bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Using Guiding Principles to Construct Effective Multiple Choice Exams to Assess Legal Reasoning
Authors: Deane Felicity , Bozin Danielle
Published: June 2021

The purpose of this paper is to apply established principles for designing effective multiple choice questions to the development of multiple choice exams that can assess high level legal reasoning skills. The authors advocate for an extension of the use of multiple choice exams and suggest that established principles for designing effective multiple choice questions are transferrable to the law discipline. Rule based reasoning in traditional law exams requires that students have knowledge of a legal rule, apply it to a given set of facts (which may include reasoning by analogy), consider any exceptions to the rule and draw conclusions on the basis of their analysis. Drawing on pedagogical principles of assessment design and the requirements of the skills associated with teaching and learning legal reasoning, it is proposed that this process can be replicated in multiple choice exams in a meaningful manner. The authors have collaborated in creating a multiple choice exam to assess legal reasoning, and in analysing the process and methods undertaken to successfully develop this exam. This paper is a discussion of those processes and the justification for the inclusion of this type of assessment item in the law discipline.
Integrating Procedure, ADR and Skills: New Teaching and Learning for New Dispute Resolution Processes
Authors: Mack Kathy
Published: June 2021

For some time, I have been interested in clinical legal education in the broadest sense, as a method of teaching and learning, and as a substantive focus for teaching and research.1 As a method, it incorporates the key elements of structured experience and reflection, elaborated below.2 As a substantive focus, it looks at what lawyers really do and what really happens in practice. I have regularly argued that both aspects of clinical legal education can and should be introduced into the LLB, even in quite large classes. Clinical legal education methods and insights can be effectively combined with conventional legal education to further the goals of legal education. This paper elaborates on those teaching and learning ideas, in the specific context of teaching civil procedure. Some background about the goals of legal education and the changing patterns of legal education in Australia is necessary. This leads to a recognition of the importance of addressing the changing dispute resolution processes in Australia and the skills and understanding law graduates need, especially a broad grounding in values and ethics. The second part of the paper describes a program designed to integrate theoretical, critical and practical approaches to the formal rules of civil litigation. As well as covering formal rules and practices, this program considered the reality of settlement in litigation and examined mediation and other forms of dispute resolution, in light of ideas about the nature of civil justice and the moral and ethical dimensions of legal practice.
Exporting Australian Legal Education to India: A “Train-the-Trainers” Workshop for Indian Law Teachers
Authors: Brun M le , Goldring J , Nagaraj V , Corbin L
Published: June 2021

In 1987 the Australasian Law Teachers Association (ALTA) Law Teaching Workshop celebrated its tenth anniversary. For over a decade, it has conducted residential workshops for law teachers in the Australasian region annually, and in 1994 it sponsored the first advanced workshop for participants of earlier workshops. Although the workshop has evolved since its introduction into Australia from Canada by Professors Neil Gold and Mary Gerace, its main aim has remained the same — to professionalise the teaching of law in tertiary institutions in the Australasian region. It is, therefore, somewhat fitting that, by chance, ten years on, workshops were held in York, Western Australia and in Bangalore, India.
Where are the Graphics? Communicating Legal Ideas Effectively Using Images and Symbols
Authors: Leiman Tania
Published: June 2021

This paper seeks to explore the effective communication of legal ideas in the 21st century. It builds on ideas first presented in December 2015 at the Teaching Legal Analysis and Writing Skills Symposium, Melbourne Law School and developed in May 2016 at a Flinders Law School Research Seminar. It begins by discussing why communication about the law can benefit from using tools other than text, before moving on to a brief historical and theoretical overview of visual communication in the law. It canvases examples of best practice visual communication about the law before going on to seek to understand what this might mean for lawyers, legal education and legal educators.
Teaching the Neglected Art of Persuasive Writing
Authors: Ehrenberg Suzanne
Published: June 2021

The graduate landscape paints an austere outlook for law students with the ultra-competitive legal market fluctuating in its need for graduate lawyers. The experiences of becoming a legal professional that adapts to the complex nature of modern legal roles is being evaluated in the Australian higher education sector. Given that students are enrolled in law degrees in a fast-paced changing world, it is important for legal education institutions to consider how students’ studies, academic achievement and career skills building might be impacted by how they are thinking and feeling about their future. How students feel about and perceive their future affects their level of hope and wellbeing. Hope is defined as an individuals’ positive motivational state and perceived capability to plan and seek pathways to meet their desired goals. This review will consider evidence from the fields of positive psychology, first year experience in higher education, alternative dispute resolution, and teaching and learning pedagogy in order to examine how certain characteristics of the law student experience relates to individual hope. The implications for future research in the field of hope theory, how hope theory can be utilised to inform teaching practices, and the first year law student university experience are discussed while the potential for future research is highlighted in the context of first-year law students’ level of hope and wellbeing.
FAQ: Initial questions about thesis supervision in Law
Authors: Manderson Desmond
Published: June 2021

The initials — LLM or DCL or PhD — don’t mean much. But the experience of writing that thesis was one of the most important of my life: adventurous, delicious, painful. It changed me as a writer and a person in ways I cannot begin to catalogue. It gave me the time, and the space, to think and to read, and perhaps even to grow up (a little)…The importance of the experience and the privilege of the position comes about because writing a thesis is a licence to ask questions: questioning what the field of law is and offers, questioning how things have been approached and how they might be changed, questioning one’s own thinking, assumptions, and expectations.
Creating a corporations law case study
Authors: Dyer Bruce , Hughson Mary-Anne , Ricketson Sam
Published: June 2021

The following paper draws on the experience of the Monash Law School in preparing a case study based on an actual court decision for use in teaching Corporations and Business Associations Law. This is the basic corporate law subject which is done by all law students at Monash as part of their LLB degree. As its name suggests, Corporations and Business Associations Law also deals with non-corporate forms of business association, in particular the partnership. Nonetheless, the primary focus of the subject is the corporation, and its place and role within Australia.
Book Review: Mooting manual
Authors: Lynch Andrew
Published: June 2021

The perception often exists that mooting is a rather specialist component of a student’s legal education, given that few students will be engaged in much advocacy work after graduation. Such views seem to ignore the many benefits which students derive from the exercise1 — even when they are determined not to enter into legal practice at the conclusion of their degree, let alone go to the Bar. As a learning task, mooting contains elements of various educational models which aim to improve the quality of student cognition. Specifically, the construction of knowledge through reflection upon its experiential application may be drawn out by appropriately designed mooting assessment. Through their heavy emphasis on process and method over outcome, moots also encourage students to refine their problem-solving skills.
A Compulsory Dispute Resolution Capstone Subject: An Important Inclusion in a 21st Century Australian Law Curriculum
Authors: Field Rachael M , Roy Alpana
Published: June 2021

The Australian legal profession, and Australian legal education, have experienced significant change over the last three decades. There has, for example, been an exponential increase in the use of forms of dispute resolution (DR) other than litigation to resolve legal disputes, and legal education has evolved to include a stronger focus on the teaching of legal skills and values. This article contributes to the literature arguing that DR should no longer simply constitute part of the elective choices available to law students, but rather should be embedded within the LLB and JD core curricula. First, the article considers the recent scholarship on DR in Australian legal education, most of which supports the view that due to the demands of contemporary legal practice, every graduating law student should now have an opportunity to engage with DR knowledge, skills and attitudes as part of their legal education. Second, the best way to teach DR in the core curriculum is considered. We propose that a capstone DR subject has great potential to support student transition out of law school, to provide closure on their learning, and to promote engagement for deep learning outcomes in the final year.
The Student Experience in Second Year Programmes in New Zealand Law Schools
Authors: Taylor Lynne , Brogt Erik , Cheer Ursula , Baird Natalie
Published: June 2021

Law schools are increasingly responsive to the introduction of animal law into elective offerings. Despite this, some would be animal law educators may still face institutional resistance to the regular inclusion of animal law in law school curricula. This may be truer today in schools outside of the United States, where the subject has yet to reach the same level of acceptance. The ways an animal law unit can be framed through particular disciplinary lenses so as to draw it into alignment with the research strengths, educational goals, and self-identity of a law school may be a means to render the subject more palatable to course administrators. Alignment with the culture and teaching and research strengths of a law school may also enable greater learning opportunities and outcomes for students. One of the qualities of animal law is its pliability to alternative emphases due to the way in which it straddles many different areas of law and jurisprudence, and engages both the public and private spheres. In this paper I explore alternative framings of an animal law subject that might be catered towards the requirements of a law school or teacher in question along these lines.
Learning by Doing: The Benefits of Experiential Learning in Animals and the Law
Authors: Sankoff Peter
Published: June 2021

The primary purpose of legal education is to teach students how to think like lawyers. However, given the opportunities and challenges involved, completing a Juris degree must also have an impact on the affective skills of students, but how so and to what extent? This longitudinal, mixed methods study was designed to answer this question by exploring changes in the affective skills of law students, utilizing the construct of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to identify, process, and manage emotions to effect positive behaviour. To assess the changes, quantitative data from emotional intelligence tests administered at the beginning of first year (pre) and the end of third year (post), as well as qualitative data from exit interviews were collected and analyzed. The quantitative findings from this study suggest attending law school enhances students’ EI, as the mean Total EI increased significantly along with nine of the fourteen mean subscale scores from the pre to the post assessment. The qualitative data supported these findings and provided some specific insights into how these changes manifested themselves during the students’ law education.
Student Perspectives on Talking About Sexual Assault in Australian Law Classes
Authors: Belgiorno-Nettis Anna
Published: June 2021

Dwindling student attendance and engagement in lectures is a significant concern for higher education providers. An increasing reliance on online recordings as a substitute for face-to-face teaching, coupled with students taking on a wider range of commitments, has led to lower attendance rates, particularly in lectures. This article explores how transformative teaching, which utilises engaging and interactive methods of teaching to challenge, redefine, and ‘transform’ students’ learning and critical thinking, can be used to adapt lectures in order to maximise student engagement and learning. Empirical data collected from students, academic staff, and executive members at the University of Western Australia Law School are used to display a strong willingness to alter, but not radically depart from, the traditional ‘information transfer’ lecture. This is particularly important in catering for a generation of students with unprecedented connectivity, technological grasp, and a thirst for constant engagement. The results suggest that the best path to ‘transform’ law lectures is implementing scaffolded problem-based exercises, increasing student input into learning processes and decision-making, and ensuring buy-in and recognition of workloads across all student, staff, and executive levels. This will maximise student attendance, enjoyment, and engagement at lectures while ensuring that academic staff do not bear a disproportionate burden in creating change.
A Rationale and Framework for Digital Literacies in Legal Education
Authors: Galloway Kate
Published: June 2021

Previous studies and anecdotal evidence from employer panels suggest that the habitus of Danish law graduates is, to a decisive degree, characterized by thinking too rigidly within the framework of doctrinal legal analysis, excluding more synthetic, solution-oriented approaches to professional problems they encounter. Previous studies have established that, apart from family background, legal education is one of the major areas in which this habitus is constructed. Because the influence that teaching practitioners have on student values has been recognized in research, the present study interprets the data collected from a survey of 491 external instructors at , to establish the degree to which students are habitualised for practice. The empirically-based results indicate that instructors transmit their values as practitioners, but do not in full congruence teach students to practice relevant competencies. The reason for this partial habitualisation lies in the perception of legal academia as a profoundly different social arena than legal practice: as an arena of “pure” dogmatic thinking, which prevents external instructors from including their own practical competencies in the learning process.
Blended Learning in the Law Classroom: Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an Intervention in the First Year Curriculum Design
Authors: Castan Melissa , Hyams Ross
Published: June 2021

Presently the general theory of law does not provide a throughly explored definition for legal policy. The material suggested by the authors considers both the discussion on the legal policy itself as a phenomenon of law and state and the analysis of the legal policy possibilities in the sphere of lawmaking improvement. Legal policy being a means of democratic transformations in a society can develop and further achieve many important purposes of strategic nature.

The authors use different general and specific scientific methods in conducting their research. However, the study is based on the method of sociological analysis, including the results of the sociological survey carried out with the participation of the Social and Political Research Center in Saratov State Academy of Law and Scientific Educational Center of Federal and Regional Issues in Legal Policy in Saratov Branch of the State and Law Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The paper looks at the nature and the content of the phenomenon from different perspectives. The authors believe that it is impossible to implement all other types of policies in a civilized manner with no legal policy in the modern context. The authors offer to specify policy’s special type - lawmaking policy served to be the basis for the comprehensive development of the law system. The features of this phenomenon, the features of its interaction with other spheres of the legal policy and the state policy on the whole are stated.

It is concluded that the lawmaking policy plays a special role as a multi-purpose means to improve the lawmaking process in the context of modern Russia.
Active Learning in Law by Flipping the Classroom: An Enquiry into Effectiveness and Engagement
Authors: Burns Kylie , Keyes Mary , Wilson Therese , Stagg-Taylor Joanne
Published: June 2021

In this article, I argue that any significant change to legal education in Australia would require the abandonment of the Priestley Eleven subject requirements for a more refined, shorter list of core subjects. The Priestley Eleven currently act as a “dead hand” on curriculum reform, preventing law schools from innovating and experimenting with new subject choices for students. The Productivity Commission has argued that the Priestley Eleven provide a ‘strong base knowledge of the law [but] limit the flexibility of universities to compete and innovate’. Universities would need to move beyond the Priestley Eleven if they wish to give students a holistic or contextualized education in law. Part of this would require the abolition of several black letter law subjects, to be replaced by optional subjects that teach the law in context.
Why do we Moot? Exploring the Role of Mooting in Legal Education
Authors: Lynch Andrew
Published: June 2021

One of the most specialised pieces of assessment featured in a law degree is the moot. Most Law Schools have a mooting component in some form and at some level, yet given the sparseness of the literature on this topic, it seems that the presence and use of mooting is rarely called into question. The only apparent reasons for the existence of mooting programmes are tradition and the correlation to the realities of professional practice. But is this enough?

The overall purpose of this article is to provide valid educational and practical justifications for the exercise of mooting. This process begins by defining the essential characteristics of mooting, as it has existed over the centuries. This discussion will be given contemporary relevance by an examination of how three Queensland Law Schools currently feature moots in their undergraduate curriculum.

The three theoretical bases for mooting as a means of learning, which the paper explores are constructivism, experiential learning and problem-based learning. As such, mooting has a clear role to play in a law curriculum informed by such educational perspectives. There is also a general discussion on the place of moots in the student approaches to learning (SAL) framework.

Additionally, the paper seeks to reveal student reactions to mooting through qualitative research. It is not particularly beneficial to place moots in a theoretical context if there is little understanding of their practical effect. The data gathered from the focus group interviews conducted for this study supports many of the propositions made in the earlier section of the paper, where moots are viewed from the perspective of educational theory.

The final part of the paper seeks to take all of the above and make a statement about the value of moots as a form of assessment in the law curriculum. The purposes of assessment are discussed in conjunction with the theoretical views of mooting examined earlier in the paper, as well as the practical outcomes of mooting identified in the group interviews. The conclusion is reached that there are excellent practical and theoretical justifications for moots and by appreciating these reasons, law teachers can begin to better understand the strengths and benefits of this assessment tool.
Thinking Culture in Legal Education
Authors: O'Donnell Anthony
Published: June 2021

Australia is a polyethnic society formed by the processes of colonisation and immigration. It has become a commonplace to say that we live in a “multicultural society”, yet contemporary Australia could more properly be characterised as “a society with a multicultural population, regulated and governed by a monocultural power structure”.

One aspect of that power structure is the legal system, and the gap between a monocultural legal system and a diverse population has been the subject of commentary for over thirty years. This commentary has highlighted issues of access and equity, especially the linguistic barriers to access and general issues of cross cultural communication, with some regard to those areas where the cultural underpinnings of law acquire most saliency: family law, criminal law and, to a lesser extent, contract law. It has been recognised that law schools and the traditional law curriculum must bear part of the blame for the ongoing failure of the legal system to respond to issues of cultural diversity. One response has been to advocate cross cultural awareness education which focusses on intercultural communicative competence, ethnographic thumbnail sketches or “case studies” of migrant “communities”, and an examination of the law’s tolerance of diversity through, say, formal anti-discrimination or equality provisions.
The ACLEC Report - Meeting Legal Education Needs in the 21st Century?
Authors: Grimes Richard
Published: June 2021

The Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct (ACLEC) was established in 1991 with the remit of advising on the education and training of legal service providers.1 The Committee has a statutory duty to consider the relevancy of legal education to the needs of both practitioners and the members of the public. Their work is limited to legal education in England and Wales but, I suggest, is of relevance to jurisdictions elsewhere in the common-law world, especially in view of contemporary discussions, on the international scene, on the form and content of legal education.

The last significant and comprehensive review of legal education in Britain was in 1971. The Ormrod Report of that year identified three distinct levels of development: the academic; the vocational; and continuing or post qualification legal education. As has been noted elsewhere, the distinction between these stages of the educational process has dominated both the philosophy and delivery of legal education for more than 25 years.

The ACLEC committee undertook, shortly after its appointment in 1991, a review of all aspects of legal education, and through consultative papers and conferences: canvassed views from a wide range of interested parties including educational providers, government law officers, the judiciary and private legal practice. Academic research studies, both existing and commissioned, together with expert consultants, were used to supplement the consultative process. This led to the publication in April 1996 of ACLEC’s First Report on Legal Education and Training. A consultative conference on the Report was held in July 1996. A further report that deals specifically with the continuing professional development of barristers and solicitors is expected in April 1997. A consultative paper on the education and training of para-legals is to be issued at the same time.
Stimulating Multilateral Treaty Making in the Teaching of International Law
Authors: McCormack Timothy L H , Simpson Gerry J
Published: June 2021

Post-Pearce Report, many Australian law schools have moved to embrace the teaching of legal skills with an enthusiasm that few could have foreseen prior to 1987, or indeed, in the immediate aftermath of that Report. In many instances, it has been the fourthwave law schools which have been at the forefront of this development. The incorporation of skills into the undergraduate curriculum has always been a source of great concern and debate. The teaching of skills “on the run” as it were, is often seen to necessitate a corresponding lack of attention to the teaching of substantive law or theoretical perspectives and, as a result, true “integration of skills development, skills theory and practice, into a holistic and effective educative process has proceeded slowly”. A dismissive attitude to the old liberal education versus skills training debate has been adopted by those who now argue that the “existing challenge that confronts legal education … is the integration of doctrine, theory and practice into a unified, coherent curriculum”. Accepting this as the task presently facing legal educators, the underlying purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, by reference to an example of the use of moots in a Constitutional Law subject, that skills exercises can be used to good effect as part of course delivery to all students — not just those performing the skill at any particular time.
Teaching Practical Legal Problem Solving Skills: Preparing Law Students for the Realities of Legal Life
Authors: Hammond Celia
Published: June 2021

“ABSENCE OF A LARGER VISION” Tan Le, 1998 Young Australian of the Year, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on 3 March 1999: Let me illustrate from my experience. I have just completed a law degree. One reason why I (and many others) chose law was because I believed a law degree would enable me to contribute in a special way — to do what I could to make a better world. But nothing in the entire law curriculum addressed the issue in a serious and engaging way … Young people are not being educated to take their place in society. They are being trained in a narrow body of knowledge and skills that is taught in isolation from larger, vital questions about who we are and what we might become. There is, in other words, a complete absence of a larger vision, and many young people who enter the university in the hope of learning how to make a better world find out that this is not a consideration. This lack of vision prevails not just in tertiary education. Our society has replaced vision with what might be called a rationale. A rationale is more pragmatic, smaller in scope, less daring and does not fire the heart or capture the imagination …
Interdisciplinary Teaching in Law and Environmental Science: Jurisprudence and Environment
Authors: Godden Lee , Dale Pat
Published: June 2021

This article provides an insight into the environment and background of the Law Clinic, a clinical legal education course offered on a placement basis by the University of the South Pacific (USP) School of Law based in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The article briefly examines the structure of the course before focussing on some of its unique features. By providing a description of the course and identifying some important issues, it is hoped that the article will provide a different perspective of clinical legal education.
Clinical Legal Education in a Developing Island Jurisdiction - A unique Environment
Authors: Hill Edward R
Published: June 2021

Teaching about legal ethics is just like teaching about any other area of law. And teaching about legal ethics is different from teaching about any other area of law. Teaching about legal ethics is harder than teaching about any other area of law. And teaching about legal ethics is easier than teaching about any other area of law. Legal ethics was once thought to be among the least important things about which American legal educators teach. Today, legal ethics is regarded as a quite important thing about which to teach. Someday soon, I expect, legal ethics will be regarded as the most important thing about which American law schools teach. Where does this odd mix of observations lead? And what do they have to do with experience?
Teaching Evidence: Inference, Proof and Diversity
Authors: Mack Kathy
Published: June 2021

The challenge for any educator is to make the process of learning interesting. In practice, this entails acceptance of the fact that the “purpose of education is to stimulate inquiry and skill in the process of knowledge getting [rather than requiring students] to memorise a body of knowledge”. While traditional legal education emphasised the acquisition of knowledge or “cognitive learning”, today professional legal education must seek to achieve other goals, including “the ability to use that knowledge in a legal context; and the cultivation of other social and interpersonal characteristics and qualities”.
Negotiation: A Guide to Practical Skills
Authors: Gutman Judy
Published: June 2021

It is less than a decade since Le Brun and Johnstone sought so effectively to improve law students’ learning by bridging “the perceived gulf between educational theory and practice so that our work as [law] teachers is more informed, reflective, critical and, thus, improved in practice”. In documenting and building upon theoretical and practical connections, they both identified and accelerated the “quiet revolution” which has been making our classrooms, at their best, places where active, student-centred learning involves critical dialogue on law and justice. In the meantime, however, there has been another revolution fermenting in the academy. But this time it may undermine the developments in law teaching because in many instances the classroom will no longer be the principal site of teaching. The new revolution is one of “flexible delivery”.
Experience and Legal Ethics Teaching
Authors: Moliterno James E
Published: June 2021

I have been teaching law on a full-time basis for almost forty years, including courses in legal ethics for thirty of those forty years. As any ageing teacher does, I suppose, I like to think of my teaching as effective. With a few exceptions, the teaching techniques I have appropriated or invented for classes in legal ethics have worked reasonably well. Within that, there are two techniques that have worked well enough to justify suggesting them to other teachers. One of these is the use of daily (or at least weekly) writing by students. The other is teaching in and from the clinic, with stories told and “dilemmas” described by students about their real clients.
Teaching Legal Ethics Online: Pervasive or Evasive?
Authors: Zariski Archie
Published: June 2021

The aim of this article is to encourage law teachers to produce interactive teaching/learning materials in law and to share the lessons that they learn from their work to enrich what we know about the development of, and student learning with, multimedia teaching/learning products. In this article I describe the process of the creation of an interactive CD-ROM designed to teach law students and trainee legal practitioners legal ethics and professional responsibility (“LE/PR”). I outline some of the problems that were faced and the lessons that were learned so that other law teachers and multi-media developers might profit from them and more confidently embark on producing interactive teaching/ learning materials that enrich learning in law. In so doing, I hope to be able to contribute to the development of a scholarship of teaching as advocated by Boyer and other educationalists and translate what Laurillard suggests about teaching and learning with multi-media into practice.
Enhancing Student Learning of Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility in Australian Law Schools by Improving Our Teaching
Authors: Brun M J Le
Published: June 2021

How to describe my delight when I first discovered Twining and Miers’ How To Do Things With Rules in its third edition some eight or nine years ago?(!) One of the occupational hazards of a career in legislative drafting is being stranded at a party after trying to explain to someone (anyone!) just what fun it is, doing things with rules. The conversation teeters, then shifts to other guests and more engaging topics. Twining and Miers’ work is a text that enjoys its subject, while demonstrating the fundamental importance of interpretation at all levels of the law and for all those who come into contact with the law (that is, everybody). Armed with the “case of the legalistic child” (10-12), or the strange-but-true story of the fire engine drivers both prohibited and permitted to go through red lights (51-56), a shy and retiring drafter could venture forth to the next social engagement and hold his own in the most brilliant company. The first part of this review gives an account of the achievements of Twining and Miers’ work in its previous incarnations — in terms of its subject matter, approach and method. In the second part of the review, the distinctive features of the fourth edition are evaluated.
Designing Learning Strategies for Competition Law - Finding a place for Context and Problem Based Learning
Authors: Nagarajan Vijaya
Published: June 2021

A voluminous body of literature attests to failings of the legal system. The legal system fails to provide real equality before the law and, in particular, it fails to provide access to justice for all. These inadequacies are especially tied up with the adversarial nature of the system and the perception that many lawyers operate with a “mercenary mind-set” within it.
How to do Things with Law Students
Authors: Horn Nicholas
Published: June 2021

The “new evidence scholarship”, which has revitalised evidence research and teaching in North America in the last thirty years, still seems to have had very little impact in Australia. The key feature of this new scholarship is a transformation of evidence “from a field concerned with the articulation of rules to a field concerned with the process of proof”, “a shift away from the rules of evidence towards the process of proof and the way inferences should be drawn from a mass of evidence”. In Australia one can point to scholars such as Richard Eggleston, David Hodgson, David Hamer, and Andrew Ligertwood, as having published work which falls somewhere on a spectrum that ranges from actively engaging with the new evidence scholarship, to applying its insights, to sharing its concerns. For most published Australian evidence scholarship, however, Lempert’s description of evidence as a “field concerned with the articulation [and critique] of rules” remains apt. Given the minimal impact of the new evidence scholarship on evidence research in Australia, it would be surprising if the new evidence scholarship had had a significant impact on the teaching of Evidence in Australian law schools, and a cursory examination of a range of Australian evidence teaching texts confirms an almost exclusive focus on the rules of evidence, and a corresponding neglect of the processes of proof.
Small Group Learning in Real Property Law
Authors: Sifris Adiva , McNeil Elspeth
Published: June 2021

The philosophy of education at Flinders Law School emphasises the acquisition of foundation legal skills, including interpersonal communication such as interviewing and negotiation, in a program which is designed to foster independent learning. As part of this commitment, Flinders has initiated and maintained a project to incorporate self-reflection as an explicit goal of teaching. Developing a capacity for informed reflection on their own work will directly enhance students’ learning and enable them to monitor and improve their performance after graduating and entering the work- force.
A First Step Toward Introducing Emotional Intelligence into the Law School Curriculum: The “Emotional Intelligence and the Clinic Student” Class
Authors: Cain Paul J
Published: June 2021

German legal education and practice in the area of private law is dominated by a specific problem solving methodology. Some German legal writers even suspect that methodology may have taken control over substantive law. Despite its obvious significance, to date such methodology has not provoked much academic discussion. This article introduces the German problem solving model and discusses its significance. It further tries to examine whether other jurisdictions have developed similar methodological tools. In particular, the difference between Civil Law and Common Law seems to suggest that different methodological approaches must be taken in related jurisdictions so far as the handling of private law problems is concerned. Legal education in Common Law systems normally refers to “problem solving” when it comes to ask students to analyse disputes, that is to decide how a specific dispute should be resolved on the basis of the applicable law. As shown below, however, the topic of this article is not limited to merely giving advice on how to deal with problem solving questions in legal examinations in order to guarantee the best possible grades. Further, this article does not aim at the discussion of forms of dispute resolution, such as arbitration, mediation or court proceedings, nor does it address legal writing skills. On the contrary, it focuses on the task of identifying potential (private law) problems arising out of a set of given facts and the sequence in which they should be dealt with. In other words, it discusses the structuring process of private law problem solving, which precedes the actual process of private law problem solving. The methodological devices, which are of relevance in this context, are of direct practical importance for any type of legal work in the area of private law. It is, therefore, the ultimate goal of this article to identify and explain these devices and thus facilitate their application in practice.
A Model for the Integration of Legal Research into Australian Undergraduate Law Curricula
Authors: Cappa Clare
Published: June 2021

Legal research is a fundamental “lawyering” skill, and as such its importance in legal education has had more recognition than other discipline-specific attributes. However, in 1988, when an initial review of research skills training in Australasian law schools was completed, the predominant philosophy appeared to be that the skill would be developed via a process of “osmosis”. Since then, a transformation of sorts has occurred. Legal research training has become an integral part of the curriculum of most law courses offered within the Australian region. At the same time, skills generally have gained increasing importance in the tertiary sector and especially in the law school curriculum. Within this context, some law schools have instigated reviews of their overall skills training, and this has had a flow-on effect on legal research training. This current Australian legal tertiary framework of enhanced importance for skills training and an increased use of technology for teaching, forms the backdrop for the 2002 survey. This paper firstly reviews the developments taking place within higher education as reflected in the various government reports. It then outlines the relevant literature on literacy competency within information sciences. Also pertinent is the law schools’ response to doctrinal research skills training. Previous surveys of legal research teaching in Australia are summarised. The paper then examines the outcomes of the 2002 survey and makes some conclusions and recommendations based on the analysis of results taking into account the challenges identified for the tertiary education sector in Australia.
Mandating a Culture of Service: Pro Bono in the Law School Curriculum
Authors: McCrimmon Les A
Published: June 2021

An important educational issue in legal higher education is the integration of skills into the undergraduate curriculum.1 This raises a whole series of questions including: What are these skills? Which skills reach across disciplines? Which are discipline specific? How essential are they and how can they be taught?2 Integral to this issue is that students in the post modern 21st century are continuously challenged by unique situations which are ill-defined, for which they may have no previous experience and which do not necessarily have one clear solution. Such divergent problems are not quantifiable or verifiable and so do not lend themselves to a single, simple solution3 but require a self-directed response based on a creative analysis of the contextual factors involved. Problem-based learning (PBL), with its emphasis on autonomy and collaborative, active learning, appears to be one way to encourage students, particularly first years, to develop the skills needed to deal with the dynamic complexity4 with which they are increasingly confronted. In particular, the author argues in this article, it is an approach that is effective in teaching the skill of legal problem solving. This article describes the process undertaken to develop a computer-based module designed to introduce law students, through the use of PBL, to legal problem solving and its potential relevance to their professional practice. Further, the article discusses how the principles and processes of PBL as integrated into a computer-based education module (CBE) can be applied to legal problem solving. It describes the use of the module with first year off-campus students studying law at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) as well as final year on-campus law students and demonstrates how the CBE module has been integrated into teaching legal problem solving skills for these students.
Where to Now? The 2002 Australasian Research Skills Training Survey
Authors: Hutchinson Terry
Published: June 2021

[Extract] This article started as a response to a decision by Deakin University’s Law School late last year to embark upon a major recruitment of new staff. That decision caused the writer to wonder what published sources of advice were available to assist aspiring legal academics in choosing and shaping a career. To date it would seem that whilst there is no dearth of sources about what law schools should teach, or on the content and structure of the curriculum, research on the selection and formation of academics is somewhat less common. This is changing. In 2003 a short biographical study of six law teachers, based on structured interviews, was published and in 2004, a major study of the identity of 54 law teachers became available. There have also been significant studies on the particular issues encountered by female academics in the legal academy.
[P]lucky Jane et al: Ideal Types in the Legal Academy?
Authors: Carmichael John
Published: June 2021

[Extract] The innovations of the information revolution, computers, the Internet and other increasingly frequent signs that we are now living in the 21st century have given rise to novel observations in all fields of human activity. In the teaching of the law in university courses, this is no exception. The observation which gave rise to the present article arose through the teaching of an introductory course of commercial law to business students during Semester 1 2002. The students who are presently enrolled in BTF1010 Commercial Law at Monash University, Australia, experience many features their predecessors of past generations would recognise in attending university. For example, students attend lectures and tutorials. However, they are also assisted in their studies by the provision of a number of technological teaching and learning aids. For example, lectures are accompanied by a series of PowerPoint projections; copies of those overheads can be obtained prior to the lecture via a subject website on the Internet. Various other teaching materials such as past exam papers, tutorial questions, sample assignment questions and answers can also be obtained from the website. In other words, the personal computer and its attachments are ubiquitous.
Reform of Professional Legal Education at the University of Hong Kong
Authors: Wu Richard
Published: June 2021

[Extract] The purpose of this article is to describe, evaluate and reflect upon certain interactive teaching strategies used in the large lecture theatre environment. The article will describe the teaching context in which interactive strategies have been introduced, and will outline and discuss the teaching strategies and aids used. Finally, the effectiveness of the strategies in improving student learning will be evaluated, and some personal reflections on the teaching experience recorded. The major premise underpinning the article and the exercise, the subject of this article, is that the object of good teaching is to promote high quality learning on the part of the student. I adopt a framework for teaching which embraces the idea of teaching as the fostering and promoting of student learning. This approach is based largely on the work done by Paul Ramsden, amongst others, which has been enhanced in the context of legal education in Australia by writers such as Richard Johnstone and Marlene Le Brun. According to this approach, good teaching involves three things: understanding student learning; appreciating both the primary importance, and the best means, of fostering and promoting learning, and having the necessary skills to do so; and the practice of constant reflection.
Law School Teaching: Linking Learning with Law Practice
Authors: Eckmann James K
Published: June 2021

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Editorial Note
Authors: Hutchinson Terry
Published: June 2021

The relationship between the quality of justice in society and the values of its (legal) practitioners is of obvious importance to the stability of society, especially in the context of professional concern with lawyers’ mixed performance in relation to major social events such as insurer collapse, tobacco litigation and asbestos compensation. We considered that lawyers’ values might play some role in the decisions that are made in everyday legal practice. This paper, reporting on detailed observations of final-year Australian law students values in 2001, is part of a larger longitudinal study that explores the relationships between values and ethical behaviour for early-career legal practitioners. The study examined the effects of values systems on ethical decision-making, by situating participants within contexts that provided for ethical dilemmas. A questionnaire utilising hypothetical situations was presented in eleven scenarios. Findings of the 2001 snapshot, which were analysed using a variety of statistical tools, suggest that differing values hierarchies do significantly predict behavioural choices on ethical questions presented to participants. The implications of results are discussed in the contexts of ethics education in a tertiary educational environment and potentially, in the context of remedial education for practitioners who have been disciplined and then seek the return of a practising certificate.