Glasgow University has given a new spin to adult education with a seminar for journalists on the forthcoming Lockerbie trial.
The two Libyan suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 are to stand trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law. Glasgow's school of law has launched a web site, handbook and series of seminars to ensure that journalists understand the process, and once the trial begins, the school will launch a media hotline.
Human rights specialist John Grant said: "We felt a responsibility to make sure people understand this trial, which will involve detailed and complicated questions of Scots law.
"It will be the first time a Scottish court has sat abroad and in the interests of fair reporting, we thought we should provide a resource for journalists."
Professor Grant said journalists from the Anglo-American tradition were likely to expect an opening statement in which the lawyers set out what they intended to prove and disprove. But under Scots law, the trial would begin with the evidence of the first witness.
Another fundamental difference was Scots law's insistence on corroboration, that there must be two pieces of evidence for every essential fact.
Media lawyer Alistair Bonnington, lecturer in criminal procedure, warned that because the case would be heard by three judges rather than a jury, there would be less flamboyance in court than the media might be used to.
"The theatrical posturing that counsel are occasionally guilty of will be hardly appropriate because judges are not awfully impressed by that sort of thing. I would think it will be a more sober, sensible, analytical approach that counsel will take."
The one thing Professor Grant will not comment on is the outcome. "What we have not yet seen is the Crown's case. We do not know what its evidence is, so it is impossible to say what the chance of conviction is."