Reciprocal professional development: enhancing law student supervision in practice-based contexts

The Effective Law Student Supervision (ELSS) project addresses a set of issues related to professionalism and legal education. It is concerned with harnessing the great potential of programs that enable students to experience professional life in a law-related workplace. It has focused on enhancing the experiences of law students and supervisors involved in placement programs. This report looks at a new concept, namely reciprocal professional development, and considers its relevance for promoting the constructive engagement of legal practitioners in the supervision of law students. Reciprocal professional development is a framework that identifies opportunities for both placement students and supervisors to benefit from the supervision relationship. The ELSS project sought to articulate opportunities that enable both students and their practice supervisors to benefit from the collaborative nature of practice-based learning. Identifying the benefits for supervisors from their involvement is particularly important to promoting participation in experiential learning programs. This report contains two main sections - the first provides background, context and a description of the ELSS project and the second describes the project activities.