Embedding graduate resilience into legal education for a disrupted 21st century

Whilst a fundamental role of legal education is to ensure that graduates are adequately prepared for professional practice, it cannot be said that legal education holistically prepares graduates to cope with the complexities of the 21st Century which is characterised by significant change and disruption. This paper commences with a critical review of the current context, scope and practice of resilience in higher education. Much of the work on resilience undertaken in higher education has focused on the provision of supports to students to transition into university and to cope within an academic setting. Narrow conceptions of resilience which focus on perseverance, as opposed to an adaptive and developmental construct, are context specific and likely to be short lived. It is advanced that resilience building activities for professional practice following graduation can benefit from the incorporation of transformative pedagogies which will provide law graduates with skills relating to endurance and understanding for a disrupted and changing career in the legal profession following graduation. Concentrating on the centrality of critical reflection, dialogue and experiential learning, teaching and learning strategies which are grounded in critical and emancipatory pedagogies are suggested to be incorporated into legal education, as a means of building graduate resilience.