Wide variations in the way that law schools define and deal with cases of plagiarism mean that students who are caught cheating are subject to a postcode lottery, according to new research.

A study funded by the UK Centre for Legal Education has found that the amount of unreferenced text in an essay considered as a “minor” case of plagiarism varies significantly between law schools — from less than 10 per cent to 50 per cent.

The reseachers of Plagiarism in UK Law Schools: is there a postcode lottery? found that staff are unable to agree on the dividing line between poor academic practice and misconduct, cases of plagiarism are going unrecorded, and as well as wide variations in plagiarism regulations there is a willingness among some staff to depart from their institution’s official procedures.

As a result, students at different law schools are experiencing a “striking lack of parity” and plagiarists at some institutions are likely to be the “unwitting recipients of good fortune”.

The report says: “In the context of a highly regulated career destination such as the legal profession, this continued diversity of approach is one that may become increasingly untenable.”

Most — 75 per cent — of law schools told the researchers that incidents of copying from the internet were increasing. Sixty-four per cent said cut-and-paste plagiarism was on the rise; 53 per cent said that there was greater use of unreferenced downloaded text.

No institution reported the detection of a “customised” essay, and some respondents pointed out that the use of anonymous marking made detection difficult.

Among the institutions that set a threshold for the amount of unreferenced material in an essay considered a “major” offence, one “new” university set the threshold at 50 per cent, two “old” universities at 30 per cent, three “new” and one “old” at 20 per cent, and one “old” university at 10 per cent.

Eighty per cent of law schools said that they used formal procedures to deal with important incidents of plagiarism, but a significant minority dealt with these cases informally, by reducing the student’s mark, for example.

“The effect of this approach,” the authors point out, “is that the plagiarism goes unrecorded.”

Staff had difficulty in defining plagiarism and the difference between what counted as a major and a minor offence.

At one institution, these issues had not been resolved even after lecturers attended a number of staff development events on plagiarism while, in another, disagreement appeared to be accepted as a valid academic difference of opinion.

“If there is widespread confusion and disagreement among staff about what constitutes plagiarism, it is difficult to see how students can be given a consistent message about what it is and how to avoid it,” the authors say.

When it came to deciding what counts as plagiarism and the action taken, individual discretion often played a significant role, either because the regulations allowed this, or because staff were willing to depart from them.

Factors that could be taken into account ranged from whether an incident could be considered negligence or academic naivety, rather than plagiarism, and whether the student had previous offences.

Where staff considered their institution’s academic misconduct policy “harsh,” they were more likely to “stray away” from its strict implementation, the researchers found.

One respondent said that staff were acutely aware of the serious consequences for a law student found guilty of academic misconduct, and felt that this led colleagues to avoid formal procedures.

Others cited the time and effort involved and pressure to meet deadlines for returning coursework as deterrents.

The report states: “In the case of law students, the failure to routinely report and record cases of academic misconduct is a serious matter for all concerned about the integrity of law students and the reputation of UK legal higher education.”

However, the study, by academics at Kingston Law School, Glasgow Caledonian University and Thames Valley University, also says that law schools take plagiarism seriously and a number have developed assessment strategies focused on “designing out” plagiarism.

“All of the law schools, both in the pre and post-92 universities, are trying to tackle this issue and, although there is widespread inconsistency in approach in all stages of the process, plagiarism is treated as a serious institutional matter and there is a genuine interest in combating the problem.”

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