Disintermediator or another intermediary? E-simulation platform for professional legal education at University of Hong Kong

Abstract

Education has been undergoing significant changes in the past decade. Some universities have been taking advantage of information technology in order to enhance the interactivity and the degree of realism in their experiential learning environment. More recent legal education and training reviews and current scholarship, including the latest discourse on disintermediation of legal education, readily assume the tech-enablement of students' learning experience via the use of technology. This article argues, through a reflective and empirical study of the adoption and adaptation of an e-learning platform by the Department of Professional Legal Education of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in its Postgraduate Certificate in Laws programme ('HKUPCLL'), that the use of technology can possibly turn out to be another unwelcomed intermediary in the disintermediation process if it is not adaptive to the students' needs and expectations which may be shaped by their evolving e-behaviour, different background and cultural particularities. It further proposes to modify the disintermediation discourse by embracing this possibility of inhibition, so that it can become a suitable model to assess the effectiveness of use of technology in legal education.