Teaching Legal Creativity: Really?

‘Legal creativity’ is a popular buzzword used to describe one of the core skills successful lawyers are expected to command. Accordingly, it is a common understanding that legal education should train students to become creative lawyers. Interestingly, however, there is not much discussion about how this learning outcome can be achieved. Even more startling, the notion of ‘legal creativity’ as such is hardly ever explained in detail. This article originally aimed to fill the existing gap(s) by exploring what legal creativity means and how legal creativity can and should be taught. The research underpinning this article led to the surprising discovery that the notion of legal creativity is nothing but a triviality and—as far as legal reasoning is concerned—even an oxymoron. Legal education can therefore ignore the notion of legal creativity and focus on what is really important, that is, critical thinking, problem-solving and advocacy skills.