bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Is Natural Law Timeless?
Authors: Crowe Jonathan
Published: June 2021

Natural law theories hold that human action is oriented towards certain intrinsic goods and governed by practical principles accessible to us by virtue of our nature. These goods and principles make up the content of natural law. This essay argues that both the content of natural law and our understanding of its requirements evolve throughout human history. This represents a diachronic, rather than synchronic, understanding of natural law. This perspective is contrasted with the ‘new natural law theory’ of Germain Grisez and John Finnis, which depicts natural law as timeless and unchanging. Finnis seems to think that natural law does not change because it exists in the mind of God; however, a belief in God as the source of natural law is equally consistent with a diachronic perspective. I defend this view through reference to the writings of Thomas Aquinas and the structure of the biblical narrative.
Teaching Soft Skills Including Online: A Review and Framework
Authors: Rogers Justine
Published: June 2021

With Artificial Intelligence steadily advancing, emblematic of change broadly, many argue that soft skills will be the central determinants of a lawyer’s success. Soft skills comprise a ‘combination of competencies that contribute to how people know and manage themselves as well as their relationships with others’. However, there is real need for more scholarship on how to teach them at law school. Meanwhile, and accelerated by COVID-19, universities are changing their models in favour of online or blended learning. But again, there is very little research on what an online context can do to support soft skills learning. Indeed, online learning is associated with learner isolation, frustration, disengagement, all of which are at odds with socio-emotional skills development. This article provides a critical analysis of the meanings and importance of soft skills, and the structural factors against their prominence in legal education. It also reviews teaching practices across the tertiary sector, to provide frameworks and a set of strategies for teaching them to law students, with a focus on the digital format.
The Implications of Uncertainty in the Law of Criminal Causation for the One-Punch Homicide Offence in Western Australia
Authors: Porter Jennifer
Published: June 2021

This article considers s 281 of the Criminal Code (WA), which was introduced in 2008 to create an offence ofunlawful assault causing death and to exclude the defence of accident (and the test of reasonableforeseeability) in those cases. The author argues that, given the ‘unfixed’ state of the common law of criminalcausation in Australia, triers of fact may still consider the reasonable foreseeability of consequences indeciding the primary question of causation. If triers of fact may still have regard to the reasonableforeseeability of consequences in deciding causation as a separate issue, then s 281 might not achieve what it isintended to achieve. An accused might be acquitted of a charge of unlawful assault causing death on the basisthat the death was not reasonably foreseeable even before the defence of accident arises. While this argumentremains open, s 281 may be a vehicle for further appellate consideration of the law of criminal causation andthe relationship of (legal) causation with accident in code jurisdictions.
Reflections on Deanship
Authors: Farrar John
Published: June 2021

The purpose of this article is to reflect on the experience of being Dean of three Law Faculties, Associate Deanof two and Acting Vice-Chancellor of one university, to express some opinion as to the characteristics thatmake a ‘good’ dean, and to caution others against repeating my mistakes. In doing so, the first thing that I willsay is that each university has its own characteristics and that university governance has changed considerablyin the last 30–40 years.
Resolving Jurisdictional Conflicts Between WTO and RTA Dispute Settlement: Toward an Interpretative Approach
Authors: Nguyen Son Tan
Published: June 2021

In the last several decades there has been an exponential growth in the number of Regional Trade Agreements (‘RTA’s). In addition to creating a wide overlap of substantive rights and obligations with the World Trade Organization (‘WTO’), many RTAs are also equipped with legalized dispute settlement mechanisms, which operate independently from the compulsory, automatic and exclusive system of WTO dispute settlement. This parallel operation of substantive commitments and legalized mechanisms may potentially result in conflicts of jurisdiction where a single dispute is submitted simultaneously or consecutively to both fora. It has been well addressed in various studies that if such conflicts arise, there is currently no legal rule that can satisfactorily determine which forum should have jurisdiction. As a result, multiple proceedings appear unavoidable. This article seeks to offer a new way to look into the jurisdictional tension between the WTO and RTAs. It will be argued that in the absence of effective rules to determine jurisdictional priority, principles of treaty interpretation — particularly art 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties — provide a practical and useful technique to minimize the negative consequences of multiple proceedings, namely inconsistent interpretations and findings over essentially the same disputes.
Critical Legal Studies as a Teaching Method, Against the Background of the Intellectual Politics of Modern Legal Education in the United States
Authors: Gordon Robert W
Published: June 2021

I see the role of this paper as providing some perspective and background to Gerald Frug’s much more thorough and detailed account of some teaching methods of critical legal studies (CLS).
The Socratic Method: Silencing Cooperation
Authors: Morgan Jenny
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Feminist law teachers in North America, as in Australia, have been grappling with the issue of the silencing of women students, and have added their voices to the growing chorus of criticism of the Socratic method. This paper tentatively explores the relationship between teaching styles and the silencing of women students in classrooms. The paper arises out of the experience of becoming a law student after being a law teacher for some eighteen months, and my subsequent return to the front of the classroom. In other words, as with much feminist work, this paper is grounded in my own experience, the experiences of my student colleagues that I observed and shared and in empirical work in and outside law classrooms. In other words, as with much feminist work, this paper is grounded in my own experience, the experiences of my student colleagues that I observed and shared and in empirical work in and outside law classrooms.

I aim to explore various teaching styles and pose tentative views on the effect they may have on student behaviour, particularly student cooperation, both in the classroom and outside it. The other related aim of the paper is to raise specific questions about women’s participation in law school classrooms. In order to do this, I set up various ideal types, which may not necessarily reflect actual classroom practices in either North America or Australia, but are used as a shorthand way of exploring the effect of teaching styles.
The Status of American Legal Education
Authors: Nolan Dennis R
Published: June 2021

Legal academics in Australasia must get tired of the constant run of reports on various aspects of American legal education. In recent months, for example, there have been several articles on the ideological schools now contending in America, including law and economics, critical legal studies and feminism. Nevertheless, over the years American developments (notably the casebook, the so-called Socratic method, university law reviews and clinical legal education) have swayed legal education elsewhere in the English-speaking world. Moreover, trends in legal education, both good and bad, seem to begin in the United States and then spread abroad. On the theory that forewarned is forearmed, therefore, Australasian legal academics may find useful yet one more report from America. My objective in this paper is a little different from that in the Legal Education Review articles cited above. Rather than plead the case for a specific doctrine, I will try to present a broad survey of practical and theoretical developments in the last twenty years of American legal education and thus attempt to describe its current status. My view is necessarily personal, based on my experiences in four American law schools, on discussions with colleagues at many more and on reading almost everything published recently on American legal education. My view will also be informal. It is not based on any scientific survey and apart from references to pertinent articles I will not burden my remarks with extensive documentation. The paper should, therefore, be taken for what it is, a reflective analysis of a subject that has been dear to me for my entire professional life.
Legal Education and Professional Development - an Educational Continuum, Report of the Task Force on Law Schools and the Profession: Narrowing the Gap, (Illinois: American Bar Association 1992)
Authors: Clark Eugene E
Published: June 2021

This American Bar Association (ABA) Task Force publication is a report of the findings of an in-depth study of the “range of skills and values necessary for a lawyer to assume responsibility for handling a legal matter.”The ABA Task Force which prepared the Report was comprised of approximately 40 leading law academics, legal practitioners and members of the judiciary. The project took three years to complete and is commendable for its thoroughness and the manner in which it built upon the foundation laid by earlier studies such as Zemans and Rosenblum, The Making of a Public Profession. The purpose of this review article is twofold: first, to summarise the findings of this ABA Task Force Report which was released in November 1992; and second, to consider what implications this US study may hold for Australian Legal Education which is facing, or in the future will face, many of the same issues.
Teaching Writing In Law: A Model to Improve Student Learning
Authors: Hansche Annette
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Every year in almost every course, there are students whose work is assigned low grades because it lacks substance, clarity, creativity and sophistication. Why is such poor quality work produced?

This familiar problem was raised recently by Shirley Rawson and Alan Tyree. The explanation focussed on by the authors is the failure of students to define or apply criteria for good work. The authors’ aim is accordingly to improve student performance by self and peer assessment which require the definition and application of criteria to evaluate one’s own or a peer student’s work.

My own aim in teaching has a slightly broader perspective. My primary concern is to improve students’ approach to learning and in particular to lead students to adopt a deep approach to learning.

Whereas a surface approach is characterised by rote learning and a focus on accurate reproduction of knowledge, a deep approach to learning focuses on maximising understanding by reading widely, thinking critically, reflecting and linking new information to previous knowledge. Students’ motivation would lie in learning for its own sake rather than purely in passing the course requirements.
Evaluating Law Teaching: Towards the Improvement of Teaching or Performance Assessment?
Authors: Johnstone Richard
Published: June 2021

In the last few years there has been a move towards assessing and appraising the quality of teaching in Australian universities. While some law schools have on their own initiative paid more attention to this process, in others the issue has arisen in the context of the move towards staff assessment and appraisal which developed out of the second tier National Wage negotiations in the tertiary education sector in 1988. Until these developments, there had been little or no attempt to scrutinise teaching within law schools. It has been commonly accepted that where teaching has been scrutinised for the purposes of promotion, confirmation and recruitment, scrutiny was often based on rumour, innuendo and hearsay. In this context, then, the move towards more rigorous scrutiny of teaching in law schools should be welcome.

Of course, there are arguments for and against more rigorous scrutiny of teaching. Why should teaching be ignored or paid lipservice in selection, confirmation and promotion when it is an important and time consuming component of the work of academics in law schools? If teaching is important, it should be taken seriously in recruitment and promotion. This means scrutinising it carefully and fairly. If, as seems likely, academics working in law schools in the 1990s will become much more accountable for their teaching, we had better get used to the idea of teaching being more rigorously scrutinised.

This, however, raises a problem of vertical equity. Why should today’s new teachers have their teaching rigorously examined when in the past teaching was largely ignored and, where it was scrutinised, this was done in a far less rigorous fashion than the assessment of research? It is often argued that scrutinisation of teaching is difficult to do, and therefore should not be attempted. It is this last point that this article seeks partly to address. More particularly, this article examines why and how teaching should be scrutinised. The purpose of the process of scrutinising teaching is often overlooked. It is the purpose of this article to suggest that there are at least three major reasons for these processes: evaluation, assessment and staff appraisal and that they should be separated, with different methods used for each.
Meet MIRAT Legal Reasoning Fragmented Into Learnable Chunks
Authors: Wade John H
Published: June 2021

The ubiquitous aim of legal education is for students to learn how “to think like lawyers”. It has often been noted that this is a frustratingly imprecise educational goal. Nevertheless, some students stumble upon, or methodically work out, an analytical style of thought, writing and speaking which is rewarded at law school by nods, ticks, high grades, scholarships and envy. “Thinking like a lawyer” is also a depressingly inaccurate goal as we know very little about how the many sub-cultures of lawyers think, speak or behave.

In the writer’s limited experience, most lawyers think, speak and write in layers of styles and street cunning which often obscure the foundational analytical style (rightly) emphasised in foundational legal learning.

What is this analytical style of expression that is a part of the behaviour of many lawyers? Certainly it is a deviant style as most lawyers tend to stand our so quickly in a meeting (and not only due to their confidence, motor vehicles and dress patterns). In colloquial terms lawyers’ contributions to any discussion tend to be exact, argumentative, insightful, reserved, balanced, evasive, obscurantist, precise and uncommitted. 4 Can the learning process at law school towards these much admired, sometimes despised qualities, be demystified? Behaviourist or task analysis approaches to education are creeping into law schools mainly via the current interest in learning “skills”.
Trial Advocacy Training in Law School: An Australian Perspective
Authors: McCrimmon Les A
Published: June 2021

Australian law schools are in a unique position. At the end of 1993 less than one-half of the nation’s law schools offered a course in trial advocacy. By way of contrast, in the United States almost all of the accredited law schools offer a basic course in trial advocacy based on the simulation/critique approach pioneered in the 1970s by the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA). Hence, Australian law schools are in the enviable position of instituting, further developing, and refining advocacy courses which suit both the educational objectives of the university and the needs of the legal profession.

The following discussion is based on the assumption that advocacy skills can be taught. Mr Justice Hampel, Chairman of the Australian Advocacy Institute and a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, has rightly asserted that,

… at last, the myth that advocacy cannot be taught has been finally put to rest. The last fifteen years have seen great developments in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in attempts to analyse what makes good persuasive advocacy and how it can be taught.

The argument that effective advocacy skills cannot be taught has run its course. Trial technique has proved to be a highly teachable commodity.5 Whether trial advocacy should be taught at the undergraduate level and, if this question is answered in the affirmative, what should be covered in the course, are questions which remain unanswered. Hence, this article will focus on two issues: the niche a trial advocacy course should occupy in the undergraduate law school curriculum; and the structure and content of such a course.
Our Top 10 Books on Education: For the Educationally-Curious Bibliophile
Authors: Johnstone Richard , Brun Marlene Le
Published: June 2021

Ever have departmental or faculty money to purchase books on education for the staff library? Ever have time to sit back, read about, and consider issues of educational theory and not know where to begin?

In this new section of the Review, we list some of the more interesting books which we have found — or stumbled upon. Some of these books have given us useful teaching tips. Some have offered good introductions to educational theory and practice. Others have raised provocative concerns about the nature and direction of education which have caused us to stop in our tracks. In future editions of the Legal Education Review we hope to include reviews of books, reports, and monographs that address issues of interest to law teachers.
Using Structures to Teach Legal Reasoning
Authors: Bentley Duncan
Published: June 2021

[Extract] In 1992, The American Bar Association Task Force Report on legal education and professional development was published.1 Part of the central mission of the Task Force was to identify the skills and values required by a competent lawyer.2 Ten skills were identified. The second of these is legal analysis and reasoning.3 Legal reasoning is usually a fundamental element in the teaching and understanding of law in common law countries.4 In most core substantive law courses this takes place at least in part through a study of cases and the use of standard undergraduate problems.5 These problems are generally fairly straightforward fact patterns designed to raise one or more issues within a specific area of law.

At Bond University specific structures are generally used in teaching legal reasoning. The hypothesis underlying their use is that students using such structures will improve their legal reasoning. The first part of this article describes an experiment6 to test the use by students of one such structure
Integrating Questions of Gender into Discussion of the Use of Force in the International Law Curriculum
Authors: Otto Dianne
Published: June 2021

Occupying the heartland of international law are rules which profess to regulate, and thereby restrain, violence between states. The normative regime governing violence between states consists of three categories of law: first, laws outlawing the use of force by states unilaterally, except in narrow circumstances like self defence; second, laws which establish the acceptable methods of combat; and third, the body of humanitarian law designed to protect certain categories of war victims. These laws have sanctioned the use of increasingly destructive means of war and have failed to provide significant protection to civilians. In fact the percentage of civilian, as opposed to military, casualties of war has progressively increased since the first World War reaching the alarming current level of 90 per cent. Such an extraordinary outcome results from legally authorised acceptance that military goals have priority over humanitarian considerations.

In this note I will first outline the shortcomings of the international legal approach to violence and its repercussions for women; and second, discuss some implications this has for the teaching of international law.
Academic Questions
Authors: Macdonald Roderick A
Published: June 2021

The paper which has been reproduced in your Conference Materials is, in many ways, a reflection of McLuhan’s dictum that “the medium is the message”.
Measuring the Critical Thinking Skills of Law Students Using a Whole-of-Curriculum Approach
Authors: James Nick , Burton Kelley
Published: June 2021

Extract:

The theme of this Special Topic Edition is animal law education at the tertiary level. Animal law as a discipline refers to the laws governing the human/non-human animal relationship. The study of animal law encompasses a broad range of laws, and raises a unique variety of legal, philosophical, scientific and political issues. Through studying animal law, students gain an understanding of how and why the law facilitates differential treatment of animals according to context, and encourages them to consider the ethical consistency of our approach to animal protection. It involves questioning the adequacy of the laws, policies, and regulatory structures addressing animal welfare, leading to discussions about law reform. These discussions extend to consideration of arguments to reform the very legal status of animals as human property.
Performance and Pedagogy in the Wild Law Judgment Project
Authors: Rogers Nicole
Published: June 2021

Extract:

Here is a question I enjoy posing to teachers and students participating in a course on animals and the law: what exactly do you do during the 12 (or so) weeks of your seminar? If it resembles a traditional law course, the answer will undoubtedly refer to assigned readings that explore the relationship between animals and the law, some lectures – perhaps followed by questions from the professor to the students – and a healthy dollop of classroom discussion about policy issues. More traditional teachers might also include some Socratic questioning, while more adventurous lecturers will throw in video footage of animal treatment and a few guest speakers.
Indigenous Students’ Perceptions of Factors Contributing to Successful Law Studies
Authors: Penfold Carolyn
Published: June 2021

While the under-representation of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in formal education is apparent in pre-school and in the compulsory years of schooling, it becomes more marked at the higher levels of education, and by university level the under-representation is extreme. Studies have frequently looked at the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and identified difficulties which these students face in the formal academic system. Lack of financial support, schooling background, pressure from family and community, health problems, inappropriate curricula, identity crises and negative stereotyping have all been identified as contributing to the poor rates of Indigenous participation and success in formal education.

As a result, Indigenous Australians are under-represented in all professions, including law. Access to studies has become less a barrier since the introduction of discretionary admissions schemes to most Australian universities, but what Indigenous students experience while studying law clearly militates against them completing degrees. While the number of Indigenous law graduates has greatly increased in recent years,6 attrition is still of concern. Law schools continue therefore to search for ways to attract, retain and graduate Indigenous students. This study is a step in that process.
Bureaucratic Rationalism and The Quiet (R)evolution
Authors: Twining William
Published: June 2021

[Extract] We do something called teaching. But we all know from bitter personal experience that nothing is, or can be, taught once we get beyond the communication to small children of the basic mysteries on which civilization depends — how to read, how to write, how to count. We can of course pump students full of facts or even brainwash them — but pumping facts is a waste of everybody’s time and washing brains in public is, as Justice Holmes might have told us, dirty business. Learning is what students are there for and all we know about learning is that, on any level of complexity, it is every man for himself and by himself, imposing a perhaps delusive formal pattern on the swirling chaos by a prodigious effort of the individual will. It may be that we can stimulate, or irritate, an occasional student into undertaking this arduous task — but, if we do so, it will be much more by accident than by our own design. Karl Llewellyn once observed that the function of the law teacher is not to let the true light shine; he was wise to content himself with that negative formulation.

Grant Gilmore
Packing Them in the Aisles: Making Use of Moots as Part of Course Delivery
Authors: Lynch Andrew
Published: June 2021

Law as a discipline struggles as much as, or perhaps more than, any other discipline in its attempts to reconcile its close historic connections to professional practice with its current location in a university environment. Should law schools focus on producing graduates who are “practice-ready” or make available a broad, contextual education for their students in line with the academic standards of the wider university? The overarching issue in debates about legal education in Australia has been: “what is the nature of a ‘university’ legal education?” The key issue is: should law schools be driven by market requirements or by more idealistic educational values?
Legal Education in the Technology Revolution: The evolutionary nature of computer-assisted learning
Authors: Chetwin Maree , Edgar Cally
Published: June 2021

In 1998 the Law Society of Western Australia banded together with Women Lawyers of Western Australia to commission a consultant to “better understand the reasons for the apparently high rate of people leaving the legal profession” in Western Australia. A Final Report was published the following year.1 The Report investigates why young lawyers, particularly women lawyers, were exiting legal practice within the 3–7 year post admission stage. The Report’s findings are not altogether surprising. They show that lack of fulfilment, stress, onerous working conditions and general quality of life issues are the key factors behind the migration from legal practice.
On Tending to the Ethics in Legal Ethics: Two Pedagogical Experiments
Authors: Shaffer Thomas L
Published: June 2021

[Extract] Teaching professional responsibility is difficult. It is the only nationally required subject for all US law students, but there is no mandate as to its format, duration, or teaching methodology. Most institutions offer a survey course that is elected by large numbers of students. Many, if not most instructors in such courses, aided or guided by the growing wealth of commercially-published course texts, approach the course as encompassing: (i) a large dose of teaching the “law of lawyering” (ie a combination of the legal profession’s rules for regulating the conduct of its members, the burgeoning body of decisional law reflecting both traditional6 and emerging ways in which courts are asked to rule on the subject of lawyers’ conduct, together with other statutory, regulatory law on the subject); (ii) certain instruction about the adversary system and the structure, history, composition, and service delivery systems of the legal profession;8 and (iii) some discussion of dominant professional norms and their relationship to students’ personal values.
What Do They Learn When They Learn Legal Ethics?
Authors: Parker Christine
Published: June 2021

This paper will discuss incorporating the teaching of legal ethics into the first year undergraduate program of the law degree. Teaching legal ethics in law schools is a subject that has generated renewed interest in recent years. In 2000, the Council of Australian Law Deans endorsed the recommendation of the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC), that the development of a deep appreciation of ethical standards and professional responsibility be one of the main aims of university legal education in Australia.3 There is little discussion by the ALRC in its report as to what is meant by ethical standards, and how this “deep appreciation of ethical standards and professional responsibility” should be taught.
Alice Comes to Law School: The Internet as a Teaching Tool
Authors: Richards Bernadette
Published: June 2021

This edition of Legal Education Review is sure to provide pieces of interest to all readers. The articles range from those which offer insights into the training of legal skills in the law curriculum, to those which discuss innovative ways of engaging students, and all provide thought-provoking commentary about legal education. The Teaching Notes section of Legal Education Review offers the opportunity to read about others’ experiences as law teachers and the trialling of teaching strategies. These might provoke thoughts about your own teaching and learning practices. This Legal Education Review has a new editorial team. I would like to welcome Professor Paul Moyle from Edith Cowan University, Associate Professor Nan Sueffert from Waikato University and Allan Chay from Queensland University of Technology. The continuing support offered by Jeffrey Barnes of La Trobe University is greatly valued. Terry Hutchinson of Queensland University of Technology has also taken a leading role in making this edition come to life. Many thanks go to Angus Young, who administers the Review, and to Sian Jones who worked on editing the contributions. Additionally, the journal acknowledges the important role that our referees play in ensuring the quality of our publication. The Review sincerely appreciates the time and expertise offered by these eminent academics. Legal Education Review thanks the Australasian Law Teachers’ Association and Thomson Legal and Regulatory for its continuing support of the journal. Thomson is a major sponsor of the Legal Education Review. Next year Legal Education Review is moving to one edition each year. Submissions of articles and teaching notes are sought by 30 June 2005 for consideration for inclusion in the 2005 edition. If you wish the Review style guide to be sent to you, please e-mail ler@uts.edu.au. Submissions can also be mailed to ler@law.uts.edu.au. Please direct any inquiries to Lyndal Taylor on lyndal.taylor@uts.edu.au.
The Marginalisation of Racial Discourses in Australian Legal Education
Authors: James Nickolas John
Published: June 2021

Educational institutions generally are not often clear as to why they internationalize the education they provide to their students. Three different ways for law schools to develop and apply internationalization strategies are explored in this paper. This assessment then provides the context for the relevant skills, attitudes and knowledge areas that can be embedded in a curriculum. The paper also describes the Griffith Law School’s recent curricular changes by looking closely at the particular vehicles the School used to embed and integrate its internationalization strategies into the curriculum. The possibilities and opportunities for law schools to internationalize their existing curriculum is immense, and the frameworks and discussions of them in this paper should provide other law schools with a range of options to consider in reviewing their own curriculum.
Service Learning: An Example of Experiential Education in the Area of Taxation Law
Authors: Blissenden Michael
Published: June 2021

At its best, clinical legal education exposes law teachers and students to the complexity of responding to clients’ legal issues. The development of holistic, skilled and ethical student responses to clients’ casework issues is of course an appropriate objective of a law school clinical program. Beyond this, it is also possible to look behind individual clients’ problems at the common social factors contributing to their difficulties. Students who examine these “systemic” issues in their clients’ lives seem to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the legal issues confronting their clients individually and as members of a group. Some clients who are encouraged to see their problems as a part of a wider social context also become active in the political process in order to try and improve their own circumstances and those of others. Law teachers who facilitate the exposure of their students and clients to the relationship between individual and collective social problems also benefit. They mature in the depth of their appreciation of substantive law reform.
Why Teach ADR to Law Students? Part 2: An Empirical Survey
Authors: Fisher Tom , Gutman Judy , Martens Erika
Published: June 2021

An application-focused, commercial-utility-driven approach to legal education can seriously undermine the law’s potential and produce students insensitive to the significance of questions they are called upon to ask in legal practice. A mature curriculum will not eschew a survey of the great debates of philosophy in the history of ideas nor insulate students from considering the influence of other subjects bearing an impact upon the law. The law’s necessarily inter-disciplinary nature requires its practitioners to possess at least an appreciation of extra-legal learning from areas such as philosophy, logic, history and economics.
Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? Legal Positivism and Legal Education
Authors: Morss John R
Published: June 2021

Jurisprudential scholar J M Balkin proposes that understanding law for the purpose of learning and being able to apply it requires a conscious and active engagement on the part of the individual attempting to understand law and, by corollary, a consideration of the individual’s subjective contribution to law. Ignorance of the individual and his or her contribution to what law is, Balkin argues, prevents legal understanding. In the exploration of why or how law comes to be regarded as coherent — a process Balkin describes as ‘understanding legal understanding’ — Balkin posits that it is not sufficient merely to acknowledge the individual. Rather, the individual’s contribution to determinations of legal coherence must be considered in order to understand law. A similar focus on the role of the individual in understanding lies at the heart of David Ausubel’s epistemological theory of meaningful learning and its practical application in the concept mapping method developed by Joseph Novak. This paper links Balkin’s jurisprudential theory of legal understanding and Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning and proposes the concept mapping method as a way to facilitate legal understanding.
New Challenges in Legal Education: Developing an Appropriate Response to the Issue of Student Workload
Authors: Macduff Anne , Du Moulin Lynn
Published: June 2021

This article discusses a new approach to teaching civil dispute resolution at university. Students in the first-year law subject Dispute Resolution witnessed a civil dispute in the classroom by watching a simulated dispute on DVD. The DVD covered the major aspects of dispute resolution, including negotiation, mediation and court hearings. The following is a discussion of the pedagogical goals behind this approach, in particular the importance of incorporating a variety of instructional methods in the teaching of law and the value of contextual learning. It also provides some preliminary findings on the effectiveness of this method of teaching, based on initial feedback from both teachers and students of Dispute Resolution.
Enhancing Law Student Learning - The Nurturing Teacher
Authors: Bromberger Nikki
Published: June 2021

An ability to recognise and resolve ethical dilemmas was identified by the Australian Law Reform Commission as one of the ten fundamental lawyering skills. While the ‘Priestley 11’ list of areas of law required to qualify for legal practice includes ethics and professional responsibility, the commitment to ethics learning in Australian law schools has been far from uniform. The obligation imposed by the Priestley 11 is frequently discharged by a traditional teaching and learning approach involving lectures and/or tutorials and focusing on the content of the formal rules of professional responsibility. However, the effectiveness of such an approach may be open to question. Instead, a practical rather than a theoretical approach to the teaching of legal ethics is required. Effective final year student learning of ethics may be achieved by an approach which engages students, enabling them to appreciate the relevance of what they are learning to the real world and facilitating their transition from study to their working lives. Entry into Valhalla comprises a suite of modules featuring ‘machinima’ (computer generated imagery) created using the Second Life virtual environment to contextualise otherwise abstract concepts. It provides an engaging learning environment which enables students to obtain an appreciation of ethical responsibility in a real world context and facilitates understanding and problem-solving ability.
Mooting and Technology: To What Extent Does Using Technology Improve the Mooting Experience for Students?
Authors: Yule Jennifer , McNamara Judith , Thomas Mark
Published: June 2021

This paper reports on qualitative research into academics perceptions of assessment in an Australian law school. Some of the key concerns of academics teaching a professional degree course in the current higher education environment, in particular as it impacts on their assessment practices and student learning, are highlighted and discussed. Academics’ perceptions of the importance of teaching and assessing graduate skills are also discussed in the context of the literature. This paper highlights that in the context of the current higher education environment there is a real risk that the gap between the rhetoric and reality will continue to widen, having consequences for the student, the academic, and higher education outcomes generally.
Imaginings of Legal Education in New Zealand Fiction
Authors: Morris Grant , Lewis Kimberley
Published: June 2021

E-learning’ can be defined as a method of learning that is supported by the use of information technology (‘IT’). It is believed that e-learning has the power to transform the way we teach and that it may improve learning. However, when designing an online environment, lecturers do not always take into consideration certain crucial elements of teaching — including the motivation of their students. Similarly, the research has largely ignored the role of motivation in the online learning environment due to the assumption that e-learners are self-motivated and active learners. This article looks at certain elements that can be used to foster the motivation of students in the online environment.
The Rocky Rhetoric and Hard Reality: The Academic’s Dilemma Surrounding Assessment
Authors: Collins Pauline , Brackin Toni , Hart Caroline
Published: June 2021

Through analysing references to legal education in New Zealand fiction this article highlights and critiques some of the most important issues facing legal educators. The various challenges that students experience in their journeys through legal education are reflected in fictional texts. More often than not, these reflections, or imaginings, are impressively accurate, especially when analysed in the context of contemporary legal education scholarship. The interplay between pedagogical research and fictional representations facilitates fascinating discussions as to why students choose to learn law, how legal teaching affects them and what are the relative experiences of elite and non-elite students. The findings in this article are based on a comprehensive study of New Zealand legal fiction and provide an alternative informational source for those who are interested in analysing, and those who are striving to improve, how we teach law in New Zealand.
Desperately Seeking … Relevant Assessment? A Case Study on the Potential for Using Online Simulated Group Based Learning to Create Sustainable Assessment Practices
Authors: Ferguson Anneka , Lee Elizabeth
Published: June 2021

Commentators have questioned whether online instruction is appropriate and effective for practical legal training (PLT), and called for research regarding the incorporation of information and communication technologies (such as online discussions) into PLT. Course evaluations at one PLT site had indicated that students are less satisfied with online discussions than other teaching media. Student satisfaction is relevant to effective learning; satisfaction relates to the affective domain of learning, in which students’ motivation to learn is influenced by their perception of the value of a learning task, and their ability to complete it. This paper reports an exploratory practitioner-initiated study that developed and implemented an online questionnaire to collect data from PLT students in three states, regarding their satisfaction with online discussions. Students’ perceptions of ‘community of inquiry framework’ elements, Marzano and Kendall’s ‘self-system’ factors, and other contextual aspects, were investigated and tested for correlations. The study found student satisfaction with the online discussions was most closely associated with ‘teaching presence’. Students’ satisfaction with student-student interactions was closely associated with ‘self-system’ factors. It is submitted that the PLT lecturer’s role in online discussions should be further investigated to develop and describe evidence-based best practices for PLT.
A New Legal Ethics Education Paradigm: Culture and Values in International Arbitration
Authors: D'Silva Magdalene
Published: June 2021

Anecdotal evidence suggests that many law graduates complete university with a notable lack of practical lawyering skills. Practical lawyering skills are vital to performing effectively in the profession. They include oral communication skills, dispute resolution and problem-solving skills. The present research study hypothesised that extra-curricular legal competitions such as mooting and client interviews would provide students with the opportunity to develop and refine these practical skills. 266 LLB students at Macquarie University completed self-report online questionnaires. These questionnaires were completed at three time points across a semester, tracking the students’ skill development. A case study focusing on 54 students who completed all three questionnaires was also assessed. Overall, the students who participated in a legal competition reported a significantly higher improvement in their perceived skills than the control group, whose members did not compete but were also enrolled in an LLB course. Consequences of the findings for current educational practice and limitations of the study are considered.
Why and How to Internationalise Law Curriculum Content
Authors: Mijatov Tihomir
Published: June 2021

Legal academics’ drive over the last 40 years to expand their research horizons has exposed their research to the possibility of extra-disciplinary assessment and critique. This is particularly true of the assessment of legal PhDs, where examiners from non-legal disciplines are increasingly being used. But disciplinary outsiders are assessing the quality of legal research in other settings as well, such as the competitive grants applications process and the peer review of articles submitted to interdisciplinary journals. This article argues that legal academics need to respond to this challenge, but that the way they respond depends on the distinction between traditional doctrinal research and the other kinds of legal research that have emerged over the last 40 years. The challenge in the former case is to defend doctrinal research against the charge that, as a form of applied social science research, its practitioners should conform to the research standards applicable in that set of disciplines. A proper understanding of the purpose and methods of doctrinal research suggests that this charge is not well made out, and that there is a strong case for arguing that the quality of doctrinal research should be assessed by researchers familiar with the particular area of law concerned. In the case of the other forms of legal research that have emerged over the last forty years, on the other hand, legal academics do need to respond to the demand for greater methodological rigour. This is especially true of the particular kind of socio-legal research in which many legal academics engage, which mixes the internal perspective of the trained legal professional with the external perspective of the social sciences. But it is also true of the other main categories of legal research, including legal philosophy, comparative legal research and critical approaches. In all these cases, legal researchers need to conform to the standards of the disciplines on which they are drawing.
Capstones as Transitional Experiences
Authors: McNamara Judith , Field Rachael , Coe Sandra , Butler Des
Published: June 2021

Indigenous peoples in Australia are notably disadvantaged in the higher education context. The tertiary education sector must act constructively to increase participation rates and promote successful outcomes for Indigenous students. The Indigenisation of curriculum is a key means by which culturally competent and socially just education programs may be developed. In the legal education context, the incorporation of Indigenous-related content opens an avenue of critique of the Australian legal system and its differential impacts on Australia’s First Peoples. In this article, we review literature relating to the Indigenisation of curricula in four areas; Indigenous issues, Indigenous perspectives, Indigenous law and Indigenous law students. Following this review, we present the findings of our exploratory study, which investigated the extent to which Indigenous-related content and perspectives are incorporated into the XXXX curriculum. We represent the Indigenisation of the curriculum as a key means of broadening the scope of student enquiry, and reinforcing the centrality of justice in teaching and learning about the law.
Getting Them Early: Teaching a Critical Perspective on Legal Ethics and Adversarialism in an Introductory LLB Unit at the Queensland University of Technology
Authors: Hamilton Barbara
Published: June 2021

This article will explore two themes using examples taken from my online teaching in a commercial law subject at Murdoch University Law School. The first theme is the need to take seriously a commitment to teaching legal ethics pervasively in law school. The second is the tension between legal and business ethics and the relevance of this issue for the law curriculum. It is my view that teaching legal ethics pervasively entails not only incorporating legal ethics into a majority of law school subjects but also dealing with it in a pervasive manner within those subjects. I suggest that the benefits of the pervasive method are lost both when ethical issues are confined to explicit modules within a subject as well as when ethics teaching is confined to a stand-alone subject in the curriculum. This article explores the demands of being constantly alive to ethical issues in our teaching. It is also my view that law teachers can make productive use of contrasts and comparisons between legal and business ethics, particularly in commercially oriented law subjects. I explore how such a comparative approach may help stimulate student discussion and reflection on professional roles and responsibilities.
Negligent liability in sport
Authors: Schot Natasha
Published: June 2021

Sport is becoming an essential ingredient of life. It instils determination, dedication, sportsmanship, and provides for increased fitness and relaxation from otherwise hectic lives. It further enhances ‘social interaction and development of relationships’, provides a sense of achievement, and improves teamwork skills. However, participation in sport undoubtedly involves elements of risk of injury, and where there is negligence there is scope in the sporting arena for those harmed to take legal action.