bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Book Review: Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective Use of Educational Technology
Authors: Joughin Gordon
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Diana Laurillard’s Rethinking University Teaching: A Framework for the Effective Use of Educational Technology is an important book. At a time when questions of quality are coming to the fore in higher education, this book directly addresses how technology can be used to enhance the quality of teaching and learning. As in most fields of university teaching, legal educators are making increasing use of technology not only to overcome logistical problems, but to actually teach more students better. In my own country of Australia, workshops for law teachers now invariably include a component on the use of technology, and in this year alone two national legal education conferences have been held to consider educational technology and computer assisted legal education. This experience is no doubt echoed worldwide. Since much technology is applied in a theoretical vacuum, any work which promises a coherent educational framework for the use of technology is likely to represent a valuable contribution.

Rethinking University Teaching consists of three distinct but tightly integrated parts in which Laurillard first establishes the underlying elements of student learning and hence of teaching, analyses a range of media according to these elements, and then, again on the basis of these elements, presents a systematic approach to media design.
Lawyering Skills: Finding their Place in Legal Education
Authors: Kift Sally
Published: June 2021

In “Pericles and the Plumber”, Twining observed that any working theory of legal education had to contend with the fact that certain functional distinctions had evolved into rigid dichotomies: that education should be separated from training, that academic be isolated from practical, that theory be divorced from practice, that liberal education be distinct from vocational training, and that law be sequestered from other disciplines. More recently, it has become apparent that conceptions of legal education have also been inhibited by its segregation into three distinct stages: the academic, the vocational and continuing legal education. In light of such divisions, it is not surprising that the traditional objectives of legal education have been subjected to rigorous scrutiny in recent years and that reviews such as the 1987 Pearce Report on Australian Law schools concluded that legal education was both insufficiently practical and insufficiently theoretical.
Gender Issues in Teaching Methods: Reflections on Shifting the Paradigm
Authors: Mossman Mary Jane
Published: June 2021

[Extract] This paper focuses on gender issues in teaching methods as one part of feminism’s larger project of revisioning legal education to bring women’s experiences “out of the shadows”. To take account of gender issues in teaching methods requires us to focus on gender in our relationships within the academy and within our classrooms, and to understand ourselves and others as “gendered subjects” in relationships of teaching and learning. In this way a focus on gender issues in teaching methods in legal education requires an exploration of why such teaching creates both “possibilities” and “pain”. The first part of this paper situates these issues in the context of struggles between traditional approaches and feminist challenges to law, and the consequences of these struggles for feminist law teachers. In relation to these struggles, the paper then explores parallel debates about pedagogy in terms of more traditional approaches and feminist challenges to them. This analysis shows connections between traditional ideas about law and about pedagogy on one hand, and connections between feminist challenges to law and to pedagogy on the other. It also reveals interesting patterns in traditional claims to objectivity that occur in both law and pedagogy, and feminist challenges which demonstrate the “hidden” gender in these claims in both contexts. My interest in the contrast between traditional and feminist approaches to both law and pedagogy results from an increasing dilemma about my classroom teaching: as the content of my courses becomes more critical, especially feminist, my teaching methods seem to be ever more traditional. From my perspective, my classrooms seem to require me to exercise authority rather than foster consensus, and they are much too large to permit many students to participate effectively in classroom discussion. Although I have no doubt that (some) women students may need to learn differently from (some of) their male colleagues, I have not generally adopted feminist pedagogical approaches in my law classes. My approach reflects a concern that using both feminist content and feminist pedagogy would probably invoke law’s power to make feminist law teachers “fringe dwellers in the jurisprudential community”. Yet from the perspective of pedagogy my approach also reflects the complexity of efforts to teach all the students in my large classes (students who are an increasingly diverse group of people with differing needs), and to teach all of them effectively Such a goal regularly offers not only “possibilities” but also “pain”. Beyond both traditional and feminist approaches to teaching in law schools, the paper suggests that feminist law teachers may need to approach issues of gender and teaching methods in terms of a paradigm shift, to take account of how both students and teachers are gendered subjects in the same classroom.
Feminist Epistemologies and a Law in Context Jurisprudence Course: A New Zealand Experience
Authors: Seuffert Nan
Published: June 2021

I wish to focus on developments in feminist epistemology, or theories of knowledge and knowledge creation, and how they relate to teaching. I will first discuss the feminist epistemologies that have influenced my teaching. Then I will focus on how feminist epistemology influenced the design, the substance and the methods of teaching a law-in-context Jurisprudence course at the University of Waikato. As the title suggests, mine is a New Zealand experience, and the perspective of an American who has been in New Zealand for four years. This essay is an attempt to think through some of my experiences in New Zealand in light of my North American theoretical background. I hope that presenting my experiences will stimulate thinking from Australian perspectives.
Citizenship and Gender in the Public Law Curriculum: Reclaiming Political Stories and Context
Authors: Rubenstein Kim
Published: June 2021

When I was asked to transform my paper delivered at the 1995 Feminist Legal Academic Workshop into a Legal Education Review article, I expanded my outline into a slightly more detailed form. In looking at incorporating “feminist material” into the curriculum I concentrated on citizenship in light of my teaching and research interests in constitutional law, administrative law and migration law. As I have recently begun to think of these matters in my teaching, much of my talk looked at options and possibilities; in many ways it was a list of possible material that could be included in public law courses. On its submission for publication, I was tactfully informed that it “was not suitable for publishing …, as it [was] still very much a conference paper”. I was asked to remove the conversational language, and apart from changing the style, I was also asked to give more detailed information about the material that could be included in the public law courses and how that material could be used. I agree with the latter concerns and this article attempts to advance my conference paper. However, the question of style and content “suitable for a law review article” highlights a critical issue which also impacts on this topic. This article proposes that we recognise that there are different ways of imparting information in the written form, and that the conversational piece is a legitimate part of legal scholarship. Moreover, our curriculum should include creative styles of legal expression for our students to accommodate and encourage difference. This will in turn assist us in our feminist concerns about citizenship and the law school curriculum. Furthermore, it is vital that we consider the teaching of material in ways that include the political contexts within which public law exists. Therefore, in changing my conference paper into this article, I am relying to some extent on some of the scholarship of critical theory; in particular, the embracing of subjectivity of perspective and the avowedly political. Often the method of critical discourse is the narrative, and I am maintaining the narrative style of my original conference paper, relying upon my own teaching experience. My story is therefore seeking to emphasise the message of the critical movement of being concerned with the stories that highlight the different political issues at play. It seeks to show that many stories are excluded from public law forums because of the way we speak about public law. Part of our role as teachers is to reclaim the stories and the greater political contexts within which citizenship is exercised in public law. Sometimes this means listening to and thinking about legal issues in styles and formats that are not considered publishable by mainstream journals.
Legal Education and the Public Interest
Authors: Goldsmith Andrew
Published: June 2021

Law is both powerful and pervasive. It is also, for the most part, highly public in nature. The social settings in which legal considerations arise are virtually endless. The number of ordinary citizens affected by legal problems on a daily basis far exceeds the number of those who go to court or consult lawyers about such matters, or even those who may seek to discover their legal position through a visit to a library, a legal advice service, or the Internet. In a democratic society, some knowledge of the law is a highly desirable commodity. It provides consciousness of entitlements to benefits and protections and also provides ways of organising and structuring a variety of personal and business transactions. Legal knowledge can therefore play both a protective and facilitative role. This redistributive potential of legal knowledge raises questions about the conceptions, philosophies and structures of legal education in our society. What should count as legal knowledge, and how access to legal knowledge is determined, are profoundly political questions. As with most political questions, the interests at stake are not simply defined by the self-interest of a few individuals or well-entrenched groups. The range of people affected by law means that the stakeholders in legal education in a democratic society cannot be narrowly limited. While there are some obvious traditional sectional and private interests involved, the public interest in legal education is easily forgotten or ignored. It is precisely this question that concerns me here.
The Development of Feminist Jurisprudence
Authors: Thornton Margaret
Published: June 2021

This paper had its genesis in an invitation to visit Pune, India, to give a presentation on feminist jurisprudence and to suggest how its perspectives might be incorporated into the teaching of law. The paper shows that the development of feminist jurisprudence has had a chequered career in the West over the last two decades. A brief overview of the experience will be presented, which will be shown to differ according to whether one is focussing on research and publication, teaching and the curriculum, or legal practice. The uneven trajectory of social change may help to inform feminist legal debates and the teaching of feminist jurisprudence among those contemplating the inclusion of such material in their law curriculum. I draw particularly on the Australian experience, which bears many similarities with other common law countries.
Legal Education in Vietnam: The History, Current Situation and Challenges
Authors: Ho Ai Nhan
Published: June 2021

Vietnamese legal education is a relatively new system with the first law school being established in 1976. At present, with approximately more than 40 institutions offering legal education programs at different levels, ranging from bachelors to doctoral, the Vietnamese system still remains underdeveloped. Heavy emphasis on the teaching of legal doctrine and principles, lack of professional skills training and a passive learning environment are common problems of the current Vietnamese system. This paper discusses the history, current state and challenges of the Vietnamese legal education system. The aim of the paper is to present a general picture of Vietnamese legal education and establish context for future discussions on possibilities for reform.
Comparative Perspectives on Teaching Foreign Students in Law: Pedagogical, Substantive, Logistical and Conceptual Challenges
Authors: Picker Colin , Lixinski Lucas , Steel Alex , Fitzsimmons Dominic
Published: June 2021

Legal Education has become a global business. Law schools, like the universities in which they sit, increasingly compete for fee-paying foreign or international students. In line with its global approach, this paper discusses the major issues faced by foreign law students from all parts of the world when they go to study in a foreign jurisdiction, either for an initial or postgraduate law degree – by coursework or research. We particularly focus, though not exclusively, on the challenges of students moving to study in English-language jurisdictions. The issues are nuanced and complex, and many law schools and faculty members may be unaware of their overlapping nature. While there is a large and burgeoning literature on the foreign student experience generally, there is little research into foreign students in law, and research that recognises that the factors can vary from country to country. This paper does not report on any new research. Instead it highlights a range of issues that arise from the general literature and from the perspective of teaching and administrative staff, and the authors’ experiences. We suggest that these issues warrant detailed examination in later studies and should be part of any law school’s consideration of how best to support international students.The paper consequently focuses on the issues faced by law school teaching and administrative staff as well as the issues raised for domestic law students as a consequence of the presence and needs of foreign law students. The issues include: the substantive curriculum; logistics & administration; language; pedagogy; and psychological and emotional concerns. Finally, a few examples of approaches and solutions are presented as an indication of possible responses and areas of further research.
Embedding Animal Law into Law School Curricula: The Possibilities of Strategic Unit Design
Authors: Kyriakakis Joanna
Published: June 2021

Extract: Assessments of the fitness for purpose of legal education are many and varied. Both broad and specific reviews have been frequently undertaken in the context of higher education, admission requirements and professional standards, and national productivity. Additionally there have been influential projects on matters that inform the way in which legal education is designed. Within the academy, work on internationalisation of the curriculum for example, has provoked discussion internationally. In the higher education context, education for sustainability and Indigenous perspectives has resonance for legal education. Likewise, the profession is increasingly grappling with issues such as wellness and resilience, and gender, each of which flow on to legal education. The contemporary contexts facing legal education, however, do not stop here.
Animal Law Syllabus Design: A New Zealand Perspective
Authors: Ferrere M.B. Rodriguez
Published: June 2021

Islamic Shari’ah forms the basis of laws in KSA. The Islamic provisions are considered as supreme over the codified laws and direct the state’s regulations. A close review of the Saudi legal system makes it apparent that it follows both the written and unwritten laws. Because the Shari’ah is considered as the state’s supreme law and cannot be overridden by the codified laws. This study has taken into account the given principle and makes recommendations as for how the curriculum can be redesigned to improve the capabilities of prospective professionals regarding integrating the different law components with the fundamentals of Shari’ah law. The study examines degree plans in KSA universities; most of these offer mandatory Islamic law courses. The adequacy of these courses, however, remains questionable as for whether these apply to the comprehensive provisions of Islamic law or not. Results suggest that courses must be offered which allow students to not only develop stronger foundations in general, but also enable them to better integrate the non-codified rules of law with the Islamic law.
Cultural Cringe or Lessons for Australian Legal Education?
Authors: Goldring John
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Australia is now developing its own tradition of legal education, as well as its own variant of the common law. Legal education in Australia originated in the demand by the practising legal professions in the various colonies for academic credentials which would increase their status, rather than in more scholarly aspirations. For this reason it has long been different from English legal education, though both focussed on a body of knowledge centred around rules, practices and institutions which had clearly English origins and retained them until quite recently

Should Australians (and specifically, Australian law teachers) be interested in two books which examine and provide examples of legal scholarship in England? Perhaps the most striking thing about the two books on English Law Schools is that in both I found only three mentions of teaching method, as distinct from matters of curriculum or scholarship. The clearest reference is in Michael Chesterman’s essay “Legal Explorations in Different Lands”. Chesterman was until recently Dean of Law at the University of NSW, the first Australian law school to question traditional curriculum or teaching methods. He compares the challenge posed respectively by Warwick and UNSW to established traditions; that of Warwick lay in the content of its curriculum, that of UNSW in its methods of teaching. Twining, in his Hamlyn Lectures, refers to instruction in skills (in which he has been a pioneer) as part of an argument that the English Law School curriculum might become more comprehensive, and Wilson, in his rather depressing concluding essay, “Enriching the Study of Law”, mentions it in a similar context.
Introducing a Client-Centred Focus into the Law School Curriculum
Authors: Handley Robin , Considine Damien
Published: June 2021

This paper examines recent research showing widespread dissatisfaction with the legal profession, especially as a result of failures in lawyer/client communications. We ask whether part, at least, of the blame lies with law schools, who largely neglect the client in the law degree curriculum. The question then posed is, what is the role of our law schools and to what extent should clients be a part of their perspective, particularly at a time when the nature of legal practice is undergoing profound change. One indication of this is the emphasis or lack of emphasis given to teaching skills in the law degree curriculum, especially those skills which give context to the law and affect the consumer of legal services, the client. We consider the relationship between the law degree and practical legal training courses, what skills are currently taught by law schools, and ask what skills might be included in the law degree curriculum and with what effect. We conclude that a client-centred approach to legal education — one which includes the client in the law school curriculum — could make a significant contribution to redressing failures in lawyer/client communication and also make the law degree a more focused and interesting course of study.
Legal Education and People
Authors: Judge John Goldring
Published: June 2021

In 1987 the Pearce Committee, established by the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) to examine legal education in Australia’s then twelve law schools, made the following suggestion (“Suggestion 1”): That all law schools examine the adequacy of their attention to theoretical and critical perspectives, including the study of law in operation and the study of the relations between law and other social forces. This article considers to what extent feminist theoretical and critical perspectives have been incorporated into law school curricula, given the substantial period which has passed since the Committee’s suggestion was made. This is partly in response to the consistent expressions of disquiet from feminists who argue that, stemming from an androcentric perspective of life and law, legal education delivers inaccurate messages about women and is gender-biased. I have limited this study to a consideration of the curriculum of the first year introductory subject taught in Australian law schools. An examination of this subject is important as it is the commencement of an individual’s socialisation as a law student and a future practitioner of the law. In this article, I have identified and considered, from a feminist perspective, the treatment of the legal rules and doctrines normally taught in introductory courses and also considered what may be absent from the course contents. From my analysis, it is apparent that there has been a strong movement toward the incorporation of feminist (and other) theoretical and critical perspectives in the introductory courses. However, there is still a significant number of courses that approach the subject-matter uncritically with very little or no feminist content. I argue, in this article, that a law course that uncritically presents legal doctrines risks adopting and perpetuating the unstated point-of-view of a particular cultural group in our society. I discuss the constitution of this cultural group and conclude, as have others, that it is largely comprised of affluent, educated Anglo-Celtic males. I argue that legal education should be openly self-conscious of the culturally-specific point-of-view of the law, and should recognise and address its own partiality.
Graduate Attributes and Legal Skills: Integration or Disintegration?
Authors: Christensen Sharon , Kift Sally
Published: June 2021

Griffith University introduced an integrated Law and Environmental Science degree in 1992. Students who successfully complete the five-year course receive both a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Science degree. The first graduates entered the work force in 1997. With burgeoning regulation of the environment these graduates will help fill a growing demand for legally qualified environmental scientists or scientifically qualified lawyers. The first years of the degrees of the course are devoted to studying the two discipline areas, with integration across disciplines wherever possible. One example is that many of the core legal subjects set an integrated law and environmental science assignment that, for instance, might include the environmental and legal aspects of toxic torts. The theoretical and philosophical frameworks of law and environmental science are integrated in the fourth year subject, Jurisprudential Theories of Law and the Environment. This subject, together with a final year integrated research project, represents a culmination of the interdisciplinary study across the two degrees. The subject is a novel one, being the first of its kind in Australia, and is the focus of this article. We outline the aims of the subject, its approach, content, teaching and assessment methods, summarise innovative student achievements, and provide illustrative feedback from students.
“The Adequacy of their Attention”: Gender-Bias and the Incorporation of Feminist Perspectives in the Australian Introductory Law Subject
Authors: Ward Helen
Published: June 2021

When issues of diversity are raised in a law topic, they often appear — or will be regarded by the students — as not central to the substantive legal or doctrinal aspects of the topic. Thus, a preliminary teaching question which arises is the specialisation/mainstream debate: should such material be presented in a separate segment of the topic (ie: specialisation) in order to give it some overt visibility, or should it be “mainstreamed” by including references to it throughout the topic? Either approach can lead to marginalisation, as we see students putting down their pens or not attending class where such material is going to be covered. The approach I have attempted to take in teaching evidence is to show how such issues of diversity are not marginal, but central, by: considering diversity from the very beginning, as embedded in the fundamental evidentiary questions of relevance and the logic of proof; referring to race and gender issues in a range of evidentiary contexts; having at least one specialist section which focuses intensively on diversity; and including consideration of race and gender in assessment.
Evaluating a Change to Seminar-style Teaching
Authors: Anker Kirsten , Dauvergne Catherine , Findlay Mark , Millbank Jenni
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Astor and Chinkin define negotiation as “where two or more people together attempt to reach agreement on some matter”. It follows that negotiation is central to daily life, be it in the supermarket, at school, in traffic, at home, or in the work-place. Even though negotiation is common place and practised widely (and often unwittingly) by lay people, over the last two decades negotiation has been professionalised. “Negotiation” has developed into a term of art; it is now a “process” with discrete areas of theory and practice. Although negotiation is widely practised in traditional forms of dispute resolution, such as the court system, it also forms the cornerstone of the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement. As lawyers are the main players in both traditional and alternate dispute resolution processes, focused and skilled negotiation, as never before, constitutes an indispensable part of legal practice.
Professional Ethics for Lawyers and Law Schools: Interdisciplinary Education and the Law School’s Ethical Obligation to Study and Teach about the Profession
Authors: Wilkins David B
Published: June 2021

Having practised law in a variety of contexts for many years, I decided to turn to teaching somewhat later in life than is common in Australia. This decision was prompted partly by dissatisfaction with the practice of law, particularly the values that had begun to permeate what is seen as successful legal practice. My interest in legal ethics is fuelled by a desire to help students appreciate the personal and social value of legal practice and the role that ethical professional conduct and social responsibility have in that equation. I am still grappling with the connection between my experiences and observations in practice and delivering the sum total of that learning in an academic context. Whilst the outcome, producing ethical lawyers, is clear, the challenges in achieving this goal, particularly in an institutional learning environment, are ever increasing. In this article I argue that the process of learning legal ethics should take place during the undergraduate period of study in a way that exposes students to the real as well as to the theoretical dimensions of legal ethics. I draw on my experience as a teacher of the subjects Civil Procedure for Resolving Disputes and Clinical Legal Education to illustrate the points that I make about the importance of marrying theory and practice.
Teaching Legal Ethics to First Year Law Students
Authors: Henriss-Anderssen Diana
Published: June 2021

Nowadays, new law courses are not approved unless both the “needs analysis” is convincing and the “consumer demand” is certain. Needs and demands today are driven by new pressures for technological literacy accelerated by globalisation and the current revolution in information and communication technologies (ICTs). The popular logic is that new global “knowledge economies” need “knowledge workers” or “wired workers” to labour in the new emarkets for goods and services and to use the burgeoning number and high quality of electronic information databases now essential to legal research. Students are acutely aware of these developments as well as of the highly competitive nature of the contemporary labour market for law graduates. Consequently, students are demanding more “how to” research skills training. This article puts in context the reasons why, at the University of Waikato, we regard creating synergy between critical and technological literacy as essential for teaching and learning law-incontext research methods, and then describes the curriculum we designed for a legal research methods course in order to trial this approach.
Synergistic Literacies: Fostering Critical and Technological Literacies in Teaching a Legal Research Methods Course
Authors: Havemann Paul , Mackinnon Jacquelin
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Public and professional discussion about the behaviour of lawyers is perennial to the point of cliché. Commentary about perceived inadequacies is also commonplace, but it is ordinarily based on anecdotal, though powerful, “war” stories. It seems, however, that legal educators and regulators must tackle the “ethics issue” with renewed vigour if legal institutions are to retain moral, and perhaps even spiritual, relevance. Ethics awareness projects are, of course, under way in many places (for example, the American Bar Association’s “Ethics 2000” programme); however, often they proceed with little direct information from the mass of legal practitioners as to their own perceived standards of conduct. As legal educators we can only design and teach ethics courses and help the legal profession describe the desirable attributes of the future lawyer using indirect information as to what is needed. My concern here is that legal ethics programmes, both in and after law school, may be proceeding on a comfortable, but possibly unfounded, assumption – that as legal educators or regulators we can simply appeal to the supposed better nature of our students and members in order to improve attitudes and, hence, behaviour. While, in my opinion, there is a link between lawyers’ attitudes/values and their behaviour, we first need to know about these attitudes and values.
A Proof-oriented Model of Evidence Teaching
Authors: Palmer Andrew
Published: June 2021

One of the many essential skills of a lawyer is the ability to research the law. It has been recognised for some time that the skills required to research the law should be taught at law school. Greater emphasis in higher education on the importance of teaching generic skills has coincided with discussion of the need for skills education for lawyers generally. The increasing interest of universities in the development of the “life long learner” has focused attention on methods of training students to be independent learners.
Training Needs for Law Teachers: Being Strategic
Authors: Hutchinson Terry , Hannah Frances
Published: June 2021

In Techniques for Teaching Law, Hess and Friedland express their enthusiasm for “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” as valuable guidelines for legal educators. 1. Encouraging student-staff contact; 2. Encouraging cooperation among students; 3. Encouraging active learning; 4. Giving prompt feedback; 5. Emphasising effective time management; 6. Communicating high expectations and 7. Respecting diverse talents and ways of learning. As committed legal educators, the authors of this article are guided by these principles in their teaching practice and believe that “while traditional legal education emphasised the acquisition of knowledge or ‘cognitive learning’, today professional legal education must seek to achieve other goals”. If Law graduates are to be equipped with lifelong skills and attributes then these goals must include the growth of interpersonal and communication skills in context throughout the undergraduate degree.
Editorial Note
Authors: Barker David , Adams Michael
Published: June 2021

Law schools are in the business of training “lawyers”, that is, people who will practise law. Law schools are not in the business of training students to only be able to regurgitate what they have learned in a bar exam. Lawyers must interact with a plethora of different people. They include clients, colleagues, opposing counsel, judges, witnesses, probation officers, court staff, support staff and others. Clients are often in crisis and, thus, emotional. Law schools must train students to effectively and intelligently interact with people on an emotional basis if we are to train students to be effective, good lawyers. This paper will briefly give an overview of what is meant by “emotional intelligence” and why it is important to the law school curriculum. The primary focus of the paper will be relating my experience in offering a class on emotional intelligence in the internship program at the University of Denver College of Law, Colorado, USA. I will discuss the goals and objectives that I had; the preconceptions that I brought into the process; the organisation of the class; the methodology utilised; the materials used; the student’s reactions; and, finally, what modifications I would make to the course.
The Agency of Innovation: Subject Websites, their Perceived Value and Student Performance
Authors: Field Andrew
Published: June 2021

In 2000, the Hong Kong government appointed two professors from Australia (“the Consultants”) to conduct a review of legal education in Hong Kong. The Consultants released their report, “Legal Education and Training in Hong Kong: Preliminary Review” (“the RLET”) in August 2001. This is the most important document on legal education for Hong Kong in the past three decades. The RLET recommended, inter alia, the abolition of the Postgraduate Certificate in Laws course (“PCLL”) run by the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong (“HKU”). Instead, they proposed the establishment of a new Legal Practice Course by the local legal profession outside the university. In response to the RLET, the HKU Law Faculty has reformed its PCLL in the past three years. In this article, I attempt to trace and analyse the reform of PCLL at HKU. I will first elaborate on two UK documents important to the original PCLL (“old” PCLL) at HKU. Secondly, I will highlight various reports on legal education issued in the United Kingdom (UK) and their relevance to the reform of professional legal education in Hong Kong. Thirdly, I will describe the development of other PCLL courses in Hong Kong to provide the context for understanding the evolution of PCLL at HKU. Fourthly, I will analyse the distinct features of the “old” PCLL, and its major “defects” as pointed out in the RLET. In addition, I will explain several major issues facing the “old” PCLL. Then I will elaborate on several distinct features of the reformed PCLL (“new” PCLL), analysing the progress and implementation issues of the “new” PCLL. Finally, the future reform directions of the “new” PCLL will be outlined. I will then summarise the achievements of the “new” PCLL, with particular reference to the criticisms of the “old” PCLL by the RLET.
Nine Lessons for Teaching Negotiation Skills
Authors: Tyler Melissa Conley , Cukier Naomi
Published: June 2021

Legal education – along with all tertiary education – has become oppressively expensive in recent years. Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) fees have increased significantly, many faculties are charging top-up fees, and some students desperate for a legal education are taking up a rising number of full-fee paying places. Most students graduating from law faculties at the present time – even those on HECS – expect to be burdened with a debt of around $40,000 when they graduate. The scramble for jobs at the end of their study to pay off this burden has become more stressful, and has induced strategic job-centred approaches to the selection of units of study. Many students seek advice on what units of study will best enhance their employability. This paper outlines a project undertaken to collect empirical data from employers of graduates of the University of Sydney Law Faculty. The project, funded by a grant from the Faculty’s own Teaching Innovation Fund, was designed as a pilot project, to sample the views of a range of employers. An electronic survey was designed, and distributed to 100 organisations known to have employed University of Sydney law graduates recently. The survey went to small and large private law firms, government and non-government (non-profit) organizations, and commercial enterprises. Unfortunately, we did not obtain responses from all of the organizations invited to participate. Some were cautious of responding to the survey because they claimed they did not employ our graduates in sufficient numbers to be able to generalize their responses. Some did not reply at all, and because of the limited funds available for the project, no attempt was made to follow up those people. The reasons why some people did not respond at all might be the subject of a further study. If this small sample is at all indicative of broader opinion, it may be that law schools’ energies in expanding units of study on clinical legal skills are misdirected. The respondents to this survey suggest that they want to recruit graduate lawyers who can research, analyse and understand legal resources – meaning cases and legislation. They want recruits who can apply that knowledge to communicate advice and opinions on the law. The practical competencies – in drafting, interviewing, advocacy – come afterwards, with experience and on-the-job training.
Law Graduates’ Skills - A Pilot Study into Employers’ Perspectives
Authors: Peden Elisabeth , Riley Joellen
Published: June 2021

This teaching note has demonstrated how facilitating understanding through interactive and critical teaching practices is a teaching practice better aligned with focussing on what the student does and deep learning, than teaching by providing information. Facilitating critical understanding is a more effective teaching practice because the learning it creates is potentially deeper. Deep social learning leads to a more sophisticated understanding of social issues within the student and reaffirms the individual’s agency for acting in the real world. Legal educators have a responsibility to develop these critical skills in their students Facilitating critical thinking skills through interactive engagement is essential to encourage our students to be socially responsible, and may enable more students to translate their understandings into actions which reform unjust laws beyond the lecture theatre.
Equity, Diversity and Student Engagement in a Law School - A Case Study Approach
Authors: Stevens Elizabeth , Douglas Heather , Cullen-Mandikos Bridget , Hunter Rosemary
Published: June 2021

ALPN is a Carrick Institute funded initiative involving 22 of Australia’s Law Schools designed to significantly improve the methodology and supervisory arrangements for law postgraduate research degrees. The discipline of Law has relatively few higher degree research enrolments, limited supervisory capacity, and has not previously worked together to encourage improvements in supervision practice. ALPN makes available supervisory training, multiple qualified expert supervisors across institutions, methodological and statistical support and promotes modern collaborative supervisory strategies across Australian Law Schools.
Teaching Criminal Law in a Visually and Technology Orientated Culture: A Visual Pedagogy Approach
Authors: Hermida Julian
Published: June 2021

Risk management issues pervade legal practice. Although there has been some improvement in how lawyers manage those issues, particularly in the last decade or so, the chief causes of clients’ complaints and claims remain: poor communication and inefficient or non-existent workplace systems. How well-equipped are entry level lawyers to avoid claims and complaints in their early years in practice? Do they understand the significance of appropriately and efficiently dealing with risk management issues? This article suggests that it is important for providers of preadmission training in law schools and elsewhere to assist students to develop that understanding by implementing a soundly designed risk management program in the curriculum.
Thriving in the Legal Academy
Authors: Baron Paula
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Plagiarism has become increasingly pervasive in Australian law schools. Universities have implemented policies and procedures at both the institutional and faculty level to combat the menace to academic integrity. Plagiarism is elusive, however, in terms of both conceptualisation and detection. The greatest difficulty in identifying instances of plagiarism is the lack of clarity as to its definition. At its most basic, plagiarism is defined as the theft of literary property without attribution. While the authors contend that offenders ought to be held strictly liable, some commentators, discussed below, insist that an element of intention must be present to make a finding of plagiarism, or they identify negligence as an excuse for plagiarism.
Foreward
Authors: Hardy Samantha
Published: June 2021

While the practice of law and the context of higher education have changed radically over recent decades, curriculum renewal in legal education still struggles to keep pace. Common law legal educators face significant conceptual challenges in meeting the persistent demands for curriculum innovation and quality assurance. Further, at a time when higher education has renewed its focus on learning and teaching professionalism and the quality of the student experience, the current fraught reality for all — academics and students alike — is the need to be more effective and efficient in our daily practices and educational engagements. This article provides a brief environmental scan of legal education internationally, and then moves to consider the challenges inherent in educating our graduates for the demands of 21st century citizenship and legal practice in globalised work environments. Some ideas are offered as to how we might go about curriculum design to support new learners in the discipline and to meet the imperatives of teaching, learning and assessing for the new learning objectives being embraced.
The Relevance of the Social Sciences for Legal Education
Authors: Berard Tim
Published: June 2021

Research indicates that the dropout rate for first year students in universities is traditionally higher than for later years, with external or distance students posing the highest risk of withdrawal from studies of any group. This has been the case with the Bachelor of Taxation in the Australian School of Taxation, Faculty of Law at the University of New South Wales. The Bachelor of Taxation (BTax) program is offered nationally in an off-campus delivery mode and focuses on teaching taxation and commercial law as well as economics and accounting. The majority of its students are in full-time employment, are studying part-time and are generally in the late 20s to early 40s age group. Student peer mentoring has been successfully employed in Australia and elsewhere, as a strategy to support first year university students in their studies. In view of this, the Australian School of Taxation (Atax) introduced a peer mentoring program in 2002 aimed at improving the adjustment of first year students to studying at university. The development of this program was part of the ‘First Year Experience Project’ established by the University of New South Wales to improve the quality of the educational experiences and outcomes for first year students. Mentors were selected from continuing Atax students and also included some recent graduates from the program. An existing mentoring program was adapted to suit the demands of distance learning. This article considers the development and analyses the effectiveness of the BTax student peer mentoring program with particular reference to two cohorts of first year students (in 2002 and 2006). It concludes that the majority of the first year students involved in the student peer mentoring program considered that it helped them to adjust to university study. The mentors reinforced the students’ perceptions, agreeing that the program improved the mentees’ learning approaches and adjustment to university. Furthermore, the mentors identified that the program increased their own self-confidence, as well as benefitting their social and communication skills.
Reasoning From the Ground Up: Some Strategies for Teaching Theory to Law Students
Authors: Crowe Jonathan
Published: June 2021

Australian and international law schools are increasingly focussed on experiential learning as a means of promoting student engagement and developing graduate attributes. In this article, existing forms of experiential learning are reviewed and a course design is presented that combines elements of internships and simulations with an intensive collaborative learning experience. This course design has been developed and evaluated over the past five years in the teaching of an international law course Institutions in International Law. Its effectiveness in engaging students and achieving high level learning outcomes led to its adoption this year in a second elective law course focussed specifically on legal professionalism in a global context: Global Lawyer. Both courses are taught primarily through two weeks of intensive seminars outside Australia, visiting a diverse range of institutions and practitioners. This intensive experience ‘in the field’ creates a raft of opportunities for enriching students’ learning. It is also a rewarding experience for teachers, although it creates a number of challenges not faced in a typical law school classroom. The article concludes that while this form of experiential learning entails significant administrative and financial costs, these must be balanced against the significant educational and institutional benefits available from this teaching mode.
The Real Deal: Using Authentic Assessment to Promote Student Engagement in the First and Second Years of a Regional Law Program
Authors: Hart Caroline , Hammer Sara , Collins Pauline , Chardon Toni
Published: June 2021

Labour law is an academic discipline which overtly touches upon a number of other disciplines such as labour history, industrial relations and economics. This article argues that there are pedagogical justifications for incorporating contextual socio-legal material into the teaching of labour law. The incorporation of such content fosters deep learning and also equips students to make thoughtful, informed choices in their working lives and in their roles as citizens and consumers. It is thus in keeping with universities’ obligations to concern themselves with advanced learning, the development of intellectual independence and acceptance of a role as conscience and critic of society. The article also reports on a survey of New Zealand and Australian labour law lecturers, in both law and business schools, on their use of socio-legal material in teaching labour law in to undergraduates. The survey findings suggest that while a number of New Zealand and Australian law lecturers consider socio-legal material very important and incorporate it into their teaching, not all do. Following this, some methods by which lecturers may incorporate socio-legal material into their teaching are discussed. It is concluded that if it is indeed very important that students should learn to see labour law in its socio-legal context then this should be formally stated as a course objective, interwoven into the curriculum and reflected in assessment. At the same time care must be taken in terms of finding an optimal balance between socio-legal context and black letter law.