout the design thinking process, enabling students to develop empathy, creative problem-solving, and human-centred approaches to legal challenges. This cycle creates continuous opportunities for both individual and collective reflection, enabling students to integrate theory with practice whilst developing holistic perspectives on complex legal problems. We conclude with practical recommendations for law schools seeking to integrate reflective design thinking into their curricula, including dedicated legal design units, embedding design elements within traditional subjects, creating appropriate physical learning environments, and developing authentic assessment approaches that value process alongside outcomes.
Bio: As Dean of Adelaide Law School at the University of Adelaide, I bring extensive experience leading innovative legal education. My research explores legal design thinking as a framework for developing human-centred professional competencies, with recent publications examining how design methodologies foster creative confidence and reflective practice in legal education. This builds on my earlier scholarship focused specifically on reflective practice, including my 2007 publication "Designing for reflective practice in legal education" and subsequent work developing reflective assessment approaches in law. Previously, as Head of QUT Law School, I led major curriculum transformation achieving top national rankings for educational experience. My leadership roles on several legal professional bodies provide valuable insights into profession-wide approaches to reflective practice. This practical experience, combined with my scholarly focus on integrating design thinking with legal education, directly addresses this symposium's exploration of strengthening reflective capacity in emerging legal professionals. 
Where presenting: TBA
Affiliation: SJD Student, University of Toronto
Country: Canada
Abstract: Team-Based Learning Activities as Encouragement of Reflective Practice
This presentation is co-presented with Sharon Sutherland. Team-Based Learning (TBL) is a collaborative pedagogical approach. Students answer a series of multiple-choice questions: first on their own before class, then again as teams in the classroom. Teams come to a collective answer for each question, then use scratchcards to reveal whether they are correct. This gives students immediate feedback. Teams whose answers are incorrect are then encouraged to seek partial credit by choosing a second answer. Our presentation will discuss TBL as a strategy for encouraging reflective practice in law students. First, we will discuss the benefits of students coming prepared with answers before reflecting on their answers as teams. (We have found that teams consistently score higher than any single student.) We will then examine the immediate feedback mechanic and the ability to obtain partial credit – these teach students to re-evaluate their thinking. Finally, we will discuss the value of giving teams an opportunity to argue on behalf of an (ostensibly incorrect) answer at the end of the class session – this encourages students to think critically about their work even after completing the activity, and to advocate on behalf of a position.
Bio: Rowan Meredith is an SJD student at the University of Toronto, where she studies how copyright law creates barrier to accessibility for disabled persons. She teaches Advanced Legal Research and Copyright Law & Social Media as an Adjunct Professor at Allard School of Law, and IP Law as a Sessional Instructor at Thompson Rivers Faculty of Law. In her teaching, she has frequently used team-based learning activities to encourage students to think critically and reflectively about their work.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
Country: Canada
Abstract: Reflective Practice When Students/Lawyers are Survivors Too
This paper builds on my experience in co-directing a clinical legal education program in which students are placed with an organization providing legal services to female-identifying survivors of gender-based violence. The individual and collective reflective exercises that we have developed are designed to evoke connections between critical theory and practice, as well as between the personal and the professional. The exercises have been informed by, and have informed, our thinking on trauma-informed legal practice, a crucial domain of professional competence. While there is an emerging literature on trauma-informed lawyering, virtually absent in this literature is the reality that is so evident in our program: students and lawyers drawn to this work are often survivors themselves. In the paper, I explore reflective practice and related pedagogies that centre this awareness and the implications for the well-being of lawyers and the outcomes for clients.
Bio: Janet Mosher is an Associate Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School. She is the co-founder and served for many years as the co-director of Osgoode’s “Feminist Advocacy: Ending Violence Against Women Clinical Program.†She has also served as the Academic Director of Osgoode’s “Intensive Program in Poverty Law†and as the director of Osgoode’s clinical legal education programs. Her research focuses on law and gender-based violence, access to justice for marginalized populations, welfare policy (the intersections of poverty and gender-based violence in particular), legal ethics, and clinical legal education.
Where presenting: TBA
Affiliation: Assistant Professor, Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Country: Pakistan
Abstract: Building a Framework to Develop Reflective Praxis Amongst Law Students
As instructors, it has long been our goal to facilitate students in developing their innate capacity for critical thinking, so they graduate with the ability to analyze and discern the valuable from that which is not. In recent years, perhaps in part due to the easy presence of artificial intelligence, and a trend towards a polarized world, the ability to ask questions seems to have overtaken critical thinking as the primary goal of classroom and law school learning. This paper proposes that in order to resume the goal of graduating critical thinkers, learning must incorporate reflective practice at all levels. This practice is readily found amongst clinical learning spaces. Building on the tools developed for guiding reflections in clinics, particularly live client clinics, and learning from other professions, this paper will propose a framework for reflection that can be incorporated across law school classes. Reflective practice should be incorporated into classroom learning as well as into students’ daily lives to develop a critically reflective praxis. In doing so, students will become habitually reflective, an approach that they will take into their professional lives.
Bio: I am an Assistant Professor at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law (SAHSOL), LUMS. I hold a B.A., LL.B from LUMS (2008), and an LL.M from the University of Michigan Law School (2010), and I am currently an external PhD candidate at Monash Law. Having received an education with a strong bent towards community and social justice lawyering, my work has always been situated in human rights and public law, particularly community legal education. My primary area of interest lies in clinical legal education, specifically street law and access to justice work. I am also interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and work with the LUMS Learning Institute to keep innovating with my teaching methods. I am always thinking about how to better guide student reflections in my street law clinics. This symposium allows me to engage more deeply with other researchers’ thinking about how to support students (and ourselves) in developing a reflective praxis.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Assistant Professor of Law, University School of Law, Gujarat University
Country: India
Abstract: Reflecting on Biopiracy: Legal Education and the Protection of Biodiversity and Traditional Knowledge
The commercialization of biological resources and traditional knowledge has raised serious concerns regarding biopiracy, unequal benefit-sharing, and the marginalization of indigenous and local communities. Although international instruments such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol address these issues, their implementation remains limited in many developing jurisdictions. Legal education therefore plays a crucial role in developing ethically responsible environmental lawyers. This paper examines how reflective practice can strengthen biodiversity and traditional knowledge governance in legal education. It argues that integrating reflective pedagogy within intellectual property and environmental law curricula enables students to critically engage with biopiracy, community rights, and access and benefit-sharing mechanisms. Drawing on experiential learning, clinical education, and community engagement, the study shows how structured reflection connects legal theory with social realities. The paper proposes a framework for embedding reflective methods to promote justice-oriented and culturally responsive lawyering.
Bio: Dr. Prachi Motiyani is an Assistant Professor of Law at University School of Law, Gujarat University and Member Secretary of WDC-ICC, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. She has also conducted several workshops. Her numerous works have also been published in various journals and books. She is a Faculty Advisor of KnowledgeSteez. She is a part of the Editorial Boards of different journals of Legal Research and Study, like GLS Law Journal, Gujarat Law Journal, etc. Dr. Motiyani’s academic journey has been marked by prestigious scholarships, including those from the Thailand UNCC, the International Youth Forum by YHRI, the GAJE program in Poland, the Sri Lanka Train the Trainer Program, and Sanremo, Italy. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of IKSD, Ankara, Turkey. She is a legal expert of the Ethics Committee of Gujarat Biotechnology University & Gujarat University of Transportation Sciences. She has also been invited as a resource person at various international and national conferences and seminars.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
Affiliation: Senior Scientist & Associate Director, The Wilson Centre; Professor, Department of Paediatrics; Director, Research and Innovation, Office of the Vice Dean Medical Education; Temerty Faculty of Medicine; Program Director, Health Professions Education Research, Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation; Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Country: Canada
Abstract: Advancing Critically Reflective Practice & Adaptive Expertise in Health
This presentation is co-presented with Stella Ng. Reflective practice (RP) has long been advocated in professional education, yet its uptake in technical-rational fields like law can be met with skepticism. Drawing on insights from health professions education, this paper proposes adaptive expertise (AE) as a pathway into critically reflective development that may be more recognizable and relatable to legal professionals and scholars. Critically reflective practice has been shown to enable social competencies like advocacy and collaboration. While critically, RP often emerges from critical or constructivist explorations, AE is grounded in cognitivist-constructivist theory and empirical research. By thoughtfully integrating AE and critically RP—both rooted in Deweyan thought—we can better support the teaching and learning of reflective practice in legal education and bridge persistent theory-practice gaps.
Bio: Dr. Maria Mylopoulos holds her PhD in human development and education. Over the last 18 years (or so), she has successfully led a program of research aimed at understanding the development and performance of adaptive expertise in health care, with a particular focus on identifying the ways in which experts move beyond application of their past knowledge when appropriate to address the needs of patients as well as the limits and opportunities of their own contexts. In her work, Maria uses a range of methodologies and theoretical frameworks from cognitive psychology, clinical reasoning, and the learning sciences to evolve an understanding of the knowledge, capabilities and learning experiences that underpin adaptive expertise. The ultimate goal of her research is to translate this understanding into educational design that cultivates the development of experts who are able to handle the complexities and challenges of the healthcare workplace.
Where presenting: ¾ÅĞãÖ±²¥ Law virtual Symposium
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Affiliation: Associate Professor, Melbourne Law School, the University of Melbourne
Country: Australia
Abstract: Developing and Assessing the Reflective Lawyer: Human Wisdom in an Automated Age
Bio: Judith is an award winning tertiary educator who specialises in student wellbeing and student support, providing leadership in the implementation of institutional policy and development of processes and guidelines for student- related matters across a range of areas, including student academic integrity, assessment and results, student academic progress, curriculum design and review, and adjustments for students with ongoing support requirements. Judith has played a leading role in promoting quality in legal education in Australia through her long-term role as Co- Chair of the Legal Education Associate Deans (LEAD) Network, including the development of the Australian Legal Education Awards (ALEAs), which have run annually since 2021 and have now been evolved (from 2026) into the CALD Academic Awards (teaching stream). Judith is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law and Chair of the Australasian Law Academics Association.
Where presenting: Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA) conference