Lahveenya Panchalingam is a passionate academic who aspires to fulfil the highest most truthful expression as a human being which is humanity. Lahveenya joined Faculty of Law in Multimedia University Malacca in September 2021. Prior to joining Multimedia University in Malacca, she has been lecturing and tutoring Business Law, Criminal Law, Tort Law and Medical Law at Brickfields Asia College Kuala Lumpur. She was also the Programme Manager of the UK Transfer Law Programme. She has close to 10 years of academic and management experience. She has authored, co-authored and published several journal articles in the Current Law Journal in Malaysia. She currently lectures and tutors in subjects such as Contract Law, Company Law, Consumer Law, Equity and Trust Law. Her main area of research includes Medical Law and Legal Education.
Reimagining the Future of Legal Education in the Metaverse in Malaysian Law Schools
Abstract:
Recently, there has been various paradigm shifts in the higher education sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a constellation of technologies to the legal education sector. University law academics are required to move beyond their primordial instinct to teach face-to-face, rather they are required to be more innovative by integrating technology to make the teaching and learning process more meaningful and engaging in the virtual platform. Consequently, the pandemic has enabled law academics to muster the courage to explore ingenious teaching pedagogies in order to replicate the conventional lecture hall interactions. There have been various creative pedagogies implemented in delivering legal education in Malaysian Universities such as the adoption of Gamification, Augmented Reality, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Virtual Legal Practice Experience, Virtual Internship, etc. However, are law schools in Malaysia ready to change their trajectory to deliver legal education in the Metaverse post-pandemic era? It is predicted that law schools can leverage the collaborative capabilities of virtual worlds – from enabling virtual collaborations, organizing virtual digital field trips to interacting with virtual environment to conduct case-studies. This research will also explore the possible challenges of the integration of Metaverse in the legal education. It will contribute to the existing body of literature as it broadens the understanding of the available opportunities and upcoming challenges of the changing cultures in the legal education Metaverse. This will be valuable to law academics, law students, educational institutions and educational technology providers.