Enhancing emotional competencies with law students

Abstract

Research was conducted at the University of Newcastle Legal Centre (Australia) over 2013 and 2014 involving an emotional intelligence training module designed to improve the emotional competencies of law students on placement in a legal centre working with real clients. An earlier paper (Wardhaugh & James, IJCLE 2014) described the project and preliminary findings of Stage One. This paper provides the findings and ultimate conclusions of Stage Two. Overall the statistical analysis of variance between Stage One (control group in 2013) and Stage Two (intervention group in 2014) was not significant, the qualitative results from Stage Two produced valuable insights into enhancing professional development by leveraging the student experience of interviewing real clients in a clinic setting. Overall learnings from the project are discussed, including suggestions for further research.