ABSTRACT
Writing about a ‘critical legal method’ with which to address the question of lay participation in law proves to be problematic for a number of different reasons.
What does ‘critical’ mean in this context? For one thing, ‘critical judgement’ is a generic intellectual skill that all researchers are supposed to be able to apply in relation to the object of their research. For example, the Bologna Process Qualifications Framework includes amongst the skills required at the third cycle (i.e. the doctoral level) the capacity for ‘critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of new and complex ideas’.1 In this sense all research at the doctoral level is expected to be ‘critical’.
