The Open University

Professional biography

Liz is the Director of SCiLAB, the Scholarship Centre for Innovation in online Legal and Business Education for the Faculty of Business and Law. She is also a senior lecturer in the law school, and an Associate Lecturer tutoring a variety of law modules.

Liz has worked for the law school since 2006, initially as an Associate Lecturer, from 2010 as a Student Experience Manager, from 2020 as Teaching Director and from 2023 as senior lecturer. As Teaching Director she led the introduction of the OU's new LLB from 2021 - 2023.

Prior to joining the law school Liz was a practicing solicitor in the areas of family law and employment law.

Research interests

Liz is interested in the pedagogy of teaching, particularly teaching online. She is currently carrying out research in online clinical legal education, online student support (including peer mentoring and encouraging a sense of belonging to an online academic community ) and the impact of Generative AI on teaching and learning, and access to justice.

Liz is the principal investigator on a project funded by NCFE’s Assessment Innovation Fund: Developing Robust Assessment in the Light of Generative AI Developments.

Teaching interests

Liz is the academic lead for scholarship and staff development within the Faculty of Business and Law. She also leads the online family law clinic which is part of the Open Justice Centre, and is a member of the module team for W360 Justice in Action. Liz co-leads the Law School's Belonging Project and is part of the Law School's peer mentoring project team. She is an academic representative on the OU's Steering Group for Generative AI.

As a tutor Liz has taught a variety of different modules including first year undergraduate introductory modules, second year and third year modules. She currently tutors on W230 Family Law and W360 Justice in Action.

Liz won two OU Teaching Excellence awards in 2024, one for the production of the new LLB (team award) and one for the Open Justice Centre (team award). The Law School Belonging Project was also highly commended.

Publications

Journal articles

"Training is Everything": How to Prepare Students for Policy Clinic Projects (2024-06-05)
Hardie, Liz
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education (pp. 72-108)

ChatGPT, I have a legal question? The impact of Gen AI tools on law clinics and access to justice (2024-04-26)
Ryan, Francine and Hardie, Liz
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 31(1) (pp. 166-205)

Fostering a sense of belonging through online qualification events (2024)
Edwards, Carol and Hardie, Liz
Distance Education, 45(2) (pp. 210-228)

ChatGPT and the Future of Legal Education and Practice (2023)
Ajevski, Marjan; Barker, Kim; Gilbert, Andrew; Hardie, Liz and Ryan, Francine
The Law Teacher, 57(3) (pp. 352-364)

Setting up a Pilot Peer Mentoring Programme in the Online Environment (2021-06)
Edwards, Carol; Gregory, Lorraine and Hardie, Liz
Journal of Rights and Justice, 2 (pp. 7-17)

Taking Clinical Legal Education Online: Songs of Innocence and Experience (2020-12-11)
McFaul, Hugh; Hardie, Liz; Ryan, Francine; Lloyd Bright, Keren and Graffin, Neil
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, 27(4) (pp. 6-38)

Book chapters

How to Offer Effective Pastoral Support in a Distance Learning Institution (2024-03-08)
Hardie, Liz and Ryan, Francine
In: Bleasdale, Lydia ed. How to Offer Effective Wellbeing Support to Law Students. How to guides (pp. 88-101)
ISBN : 978 1 80392 079 5 | Publisher : Edward Elgar

50 years of Clinical Legal Education: Looking Back to the Future (2020)
Hardie, Liz; Mcfaul, Hugh and Ryan, Francine
In: Claydon, Lisa; Derry, Caroline and Ajevski, Marjan eds. Law in Motion: 50 years of Legal Change (pp. 212-227)
ISBN : 978-1-4730-3148-7 | Publisher : The Open University Law School

Conference items

Online legal education – sharing the OU experience (2020)
Hardie, Liz and Wesemann, Anne
In : Society of Legal Scholars Virtual Annual Conference (01/09/20-04/09/20, Exeter University, online)