ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by providing a brief description of complex systems and identifies that both legal education and law schools operate in a manner consistent with this description. It then introduces the scholarship that highlights the value of difference in complex systems. Rather than addressing the pedagogical benefits of allowing flexibility and surprise in designing curriculum with complexity in mind, the chapter focuses on law schools as adaptable organisations and the potential importance of difference in that context. In doing so, it draws on insights offered by complexity researchers who emphasise that organisational innovation is supported within adaptive spaces where differences exist. The chapter focuses on complexity leadership to explain how leaders might encourage and support difference within legal education. It identifies that these insights might be particularly important in a system with inherent traits, such as the need to comply with ‘academic knowledge’ requirements, that tend to pull law schools towards a homogenised status quo.
