In the Seminar Space: Navigating Graduate Teaching in Undergraduate Legal Education

Abstract

This reflective paper examines my evolving pedagogical identity as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) within a Global North law department, focusing on the facilitation of undergraduate seminars. Grounded in Warwick Law School’s “Law in Context” philosophy, I reflect on a seminar where students critically engaged with the applicability of CEDAW in Global South contexts. This experience demonstrated how legal instruction can move beyond doctrinal delivery to become a dialogic practice shaped by lived experience, social histories, and interdisciplinary critique. Through scaffolded teaching, peer-led activities, and participatory methods, I aim to decentralise authority and foster cumulative learning across diverse student cohorts. Navigating the dual role of postgraduate student and educator involves constant negotiation between institutional expectations and my commitment to feminist-informed pedagogy. I reflect on the emotional labour required to sustain inclusive engagement, respond to student needs, and maintain care and professionalism—labour that is often invisible, unevenly distributed, and unrecognised within formal teaching structures. Drawing on engaged pedagogy and personal experience, I argue that transformative legal education depends not only on intellectual rigour but also on emotional awareness, epistemic humility, and institutional recognition of the relational work performed by early-career educators. By foregrounding the complexities of care, credibility, and co-construction, this paper affirms the pedagogical agency of postgraduate teachers and calls for more socially responsive approaches to legal education.