Law student wellbeing in the UK: a call for curriculum intervention

This paper argues that the design of the law curriculum in England and Wales should be revised to include programme learning outcomes that address the development of the competencies of resilience and management of subjective wellbeing. This need for the curriculum to be underpinned by principles of positive psychology, including self-determination theory, is signalled by the current research from Australia into law student psychological distress and subjective wellbeing and justified by the broad similarities in the context of legal education between Australia and England and Wales. The new 2015 Law benchmark statement provides an ideal opportunity for this to be achieved in the UK.