Commenting on the presentation, Professor Machura said:
“Classroom lectures and seminars are one way to enrich the law school curriculum with socio-legal content. However, it is also rewarding to engage in small research activities together with students. For example, undergraduate students can be offered modules in which they work with publicly accessible aspects of law. Since 1995, I have offered a module entitled ‘Crime and the Media’/‘Law in Film’. Here, students are introduced to socio-legal concepts and theories which they then apply by analysing the news reporting of crime, the depiction of law and the legal profession in film and television series. Students in Finland, Germany and the UK responded very well to this kind of teaching. Another way to make the study of law less exclusively based on text, is to systematically observe trials with students. I have conducted court observations with undergraduate and postgraduate students. Here, they can experience the every-day practice of law. This kind of class can be offered as trials are open to the public. Judges and lawyers are often happy to engage with the students in trial breaks, or to come to the university to speak about their work. Still, another form of teaching which I have practiced with postgraduate taught students (MA, LLM) is conducting an empirical study together. They are involved in all the aspects of a questionnaire study, from finding a topic to data analyses and writing up an article. (In most cases, the results have been published.)”