Legal Learning What is Public Legal Education?
Public Legal Education (PLE) is the name given to learning about the law as it affects everyday life. This may concern a legal problem such as a dispute about a credit agreement or the need to challenge a retailer over poor goods. Equally, it may involve the way we interact in our communities over planning regulations or policing. It also highlights the part we play as citizens in voting for our lawmakers and how we live with the laws that are made in Parliament or in Brussels.
Public Legal Education is quite a new idea but it builds on experiences going back a long way. There have been radio and television programmes, articles in the press and consumer "watchdogs" for many years. There have also been many advice agencies that have helped people to resolve disputes and problems. More recently, lawyers, academics, Government ministers and voluntary sector workers have started to ask if this should be brought together under a single banner. Is there a thing called "legal capability" in the same way that we have come to understand the idea of "financial capability"?
What should the public know about the law? When and how should they learn about it? Is this another setting for "just in time learning?"