Creating workplace-ready graduates: exploring a student-led, employer-focused reflective assessment

This paper surrounds the ongoing creation of a new module at LLM level which teaches essential workplace skills to aspiring solicitors. The module responds to consultations with legal employers as to which characteristics they prioritise when recruiting paralegals and trainee solicitors; this paper considers an innovative, employment-focused assessment method to prepare graduates for legal workplaces. The module will be assessed by a reflection, whereby students will set their own goals based on their own (informed) views of important skills for trainees, reflecting on their progress towards these. The goals will also inform marking criteria for each student. This aims to enable students to direct their own aspirations and have autonomy over their learning, whilst tutors will be able to appreciate students as individuals and therefore celebrate their diversity when marking. This paper will give attention to the opportunities for a ‘flipped classroom’ approach. The assessment design is informed by research surrounding junior lawyers’ wellbeing, which is affected significantly by perceptions of their own competency and feelings of belonging (Soon et al., 2022). This paper considers how these can be improved, enabling self-awareness of skills already gained and therefore increasing self-confidence, whilst highlighting skills to be improved, enabling students to accurately identify areas for improvement. This has particular importance for lower socioeconomic students who suffer disproportionately from imposter syndrome (Jury et al., 2017). Employer consultations featured heavily throughout the course design process; the most desired graduate characteristics were proactivity, communication skills and enthusiasm. This assessment method is designed to encourage these traits; by enabling autonomy and encouraging responsibility for their learning, students must be proactive in designing their reflection. Personalising the assessment and making it as relevant as possible to each student and their career goals aims to increase enthusiasm, with students communicating effectively via a written reflection.