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Australasian Law Teachers Association – ABN 99 015-138-294
ISSN 1833-3052
ALTA Newsletter
EDITION ONE
MARCH 2012
Welcome to the first ALTA newsletter for the southern
hemisphere’s 2012 academic year. By the time this newsletter
arrives in your virtual or real in-tray, the first year students will
have been ‘oriented’, later year students will have reconnected
after the Summer ‘break’ (which seems to be getting shorter each
year, especially with many universities offering subjects across
the whole year) and some students and their coaches will have
already been busy with mooting competitions.
ALTA has established links with a number of Key Associations, including international
bodies with an interest in legal education, such as International Association of Law
Schools and the Association of American Law Schools.
International Association of Law Schools
ALTA is an organisational member of the International Association of Law Schools
http://www.ialsnet.org/ and ALTA Executive member, Professor Michael Coper, is one
of its two Vice-Presidents. The IALS Annual Conference this year is on the topic of
Legal Education and Human Rights and will be hosted by the National Law School of
India University in Bangalore from 23 – 25 October. Michael encourages Law Schools
which are not IALS members to sign up as organisational members – and is happy to
be asked about the IALS during the ALTA Conference in July.
Association of American Law Schools
Another Key Association is the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). It holds
its Annual Meeting during the first full week of January after New Year. Having
attended the 2012 meeting in Washington DC, I can endorse Michael Coper’s
description in past editions of this newsletter that it is “a buzz”. More than 3,400
delegates attended the Annual Meeting which commenced on the Wednesday
evening (4 January) and concluded at Sunday lunchtime (8 January).
As the then AALS President, Professor Michael Olivas of the University of Houston,
wrote in our last newsletter, the 2012 conference theme was “academic freedom and
academic duty – including threats to tenure and to academic freedom, and the
concomitant academic duty obligations that arise out of our status as tenured
professors.”
Three concurrent AALS Presidential Programs were held on the Friday afternoon,
focused on this theme of ‘Academic Freedom and Academic Duty’. Two were on
‘Academic Duty and Public Service’ and ‘Law School Demographics and Law School
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Finances’. The third, entitled ‘Threats to Academic Freedom: Domestic and Universal / Internal and External’,
featured two speakers, Robert Quinn and Professor Joseph Weiler. Robert Quinn is the Executive Director of the
Scholars at Risk Network, which is “an international network of institutions and individuals working to promote
academic freedom and to defend the human rights of scholars worldwide”: http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/. Professor
Weiler of New York University Law School discussed a case in which he was sued in France for alleged criminal libel
arising out of a book review published on the book review web site of the European Journal of International Law,
while he was editor. His summary of events, prior to the trial, can be found in an editorial to the journal at http://
www.ejil.org/pdfs/20/4/1952.pdf . The outcome of the trial (the court declined to exercise jurisdiction) is noted in his
EJIL Blog at http://www.ejiltalk.org/in-the-dock-in-paris-%e2%80%93-the-judgment-by-joseph-weiler-2/.
Sections (Interest Groups)
As a member of the ALTA Executive and a regular attendee at ALTA conferences, I was interested in the AALS
approach to supporting members with interests in common, similar to our Interest Groups but known as Sections.
The Annual Meeting comprised a range of sessions, key of which were Programs led by these 94 groups. The
Sections fall into a number of broad categories:
Doctrinal Sections from ‘Administrative Law’ through to ‘Trusts and Estates’ – across private law e.g.
‘Commercial and Related Consumer Law’; public law e.g. ‘Legislation and Law of the Political
Process’; and international aspects e.g. ‘International Human Rights’;
Cross-disciplinary Sections such as ‘Law and Anthropology’, ‘Law and Economics’ and ‘Law and the
Humanities’;
Sections focused on stages of the curriculum such as ‘Legal Writing, Reasoning and Research’ for
first year students and ‘Graduate Programs for Non-US Lawyers’;
Sections around aspects of teaching delivery e.g. ‘‘Teaching Methods’ and ‘Transactional Law and
Skills’;
Student-experience-focused Sections such as ‘Academic Support’, ‘Student Services’ and ‘Pro bono
and Public Sector Opportunities’;
Sections taking an organisational perspective – e.g. ‘Institutional Advancement’, which reflects the
important role of external fundraising for American Law Schools, and ‘Law Libraries’;
Career development Sections, e.g. ‘Dean for the Law School’ and ‘New Law Professors’.
This list provides just a snapshot of the potential topics covered. Speakers were typically part of a panel and were
either invited or chosen from a call for papers (and, if the latter, were identified as such in the program). Some
Sections held concurrent sessions where the topic was of interest to more than one area – such as a panel on ‘Large
Scale Litigation Issues: Class Actions and Mass Tort Cases in 2012 and Beyond’ which was co-sponsored by three
Sections: Litigation, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure.
Each Section also scheduled a Business Meeting to elect officers and an Executive Committee member for 2012.
The Section Business Meeting which I attended elected a Chair, Chair-Elect, Secretary and Treasurer (although it
did not seem that there were any separate funds that required management). I understand from the meeting that if a
Section does not have enough members interested in undertaking one of these leadership roles and in putting
together a program for the following Annual Meeting, then a mechanism may come into effect to disband it.
And then of course, there were opportunities for social interaction. The Opening Cocktail Reception was hosted by
the American University Washington College of Law with a theme of ‘Celebrating Diversity in Legal Education’. It
finished with bus tours to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, an impressive sight under lights and the cold winter
sky. Optional formal lunches were available for an additional fee and featured guest speakers such as a Court of
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Appeal Judge and the past President of the American Bar Association (ABA). A Gala Reception was held on the
Friday night at one of the many museums in the city and on the Saturday evening, the AALS Executive hosted a
cocktail reception for Legal Educators from Law Schools outside the United States.
As Chair of ALTA, I was interested to attend as an observer the meeting of the House of Representatives of the
Association where the more than 170 member schools were represented. Professor Michael Olivas handed over to
the incoming President Professor Lauren Robel, Indiana University. In her speech, Professor Robel addressed
seven themes: integrity; collaboration; imagination; global engagement; adventure; possibility and hope. This was
consistent with the inspiring quotations on the many Washington D.C. monuments and public buildings. It also
reflected the aspirational Statements of Good Practice in the AALS Handbook.
Ethical and Professional Standards
Past President Michael Olivas drew on the AALS Statement of Good Practices by Law Professors in the Discharge
of their Ethical and Professional Responsibilities for his Annual Meeting Theme. The intention of the AALS Statement
is “to provide general guidance to law professors concerning ethical and professional standards both because of the
intrinsic importance of those standards and because law professors serve as important role models for law students.”
It refers to the ABA’s Commission on Professionalism 1986 Report “... In the Spirit of Public Service: A Blueprint for
the Rekindling of Lawyer Professionalism” and its recommendations covered Law Schools, Practicing Bar and Bar
Associations, Judges as well as some General Recommendations.
For Law Schools, the Commission recommended:
“Deans and faculties of law schools should keep in mind that the law school experience provides a student’s
first exposure to the profession, and that professors inevitably serve as important role models for students.
Therefore, the highest standards of ethics and professionalism should be adhered to within law schools.”
This focus on professionalism brings to mind the ALTC Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project for the
Bachelor of Laws particularly Threshold Learning Outcome 2 on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, which
states:
“Graduates of the Bachelor of Laws will demonstrate:
an understanding of approaches to ethical decision-making,
an ability to recognise and reflect upon, and a developing ability to respond to, ethical issues likely to
arise in professional contexts,
an ability to recognise and reflect upon the professional responsibilities of lawyers in promoting justice
and in service to the community, and
a developing ability to exercise professional judgement.”
During the Academic Standards Project discussions that I attended, there was lively discussion on how one might
teach ‘professional judgement’ to students. Academics proposed areas of law and approaches to teaching delivery
that might support this learning outcome. The 2012 AALS Annual Meeting theme of Academic Freedom and
Academic Duty reminds academics of the responsibility not only to teach professionalism through words but also
through actions.
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ALTA Conference
Turning now to our own Australasian annual meeting, I encourage members to attend the 2012 ALTA Conference
being hosted by Sydney Law School from 1 – 4 July 2012 at its striking ‘new’ building on the University of Sydney
Camperdown Campus. The theme is Legal Education for a Global Community and reflects the increasingly
interconnected world of work which law graduates enter and in which law research takes place. Whether our
graduates choose to work in another hemisphere, in our capital cities or in the rural and regional areas of Australia,
New Zealand and the South Pacific, they are likely to be called upon to advise on matters that cross borders. The
conference theme is increasingly relevant - just harking back to the AALS Annual Meeting presentation by Professor
Joseph Weiler, this involved a New York based professor against whom legal proceedings were filed in France by an
Israeli resident concerning a book review written by a German Professor and posted on a New York web site.
The Sydney Law School conference theme also provides a useful context within which to reflect on the ALTC
Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project for the Bachelor of Laws. For example, Threshold Learning
Outcome 1 Knowledge refers to Graduates of the Bachelor of Laws demonstrating an understanding of a coherent
body of knowledge that includes:
“the fundamental areas of legal knowledge, the Australian legal system, and underlying principles and
concepts, including international and comparative contexts ... (Emphasis added). “
So I encourage you to respond to the Call for Papers - in particular to consider presentations that reflect the theme of
Legal Education for a Global Community in all its diversity.
Conclusion
This newsletter contains much useful information for law academics, including opportunities for research and
teaching Awards; news on upcoming events in Australia and New Zealand; Updates from ALTA Interest Group
Convenors; Reports from ALTA and School Representatives as well as the Council of Australian Law Deans; and
information from a range of national and international key associations. That is not to mention, the human
perspective with some more staff profiles on ALTA members. I also encourage members to engage with ALTA’s
Interest Groups and through their School Representatives –as well as through the ALTA publications. Members from
across Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific are also encouraged to consider nominating for Executive
positions, or to finding out more about the positions with a view to a possible future nomination.
In closing, thank you to our Editor, Nat Poludniewski - for bringing this newsletter together in such a professional
manner and for leading ALTA’s new website project.
Professor Rosalind Mason
ALTA Chairperson
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Preliminary Notice for Elections 6
ALTA Business Plan: Mission Statement, Objectives & Strategies 7
67th Annual ALTA Conference- The University of Sydney 10
68th Annual ALTA Conference - Australian National University 11
Notice to Members: QLRC 11
Report from New Zealand 12
ALTA Website 13
AAL: 2012 Roundtable 14
Events News 15
CCH-ALTA Best Conference Paper Awards 17
LexisNexis-ALTA Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Teaching of Law 18
Rethinking the Law Curriculum 19
Academic Profile: Associate Professor Helen Anderson 20
Academic Profile: Dr Paul Harpur 22
2012 ALTA Institutional Members 25
ALTA School Representatives Initiative 26
Current ALTA School Representatives 27
Reports from ALTA School Representatives 28
Publications included in your ALTA Membership
ALTA Law Research Series 31
Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association 32
Legal Education Review 33
Legal Education Digest: Volume 19 (3) Editorial 35
Legal Education Digest: Volume 20 (1) Editorial 37
ALTA Key Agency Reports;
Council of Australian Law Deans 40
Australian Law Students Association 42
Australian Academy of Law 44
Association of American Law Schools 45
UK Higher Education Academy 46
Interest Group Conveners 2011-12 49
Pre-Conference Convener Updates 50
2011-12 ALTA Executive 54
Contact Us 55
In This Issue
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The ALTA Executive would like to advise all members that nominations for Executive positions will be accepted
throughout March to 30 June 2012.
At this time, nominations will be accepted for the following positions:
(a) Chairperson
(b) Deputy Chairperson
(c) Secretary
(d) Treasurer
(e) Editor-In-Chief Legal Education Review (LER)
(f) Editor-In-Chief Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association (JALTA)
(g) Editor-In-Chief ALTA Law Research Series (ALRS)
(h) Executive Member
Executive Positions will be appointed in July at the Annual General Meeting during the 67th Annual ALTA Conference
which will be held at The University of Sydney.
Position Descriptions for all Executive positions will be made available on the ALTA website shortly. If you have any
queries regarding Executive roles or nominations please feel free to contact the ALTA Administrator at
Preliminary Notice for Nominations
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On the 2nd
July 2006, at the ALTA Executive Planning Meeting, Victoria University, Mel-
bourne, the ALTA Executive drafted a three year Business Plan. This included creating a
Mission Statement and Objectives, and of course, what good are objectives without
Strategies, so strategies were developed to achieve these objectives, in accordance with
the ALTA mission. In July 2009, the ALTA Executive held a Strategic Planning meeting in
order to revise the 2006 business plan, including the previous Mission Statement and
Objectives. This business plan is a revised version of the 2006 plan, and is outlined be-
low.
MISSION STATEMENT:
The Australasian Law Teachers Association (ALTA) is a professional body which represents and promotes the inter-
ests of law academics in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific.
Its overall focus is to promote excellence in the areas of:
(a) research and scholarship;
(b) teaching and learning;
(c) professional development and networking;
(d) engagement with professional stakeholders and the community;
(e) representation on developments in government policy and law reform
OBJECTIVES:
ALTA has as its objectives:
1. To develop closer collaboration between the ALTA Executive Committees in Australia & New Zealand
Strategies:
(a) Organise and support joint committee meetings;
(b) Enable closer collaboration using email and other technologies.
2. To build professional development and networking opportunities for members
Strategies:
(a) Appoint representatives within each School;
(b) Develop a welcome pack for new members for distribution by School Representatives;
(c) Publish biannual newsletter each semester;
(d) Review and improve ALTA Website
3. To support and promote legal research and scholarship.
Strategies:
(a) Research and promulgate information on government initiatives such as the Excellence in Research for Aus-
tralia (ERA) and the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF) in New Zealand;
2009-2012 ALTA Business Plan:
Mission Statement, Objectives & Strategies
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(b) Explore how we can support legal academics in using such schemes effectively;
(c) Increase the academic rigour of research papers delivered at the annual conference;
(d) Publish a refereed journal, the Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers Association (JALTA), based on pa-
pers delivered at the annual conference;
(e) In conjunction with CCH, award the CCH-ALTA Best Conference Paper Awards;
(f) Inform the government and pertinent public agencies as to the nature and discipline specific aspects of legal
research;
(g) Where appropriate provide representative advocacy to encourage better linkages between the publishers’
requirements and government and university driven academic research imperatives such as peer review of
research.
4. To support and promote legal education and the scholarship of higher education in law.
Strategies:
(a) Research and promulgate information on government initiatives such as the Australian Learning and Teach-
ing Council;
(b) Publish a refereed journal, the Legal Education Review (LER), on the scholarship of legal education;
(c) Supply the Legal Education Digest (LED) to members;
(d) In conjunction with LexisNexis, award the LexisNexis-ALTA Awards for Excellence and Innovation in the
Teaching of Law
(e) Inform the government and pertinent public agencies as to the nature and discipline specific aspects of legal
education;
(f) Where appropriate provide representative advocacy to encourage better linkages between the profession,
academics and other stakeholders in legal education;
(g) Investigate the degree of interest in organising specialist law teaching forums or workshops.
5. To liaise with key Australasian academic, government and professional organisations by publicising pertinent infor-
mation to ALTA members for example through the ALTA Newsletter, while also providing written information about
ALTA to these organisations for dissemination to their members.
Strategies:
Compile strategic information on ALTA and its work and communicate this to key agencies, for example:
(a) Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII);
(b) Australasian Professional Legal Education Council;
(c) Australia and New Zealand Education Law Association;
(d) Australian Academy of Law;
(e) Australian Bar Association;
(f) Australian Law Students Association;
(g) Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC);
(h) Continuing Legal Education Association of Australasia;
(i) Corporate Lawyers Association of New Zealand;
(j) Council of Australian Law Deans;
(k) Institute of Professional Legal Studies;
(l) International Legal Services Advisory Council;
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(m) Law Council of Australia;
(n) New Zealand Bar Association;
(o) NZ Society for Legal and Social Philosophy.
6. To liaise with key international stakeholders by publicising pertinent information about their functions to ALTA
members for example through the ALTA Newsletter, while also providing written information about ALTA to these
organisations for dissemination to their members.
Strategies:
Compile strategic information on ALTA and its work and communicate this to key agencies, for example:
(a) Association of American Law Schools;
(b) Association of Law Teachers;
(c) Canadian Association of Law Teachers;
(d) Commonwealth Lawyers Association;
(e) Commonwealth Legal Education Association;
(f) European Law Faculties Association;
(g) International Association of Law Schools;
(h) International Bar Association;
(i) Irish Association of Law Teachers;
(j) Lawasia;
(k) Society of American Law Teachers.
7. To actively engage in the planning and organisation of the annual ALTA Conference, so as to maximise the pro-
motion of the ALTA mission and objectives.
Strategies:
(a) Meet with the Conference Committee at least once prior to the annual Conference;
(b) Ensure that key sessions promoting ALTA’s role are included in the conference program;
(c) Organise a convener and School representative social event at the annual conference.
8. To expand our membership and representation to all Law Schools and Business Law Schools across Australasia
and increase institutional support for membership in Australasia.
Strategies:
(a) Co-opt ALTA members from each law school and business law school in Australia and New Zealand to act as
ALTA liaison persons within the schools;
(b) Provide the liaison members with timely information so that they are able to effectively brief and advise the
respective law schools management and staff of ALTA’s activities and therefore encourage institutional sup-
port for membership.
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Registration is now open, with Early Bird Rates available until 18 May.
To register, please visit: http://sydney.edu.au/law/alta/registration.shtml
For Conference enquiries, please contact:
Chloe Wyatt | Conference Organiser, on behalf of ALTA and Sydney Law School
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68th Annual ALTA Conference–
Australian National University
BREAKING NEWS:
The 68th Annual Australasian Law Teachers Association Conference will be hosted by the Australian National
University in Canberra. The dates, conference theme and other details will be announced later in the year.
In late January 2012, the Attorney-General gave the Commission terms of reference to review the Trusts Act 1973
(Qld). A copy of the terms of reference is available on the ALTA website. The terms of reference require the
Commission to provide an interim report, with recommendations, by 30 June 2013, and a final report, containing draft
legislation, by 31 December 2013.
The Commission proposes to release a Discussion Paper, calling for formal submissions on the issues raised in the
review, later in the year. There will be an opportunity for interested persons and organisations to make a formal
submission, or to have formal consultations with the Commission, as part of that process.
At this early stage of the review, the Commission is interested in hearing from legal academics with an interest in this
area of the law to ascertain whether there are any issues that they consider should be addressed in the review. This
is intended to assist the Commission in identifying key issues for the review, and in preparing the Discussion Paper.
If you are interested in participating in the review or would like further information, please contact Claire Riethmuller,
Director of the Queensland Law Reform Commission at [email protected]
Notice to Members:
Queensland Law Reform Commission
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Academic life here in New Zealand has been somewhat driven by the Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF),
which concluded its publication cycle on 31 December 2011. The requirement for publication to be completed by this
date has meant a flurry of publishing activity across New Zealand to ensure those volumes were conpleted in
December. Having been an editor, referee and contributor to a number of those publications over the last year, I
would like to thank all to our colleagues in Australia, New Zealand and abroad who have worked as referees
(sometimes for multiple articles) for the numerous publications being driven by the PBRF publication cut off date. My
contacts through ALTA were a great source of expertise to maintain the quality assured process required by the
PBRF Quality Evaluation.
While all publications to be included in the measure of research are complete, academic staff are now required to
submit their Evidence Portfolios for the 2012 Quality Evaluation. Each institution has its own timeline for completion
of this process in order for final submission of the Evidence Portfolio data by the 6 July 2012 to the Tertiary
Education Commission. Sometime in early 2013 we will all get our individual scores consisting of A, B, C or R.
Funding is allocated on the basis of the number of ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ Quality Categories assigned to staff members
employed by a particular institution.
With the academic year just underway things are already starting to move regarding the many competitions our
students enter beginning with Ministry of Justice/New Zealand Bar Association Sentencing Competition that starts
20th March . The Minter Ellison Witness Examination competition then gets underway a day or so later and then we
move on to the Russell McVeagh Client Interviewing competitions. After that it will be Buddle Findlay Negotiation
Competition and the Bell Gully Mooting Competition. All of these competitions are designed to hone the skills of our
law students to provide some stiff competition at the Australian Law Students' Association (ALSA) Conference, in
Melbourne this July.
A few forthcoming events include:
Professor Andrew Ashworth QC is this year’s New Zealand Law Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow and
will be travelling to all of New Zealand’s law schools from 28th February until 1 April. He is Vinerian Professor
of English Law at the University of Oxford, a post he has held since 1997. He is also a Fellow of All Souls
College, Oxford, and a member of the Centre for Criminology. While in New Zealand Professor Ashworth will
give public lectures in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.
A symposium with leading feminist philosopher Professor Lorraine Code, 'Ecological Epistemologies: Moving
Beyond the Monocultural Imaginary', hosted by Te Piringa - Faculty of Law at the University of Waikato an
21st March 2012, in conjunction with the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment
(GNHRE).
The 20th Annual Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (‘ANZSIL’) will
take place from Thursday, 5 July 2012 to Saturday, 7 July 2012 hosted by the New Zealand Centre for Public
Law, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington.
Nga mihi,
Wayne Rumbles
A Report from New Zealand
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ALTA Website
The ALTA Executive is pleased to announce that the website has been redesigned and will be officially launched
shortly. The new ALTA website allows for much greater functionality and ease of navigation. The new streamlined
website includes a number of features both for the general public and for ALTA members.
The website includes an events calendar and news feed to provide our members, their institutions and our key
associations the ability to include relevant news and events details online for all to access. These functions will also
provide members with easy access to relevant ALTA deadlines for publications, Awards and the Annual Conference.
The news feature has been set up as an RSS Feed which allows users to subscribe for automated updates as soon
as new items are included.
The ALTA membership database has been restructured and updated, to give members access to one another’s
profiles for networking opportunities. The new database allows for easier searching by a number of categories
including name, institution, interest group and key words.
In order to satisfy the needs of ALTA members, you will be provided with an individual login to access the members’
area. Within the members’ area you will have access to forums, ability to update and renew membership,
searchable document depository, job advertisements and more. There is now an online form for updating your details
for the membership database as well as the ability to renew your membership online. The Executive have developed
a moderated online forum, with discussions for each interest group and general topics.
The Executive would like to thank Digerati (http://www.digeratisolutions.com.au) for their professional design and
development of features specifically tailored to ALTA’s members.
We appreciate your feedback; please feel free to send any comments, suggestions and queries to the ALTA
Administrator ([email protected])
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In my capacity as Deputy Chair of ALTA, I have been liaising with Justice Simmonds, the immediate past
Chairperson of the Projects Committee of the Australian Academy of Law (Academy) in relation to the Australian
Academy of Law: Perth Roundtable which is to occur in 2012. The Perth Roundtable will be the second in this series;
to follow on from the successful inaugural roundtable that was held in Brisbane last year. in conjunction with the
2011 ALTA conference.
It is indeed an honour and privilege for me to be involved with this prestigious event on behalf of ALTA and to be
working with the Academy and the organising committee to arrange the roundtable. I look forward to continuing this
work with Professor Rosalind Croucher, President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, who recently
succeeded Justice Simmonds as Chairperson of the Projects Committee of the Academy.
The theme is likely to revolve around 'Trends in Legal Education for Practice: Competing Tensions' and we are
planning to hold the event around September 2012. We look forward to hosting another successful roundtable.
Professor Dale Pinto
Chair, Organising Committee
2012 Australian Academy of Law Roundtable
Australian Academy of Law: 2012 Perth
Roundtable
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Events News
47th Annual ALT Conference: (Re)assessing Legal Education
The 47th Annual Association of Law Teachers Conference will be held at Lady Margaret Hall, Norham Gardens,
Oxford from the 1-3 April 2012. The Conference theme is (Re)assessing Legal Education.
For further information please visit www.lawteacher.ac.uk or contact:
Richard Owen - Chair of the Association of Law Teachers
ANZOA :The Ombudsman Conference 2012
The biennial conference of the Australian and New Zealand Ombudsman Association provides a space to discuss
and reflect on current issues and challenges, having regard to the evolution of the Ombudsman role in Australia and
New Zealand. ANZOA includes both Parliamentary and industry Ombudsmen.
To be held in Melbourne on May 1-2, highlights include:
Rod Sims, chairman of the ACCC
Panel session on Myths and Dilemmas facing Ombudsmen
Professor John McMillan, former Commonwealth Ombudsman, reflecting on the 50 year history of Ombudsmen
in Australia and New Zealand
Conference dinner with great networking opportunities.
For further information, go to www.anzoa.com.au or contact the organisers at [email protected]
IALS: Bangalore Conference 2012
The Annual Conference of the International Association of Law Schools (IALS) will be hosted this year by the
National Law School of India University in Bangalore, from 23-25 October 2012, on the subject of Legal Education
and Human Rights.
More information will be made available shortly at : http://www.ialsnet.org/meetings/index.html
Continued...
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2012 ANZELA Annual Conference: Woteva nxt! Legal and social challenges in education
The Australia & New Zealand Education Law Association (ANZELA) is to hold its 21st annual conference in Rotorua,
New Zealand on 3-5 October this year.
What is ANZELA?
ANZELA was established in 1991 with the aim of bringing together academics, legal practitioners, educators and
others who have an association with and/or interest in education law and legal issues affecting education. A number
of chapters have been established and now operate in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and New
Zealand. The Association has members in all other Australian States and Territories and the intention is to establish
chapters in all states and territories. Every year the Association holds a conference, primarily for members, but other
interested professionals may attend.
The education field is a dynamic one, with constant challenges to practice and law from primary school through to
the tertiary sector. The 2012 conference will explore a number of current and critical issues in this academic and
professional area. Topics may include:
the high rates of suspension (now including 5 and 6 year olds) in the New Zealand primary system;
the influence (both positive and negative) of technological development in the classroom;
the role electronic media and social networking play in instances of bullying and harassment, and student-
teacher interactions;
the increasingly litigious environment in all educational institutions, where student fees and other expenses
are heightening both expectations of service and stress in the learning context; and
the intersection of education and family law and the implications of this for schools.
Programme
There has been a call for papers. The final programme will be available by 30 April. Registrations will open then. See
www.anzela.edu.au for details. Social functions will include a welcome function at the Rotorua Museum and a dinner
on the evening of 4 October at the Skyline Rotorua.
Keynote speakers – Tapu Misa and The Hon Justice Kos
Tapu Misa
Tapu is a freelance journalist for the NZ Herald. She has had an extensive career in both mainstream and Maori and
Pacific media. In 2002 she won Pacific Print Journalist of the Year and she has served for a number of years on the
Broadcasting Standards Authority.
Justice Kos, Judge of the High Court of New Zealand
Before joining the independent Bar in 2005, Stephen Kos was a senior litigation partner at Russell McVeagh and was
Chairman of Partners of that firm from 2003-2005. Immediately prior to his bench appointment, Justice Kos was a
partner of litigation firm Stout Street Chambers in Wellington and associate member of Shortland Chambers in
Auckland. He was also Pro-Chancellor of Massey University, an Honorary Lecturer in Law at Victoria University
and Chairman of the New Zealand Markets Disciplinary Tribunal (the stock exchange disciplinary tribunal).
Conference organiser
New Zealand Law Society Continuing Legal Education Ltd
Telephone: +64 4 472 7837
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The winners of the 2011 CCH-ALTA Best Conference Paper Awards will be announced at the 67th Annual ALTA
Conference at The University of Sydney.
The Best Conference Paper Awards will be continuing in 2012. In keeping with its mission to promote excellence in
research and support early career academics, there will be three Awards on offer for papers presented at the 2012
Annual Conference of the Australasian Law Teachers Association. They are:
Best Overall Conference Paper
Best Early Career Academic Conference Paper
Best Legal Education Conference Paper
The winner of each Award will receive $500 AUD.
To enter, simply elect to have your paper entered into the Award through the online ALTA Conference submission
form http://sydney.edu.au/law/alta/call_for_papers.shtml or email your full paper and completed submission form to
The criteria and submission documents for the Awards are available on the ALTA website at http://www.alta.edu.au/
Awards.htm. We ask that all authors wishing to make submissions to the 2012 Awards consider the criteria before
making their submission.
Submissions will be open until Friday 27th of July 2012.
CCH-ALTA Best Conference Paper Awards
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A collaborative team, led by Dr Amanda Kennedy (UNE), has commenced work on an ALTC-funded project that
aims to develop strategies within the undergraduate law curriculum to prepare and attract lawyers and other legal
professionals for legal careers in rural and regional Australia. This project represents the start of an ongoing
collaboration to improve learning outcomes for rural and regional legal professionals. It intends to develop curriculum
resources for use within all Australian law schools and to establish an active Rural and Regional Legal Education
Network.
The team’s initial work has been to document the factors that distinguish rural and regional legal practice as a career
option, and to map learning resources suited to embedding within the law school curriculum strategies to expose
students to, and prepare them for such career pathways. This work is drawing from the body of research emerging in
Australia (eg, see (2011) 16(1) Deakin Law Review), which complements that already taking place in the UK , New
Zealand/ Aotearoa and the United States.
In addition to this research, the universities concerned are collaborating in the development of a National Rural Law
and Justice Alliance, which will be launched at the second National Rural Law and Justice Conference to be held at
Coffs Harbour between the 18th and 20th of May (details http://www.une.edu.au/law/rrljconference). Together with
many rural organisations, these academic institutions are making a concerted attempt to improve the quality and
availability of rural law and justice services.
Working with Amanda are Professor Paul Martin (Director, Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law, UNE), Dr
Theresa Smith-Ruig, Debbie Bridge and Suzanne Whale (UNE), Professor Reid Mortensen and Caroline Hart
(USQ), Associate Professor Claire Macken (La Trobe), Richard Coverdale (Director, Centre for Rural Regional Law
and Justice, Deakin), Trish Mundy (Wollongong), and Dr Jennifer Nielsen (SCU). Anyone interested to find out more
about this project is welcome to contact Dr Kennedy ([email protected]) or any of the other team members.
Jennifer Nielsen
ALTC
Rethinking the Law Curriculum: Developing
Strategies to Prepare Law Graduates for
Practice in Rural and Regional Australia
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What is your current position?
This is my third year as an Associate Professor at the Melbourne Law School, University of
Melbourne. Prior to that, I worked at the Department of Business Law and Taxation at
Monash University for 20 years.
What is your area of legal specialty?
My area of speciality is Company Law, and in particular, the rights of vulnerable creditor
groups. My PhD looked at trade creditors, tort creditors and employees, and my current
ARC grant concentrates on the protection of employees during corporate insolvency.
When and how did you come to be an academic?
I began as a part time tutor, then assistant lecturer, in the Department of Accounting and Finance at Monash
University in 1989. Unlike now, it was a time of shortage of academics when you could walk into a tutor’s position just
with a law degree, no higher degree and no publications. I wanted to work part time as I had small children at the
time.
What have been your main academic career steps?
I have taken the very, very slow ‘mummy track’. I was an assistant lecturer for many years, then eventually promoted
to lecturer and senior lecturer, after completing a Graduate Diploma in Business (Accounting) and a Master of Laws
by major thesis. Once I finished my PhD in 2005, I became Acting Head, then Head of Department of the
Department of Business Law and Taxation. At the end of 2009 I left that position and came to Melbourne Law
School as an Associate Professor.
What are your thoughts on teaching?
It can be quite demoralising when students concentrate on questions such as ‘do I have to do the reading?’ and ‘is
that on the exam’ but I still get a real thrill out of seeing ‘the penny drop’. Company Law may appear to be very dry
but it is in fact a massive soap opera of greed, power and deceit, of gambles with spectacular wins and stunning falls
from grace. Once students understand that and look at Company Law as the vital backdrop to the business and
professional world they are entering, it is a delight to teach.
What are your thoughts on research?
What began as a chore is now a real enjoyment. I really understood research once I focused on an area of interest
and saw the publication that would come out of the research as a secondary element, rather than the other way
around. The best advice I could give is to make sure you have some genuine commitment to the area of your
research, because this gets you motivated to research and write. The other thing I have learnt is not to leave
research to non-teaching or non-busy periods, because then it becomes a job that keeps being put off. I work on my
research at least one day every week, regardless of other commitments.
What are your thoughts on university involvement?
As a former Head of Department, I know a fair bit about the administration of a Department, Faculty and University.
Without playing a violin here, I would say that any person heavily involved in administration is under-appreciated,
Academic Profile:
Associate Professor Helen Anderson
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because the workload is huge, the power negligible and the responsibilities weighty. I found it to be very satisfying to
be able to achieve things as a Head but in reality, they were few and far between. Most of the time was taken up with
meetings and emails in a constant Groundhog Day scenario.
What are your thoughts on community engagement?
This seems like the forgotten part of being an academic, and yet it is really valuable to learn about the practical
aspects of the law we teach and research. It is also very satisfying to be able to contribute to the ‘real world’ debate.
It does take up time but I think it is time well spent. For one thing, it reminds me of what a fantastic job we academics
have – what freedom of time and thought we have compared to practitioners and Government officers.
What do you like most about your job?
Without doubt it would be the freedom and flexibility. I love being able to decide what to work on and when. I also
have terrific colleagues so I also enjoy both the social and collegial aspects of my job.
What do you like least about your job?
Marking is the usual villain here and I’m not a fan either. However, the thing I like the least is having to say to fail
students that they will have to repeat. I find it upsetting when students cry and beg me to find them a few more marks
to get them over the line, because the answer has to be no.
If you were starting out again now, what would you do differently?
I would have more confidence in myself and stop thinking that others are always better than me at everything.
Sometimes they are and sometimes they’re not!
What strategies do you use to maintain work life balance?
Be as productive as possible during work time and then don’t feel guilty about not working every night and weekend.
It helps not being a Head of Department anymore, because the workload then expanded to fill as much time as I
would allow it. I limit my email checking when I’m at home. I’m a keen gardener so that keeps me away from the
computer on the weekend.
I am also the Honorary General Treasurer of ALTA. My responsibilities include paying bills, banking money, keeping
the accounts and getting it all audited. I also pay the wages, tax and super for the administrative staff of ALTA, the
Legal Education Review and the Legal Education Digest each fortnight. Online banking has made my work a great
deal easier, as few payments are made by cheque these days, saving heaps of time at the bank. I have been
Treasurer since 2007 and will be looking to hand it over to a eager person when one appears! It would suit someone
who enjoys keeping things straight, doesn’t mind paperwork, with a rudimentary knowledge of Excel and access to a
printer, and about an hour a week on average to spare. If you think that’s you, please email me at
[email protected] or catch up with me at the conference in July. You would be part of the Executive, and
they are a lovely bunch of people to work with.
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What is your current position?
Post doctorate research fellow and lecturer with the TC Beirne School of Law
What is your area of legal specialty?
Labour and employment law with a particular focus on workplace equality.
When and how did you come to be an academic?
After being admitted as a solicitor in 2004 I practised law part-time while representing
Australia in the Paralympics and Commonwealth Games. In 2006 I retired from sport after
a successful campaign in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. I commenced my PhD
in 2006 and continued to work in practice. When I completed my PhD in 2009 I decided to
work full-time in academia and commenced full-time lecturing.
What have been your main academic career steps?
2011-2013 Full-time Post Doctorate Research Fellow, The TC Beirne School of Law at the University of
Queensland on a project entitled "From Ratification to Implementation: The Disability Human Rights Paradigm and
the Right to Work in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities".
2011 Coordinating and Lecturing Laws 2800 Occupational Health and Safety Law, TC Beirne School of Law at
the University of Queensland.
2009-2010 Full-time Research Fellow
Griffith University, on a project 50% funded and supervised by the Socio-Legal Research Centre and 25%
respectively by the Griffith Institute for Social and Behavioural Research and the Centre for Work, Organisation and
Wellbeing. The projects included:
“Whistle blowing and Organisational Justice: Effecting Workplace Change in Australia"
“Towards Effective International Regulation of Egregious Breaches of Labour"
“Regulation and Protection of Marginal Workers".
2010 Principle Supervisor Interdisciplinary Research Thesis, Griffith University.
2006- 2009 Full-time Associate Lecturer, Queensland University of Technology, lecturing and coordinating the
undergraduate Employment Law unit, lecturing in the Masters of Laws employment law unit, tutoring/lecturing in the
Bachelor of Laws units Administrative Law; Laws and Global Perspectives; Law, Society and Justice; and Torts.
2009 Part-time Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology, primary investigator - 'Providing students
with vision impairment print material in an accessible electronic format: Identifying barriers in the current model'.
Academic Profile:
Dr Paul Harpur
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2008 Part-time Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology,- 'Building the Rule of Law in International
Affairs', an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant between Griffith University, Queensland University of
Technology, United Nations University, New York University and the Centre for International Governance (Canada).
2007 Casual Tutor Property Law, TC Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland.
What are your thoughts on teaching?
"I believe that teaching is one of the most delightful and exciting of all human activities when it is done well and that it
is one of the most humiliating and tedious when it is done poorly."
Paul Ramsden, Learning to Teach in Higher Education, 2nd Edition (2003).
What are your thoughts on research?
When I was an under-graduate student I published in a law journal as a hobby. My hobby is now my job.
What are your thoughts on community engagement?
Academics are in a privileged position which enables them to produce scholarship that contributes to a better
society. This means research and findings needs to be rendered accessible to scholars, practitioners and the wider
community.
What strategies do you use to maintain work life balance?
Treat sleep as an optional extra.
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The University of Auckland – Department of Commercial Law
The University of Auckland – Faculty of Law
The Australian National University – ANU College of Law
Bond University – Faculty of Law
Charles Darwin University – School of Law
Curtin University of Technology– School of Business Law and Taxation.
Griffith University – Griffith Law School
James Cook University – School of Law
La Trobe University– School of Law
Manukau Institute of Technology – Manukau Business School, Accountancy & Law Division
Monash University – Department of Business Law & Taxation
Monash University – Faculty of Law NEW
Murdoch University – School of Law NEW
The University of Newcastle
The University of New England – School of Law
The University of New South Wales – School of Business Law & Taxation
The University of Queensland – TC Beirne School of Law
The University of the South Pacific – School of Law
University of South Australia – School of Commerce
University of Southern Queensland – Department of Law
Southern Cross University – School of Law & Justice
The University of Sydney – Faculty of Law
The University of Sydney – Law Extension Committee
The University of Sydney – Faculty of Economics & Business
University of Tasmania – Faculty of Law
University of Technology, Sydney – Faculty of Law
Victoria University – School of Law
Victoria University of Wellington – Faculty of Law
Victoria University of Wellington – School of Accountancy & Commercial Law
The University of Western Australia – Faculty of Law
The University of Western Sydney – School of Law
The University of Waikato – Law School
University of Wollongong – Faculty of Law
2012 ALTA Institutional Members
Thank you for your support!
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As you may be aware, the ALTA Executive has implemented its ALTA School Representative initiative where one or
two members within each of ALTA’s institutional member schools have become a representative of ALTA. These
Representatives are able to provide an interface between the ALTA Executive and their individual schools and
promote the interests of ALTA within their local law academic communities.
The ALTA Executive sees this as an opportunity to collaborate more closely with its member institutions and to
continue to find ways in which to meet the needs of its membership. Representatives also play an important role in
ensuring that new Academics become aware of ALTA as an organisation which can assist them in their career
development, as well as ensuring that current ALTA members have an opportunity to enjoy an active participation in
the activities of the Association.
The role of ALTA Representatives is to:
a. Promote and represent ALTA activities and membership within their individual school.
b. Disseminate ALTA information through:
i. Emails to their school’s law academics
ii. Distribution of ALTA Membership Packs to new members/staff
iii. Distribution of conference, prizes and awards information to their Dean/Head of School with a
view to encouraging participation by staff within their school
c. Communicate to the ALTA Executive any particular concerns of the membership located in their
school.
d. Produce a biannual report incorporating ALTA activities affecting their individual School and any other
activities which may be relevant to ALTA, which is published online and in the ALTA Newsletter.
e. If possible, attend the ALTA Conference, including the Convener and School Representative Cocktail
Function, which serves as a “thank you” for undertaking the role and importantly provides a formal
opportunity for Representatives to meet with the ALTA Executive.
We currently have 38 School Representatives, whose reports you will find in the following pages and to whom we
would like to extend our sincere thanks for their ongoing support. Please note that we are also currently seeking
School Representatives from non-member Schools.
If you would like to express your interest, receive an ALTA Membership Pack or would like any further information,
please contact the ALTA administrator at [email protected]
ALTA School Representatives Initiative
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Bond University Faculty of Law
Leisha Browning & Louise Parsons
University of Canberra Faculty of Law Sarah Ailwood
Charles Darwin University School of Law & Business
David Price
Curtin University of Technology School of Business Law and
Taxation Colleen Mortimer
Deakin University School of Law
Lidia Xynas & John Hannagan
Griffith University Griffith School of Law
Edward Mussawir & Merran Lawler
James Cook University School of Law
Stephen Graw & Malcolm Barrett
La Trobe University School of Law
Ann Wardrop & Keith Kendall
Southern Cross University School of Law & Justice Jennifer Nielsen & Angela Adrian
The University of Sydney Faculty of Law
Arlie Loughnan & Rita Shackel
The University of Sydney Business School Patty Kamvounias
University of Tasmania Faculty of Law
Rick Snell & Jeremy Prichard
University of Technology, Sydney Faculty of Law Marilyn Scott
Victoria University
School of Law Charles Giacco & David Parker
The University of Western Australia
Faculty of Law Tracey Atkinson
The University of Western Sydney School of Law
John Juriansz & Elfriede Sangkuhl
Current ALTA School Representatives
Monash University Department of Business Law &
Taxation Paula Gerber
The University of Newcastle School of Law
Nicola Ross
The University of New England School of Law Belinda Eastgate
The University of New South
Wales
Australian School of Taxation
and Business Law
Jenny Buchan & Fiona Martin
The University of Notre Dame School of Law
Teresa Somes & Chris Mulley
The University of Queensland TC Beirne School of Law
Qiao Liu & Nick James
University of South Australia School of Commerce
Jennifer McKay
University of Southern
Queensland School of Law
Pauline Collins & Suzanne Donnellan
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Reports from ALTA School Representatives
Australian National University, ANU College of Law
Michael Coper
2011 was a typically busy year for the ANU College of Law, notwithstanding the additional 50th anniversary
celebrations in 2010. The College held, as it does annually, over 100 conferences, seminars, workshops, or public
lectures, and continued to ramp up its law reform and social justice program (see http://anulaw.anu.edu.au/lrsj).
On the research side, the College held its annual Early Careers Workshop for junior academics from around
Australia (Consumer Law in 2011, Dispute Resolution in 2012). On the education side, the College continued its
curriculum reform process, with 2011 LLB Director Tony Connolly presenting on this at the International
Association of Law Schools conference in Buenos Aires.
Many individuals were honoured or recognized in some way. For example, two of the College’s four Future Fellows
received further honours: Des Manderson was made Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and Daniel Fitzpatrick
was appointed Hauser Fellow in New York University’s Global Law Program. Tim Bonyhady’s book Good Living
Street was selected as one of the Wall Street Journal’s Books of the Year; Peter Cane and Jane Stapleton took up
their appointments as Goodhart Visiting Professors at Cambridge University; Mick Dodson took up his Visiting
Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University; and Hilary Charlesworth was appointed as Judge Ad Hoc in the
International Court of Justice to sit on the Japanese Whaling Case.
The major event of 2011 was the week-long visit of an International Review Panel. This review was commissioned
by the Dean and covered all aspects of the College’s operations. The panel comprised five international experts,
from the US, the UK, Canada, Singapore and New Zealand (see http://law.anu.edu.au/news/webdocuments/
ReviewTeam.pdf). The review reflected the College’s desire to benchmark itself internationally, and the concept
may be of interest to other law schools (report available on request).
A street in Canberra was named after a former ANU Dean of Law: Harry Whitmore Street, Watson.
Curtin University, School of Business Law and Taxation
Colleen Mortimer
The School has instituted a Friday afternoon session featuring guest speakers. Guest speakers are drawn from a
wide variety of areas ranging from native title to the scholarship of teaching.
The Tax area in the school has organised a Tax Fair which will be attended by mid-tier accounting firms to discuss
with students the career prospects after university and provide them with the opportunity to think beyond the large
accounting firms for a career.
A Tax Tour of Canberra is being organised for later in the year. Students will visit Parliament House and the High
Court and will be required to prepare a reflective journal of the student’s experiences of the trip.
We have organised a number of sessions with industry professionals and the Accounting Professional Bodies to
assist students in career planning and options.
CCH has run sessions to explain to students the publications available to students.
Students are using an industry-based software package in taxation to ensure that they have practical experience
before they enter the workforce.
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James Cook University, Faculty of Law, Business and the Creative Arts (School of Law)
Stephen Graw and Malcolm Barrett
This year is the 25th Anniversary of JCU’s Cairns campus and will be celebrated with a number of special events.
The Law School is hosting a Legal Studies Conference for year 11 and 12 students on 20th April (the university’s 42
nd
birthday) as well a number of other social and academic events throughout the year. They include the 2012 Mayo
Lecture which will be delivered by Glenn Ferguson, a Past President of the Law Council of Australia and a current
member of the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians.
La Trobe University, Business, Economics and Law (School of Law)
Keith Kendall and Ann Wardrop
The Dispute Resolution teaching team at La Trobe University has made a DVD demonstrating the facilitative
mediation model. The Scholarship Dispute and accompanying teaching and learning materials will be available for
sale shortly. Should you wish to order a copy of the DVD or make any enquiries, please contact: Judy Gutman,
School of Law, La Trobe University, (03) 9479 1563, [email protected]
The Journal of Australian Taxation has appointed two new editors, Keith Kendall (La Trobe University) and John
McLaren (University of Canberra). The JAT accepts all submissions on all topics that would be of interest to a tax
specialist audience (including non-Australian/New Zealand issues). A website is presently being constructed for
future submissions, but in the meantime, submissions may be sent in Microsoft Word format to Keith Kendall
([email protected]) and John McLaren ([email protected]). Inquiries may be directed to the
same parties.
University of New South Wales, Australian School of Business (School of Taxation and Business Law)
Fiona Martin and Jenny Buchan
Taxation and Business Law will host the following conferences in 2012:
10th Annual Tax Administration Conference – 24 April
24th Annual GST Conference – 11 April
Here is the link to the relevant site:
http://www.asb.unsw.edu.au/schools/taxationandbusinesslaw/Pages/default.aspx
The University of Queensland, TC Beirne School of Law
Nick James and Qiao Liu
The new Dean of the law School, Professor Gerard Carney, began his new role on January 30, 2012. According to
Professor Carney: “UQ Law attracts the brightest students so I want to nurture the Law School's close links with the
legal profession, commerce and government, both nationally and internationally, to provide the best graduate
outcomes, as well as equip our students with the necessary legal and personal skills to pursue successful and
satisfying professional careers.” Professor Carney joined UQ from the Faculty of Law at Bond University where he
was the Deputy Dean, Professor of Constitutional Law and Chair of the Academic Senate.
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In early February, law students from The University of Queensland won the Australian round of the 2012 Jessup
International Law Moot Court Competition in Canberra. UQ prevailed against the University of Melbourne before the
Honourable Justice William Gummow AC; the US Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Ambassador Jeffrey L
Bleich, and Professor Penelope Mathew of the Australian National University.
UQ's student-led International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Schools Education Program has been presented to around
80 students from St Hilda's Girl's School, Moreton Bay College and Brisbane State High School since its launch in
July 2011. Run in conjunction with Australian Red Cross, the awareness building program is one of only two such
programs across Australia and one of the many voluntary activities undertaken by law students through The
University of Queensland's Pro Bono Centre.
A new partnership between the TC Beirne School of Law and the Washington University School of Law in St Louis
will give UQ law students the chance to undertake formal study in two jurisdictions and add a postgraduate
qualification to their first law degree. On successful completion of two semesters of study in the United States, UQ
students will receive credit towards the completion of their UQ Bachelor of Laws degree and will also be eligible to
graduate from WU’s Master of Laws program in a reduced time frame.
For information about upcoming events within the school, go to http://www.law.uq.edu.au/law-events/.
Southern Cross University, School of Law & Justice
Jennifer Nielsen and Angela Adrian
The EARTH LAWS network is holding the 4th Australian Wild Law Conference on Animal Rights and the Rights of
Nature. It will be held on 20 – 23 September 2012 at Southern Cross University, Lismore Campus. A Call for Papers
will be released in the next few weeks.
Victoria University, Faculty of Business and Law (School of Law)
Charles Giacco and David Parker
VLS CLE/CPD series program
Victoria Law School (‘VLS’) is pleased to announce the first in a series of CLE/CPD programs this year.
The first of the VLS CLE/CPD series program will be held at VLS, City-Queen campus, (295 Queen Street,
Melbourne) lecture theatre G-01 on Tuesday, 20th March 2012. This first program’s topic is “Statutory Interpretation:
Issues and Challenges”, with presenters including The Hon. Justice Chris Maxwell, President, Victorian Court of
Appeal; The Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG; and The Hon. Justice Elizabeth Hollingworth, Victorian Supreme Court.
The series confirms a commitment by VLS to engage with the profession and provide a forum for discussion of
contemporary issues in the practice of law.
ALTA members are welcome to attend this inaugural event (email: [email protected] or tel: +61-3-9919 1862).
Dictum Society
Dictum Society was recently launched as the official law student’s society at Victoria Law School. Its website details:
www.dictumsociety.org.
New law text contribution
Mr David Parker, Senior Lecturer, Victoria Law School, has contributed to two new law texts - Understanding
Business Law, 5th edition (LexisNexis), and Business and Law in Australia (Thomson Reuters)
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ALTA Law Research Series
(ALRS)
Benefits of Online Publishing – ALRS
Universities, whether it be in the realm of research or teaching, are not immune to the rapid developments in
technology and the impact of social media. It does not seem that long ago that an academic worked on some
scholarly writing, which was finally sent to a law journal. The journal would then send it out to anonymous reviewers
and after a few months, it would be returned to an editor, who would send it back to the author with suggested
amendments. A few months later, the author would address those suggestions and send the updated version back to
the editor for checking and hopefully a letter of acceptance would arrive. A few months after that letter, there would
finally be a copy of the whole edition of the journal and a number of off-prints to circulate to friends and colleagues.
One of the issues to arise is how many people actually read that article in a journal. Also, the article might contain
over 150 footnotes linking to a number of interesting cases, legislation, government reports and of course, other
academic scholarly works in print. To discover these gems of information relating to your specialist area required
several trips to the library and inter-library loans etc. The world of technology has rapidly changed all aspects of this
process described.
Many universities have established their own ePrints or electronic depositories of published works. The rationale
being driven by the Excellence in Research in Australia (ERA) process, which required access to all Fields of
Research (known as FoR codes, Law being 1801) materials to be electronically available for review by expert
assessors.
The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), through its Australasian Law Journals database (http://
www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/) hosts 45 law journals in electronic format. Some of the law journals have already
been published in hardcopy and these databases add archiving and search ability. However, others are purely
electronic, such as ALRS (the ALTA Law Research Series) - http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ALRS/. This
provides a place for members to easily upload working papers and published works (where the ALTA author owns
the copyright) to the ALRS. The system automatically provides a medium neutral reference and links all the cases
and sections mentioned in the main AustLII databases. There are now over 110 articles spanning from 1991 to 2011
with a number of high profile authors.
We encourage more ALTA members to spend the ten-minutes of so to upload their scholarly works and if there are
any issues, please do not hesitate to email: [email protected]
Professor Michael Adams
Chair of ALRS Committee
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Journal of the Australasian Law Teachers
Association (JALTA)
The 2011 Edition of JALTA was published on schedule in December, when the PDF was distributed
to ALTA members and was made available on the ALTA website.
JALTA is a double-blind refereed journal that publishes scholarly works on all aspects of law. JALTA
was established by ALTA in 2008 and represents an important initiative which supports the research
endeavours of its members, in addition to ALTA’s highly regarded Legal Education Review (LER) and
the Centre for Legal Education’s Legal Education Digest (LED), which is included in ALTA
membership. The journal also appropriately reflects the prestige, maturity and development of ALTA as an
organisation which now represents well over 1000 members.
Following the publication of our inaugural issue in 2008, the response to the 2009 and 2010 issues of JALTA
continued to be very strong. For the 2009 issue, we received 34 submissions for consideration to be published, with
23 of those submissions ultimately being published. For the 2010 issue, we received 24 submissions, of which 13
were published. The 2011 issue of JALTA included 13 published articles out of 19 submissions that we received. All
submissions undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review before being published. The paper and referee statistics
for the 2011 Edition are set out in the table below:
In closing, and most importantly, I need to extend my sincere thanks to a number of people whose collective efforts
have made this journal possible. First, in addition to all members of the ALTA Executive, I would like to thank my
Editorial Board colleagues for their counsel and support. Second, I must thank ALTA Interest Group Convenors and
all referees who assisted us with the double-blind refereeing process. I would also like to offer my thanks to
Kaushalya Mataraaratchi for her exceptional work in proofreading, David Brennan for his efforts in typesetting, and to
CCH Australia Ltd for their generous sponsorship and continued support of the journal. Lastly, I need to record a
special thanks to Nathalie (‘Nat’) Poludniewski who is tireless in her work on all aspects dealing with JALTA and is
always supremely organised and efficient. I can safely say that, without Nat’s contributions, JALTA would not be
produced in a timely and professional manner. Well done, Nat!
I would like to thank the ALTA membership for continuing to strongly support JALTA and we look forward to
continuing to contribute to the legal profession through this journal.
Professor Dale Pinto
Editor-in-Chief, JALTA
Submissions
Total Number of Submissions 19
Papers withdrawn by authors 4
Invited Papers 0
Quality of Papers
Publishable without amendment 0
Publishable with amendments 13 = 86.5%
Rejected Papers 2 = 13.5%
Referees
Professors 4 = 14%
Associate Professors 4 = 14%
Doctorates 8 = 27.5%
Lecturers (inc Senior lecturers) 13 = 45%
Total Referees (one refereed two papers) 29
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Legal Education Review
(LER)
The Editorial Committee of the Legal Education Review has been proud to release Volume 21 of the
journal, comprising a General Issue and a Special Topic Issue on Student Wellbeing. We are
grateful to Marie Jepson and Keith Mason, on behalf of the Tristan Jepson Memorial Foundation,
who wrote a foreword for the Special Topic Issue.
The General Issue contains six articles, the first two focusing upon the Juris Doctor (JD). Wendy
Larcombe and Ian Malkin report on their research into the first year experience of JD students, and
Donna Cooper, Sheryl Jackson, Rosalind Mason and Mary Toohey look at the impact that the emergence of the JD
has had on academic standards in legal education. In the third article, Jonathan Crowe examines the place of legal
theory in the law curriculum and offers techniques to embed theoretical perspectives across the core law curriculum.
Andrew Mitchell, Bruce Oswald, Tania Voon and Wendy Larcombe demonstrate how experiential learning can be
taken to a new level in their article about enhancing the teaching of a course on international institutions by taking
students overseas on site visits. (Their efforts were recognised in 2011 when they won the LexisNexis Award for
Excellence and Innovation in the Teaching of Law.) Caroline Hart, Sara Hammer, Pauline Collins and Toni Chardon
then consider the use of authentic assessment as a vehicle for improving student engagement, in an environment
where students are spending less and less time on campus. Finally, Amanda Reilly offers sound pedagogical
techniques for the teaching of labour law by incorporating socio-legal material to develop student understanding of
the complex policy choices underpinning the law.
There are a further six articles in the Special Topic Issue, which enhances our understanding of law student
wellbeing through both research and practical responses. The following is taken from the Foreword. In the first
article, Molly Townes O’Brien, Stephen Tang and Kath Hall report on empirical research into the relationship
between student distress and the law curriculum, identifying changes in student thinking styles, self-concept and
sense of wellbeing. They include ideas for curricular reform which were generated from discussion between students
and faculty. Anna Huggins, Sally Kift and Rachael Field address the self-management threshold learning outcome for
law, which encompasses personal development. They propose curriculum design approaches for self-management
that promote student engagement, autonomy, and reflective practice.
Colin James makes an important contribution by drawing from the fields of neuroscience and positive psychology to
propose strategies for improving students’ levels of psychological literacy to help them identify risk factors in
themselves and others, to reduce the stigma attached with mental illness, to improve self-awareness and strengthen
resilience. Kate Galloway, Rachel Bradshaw, Neil Dunbar and Jamie Fellows identify the link between embedded
pastoral care in the law school and student wellbeing, and argue that teachers who incorporate pastoral care as part
of their teaching philosophy produce not only more confident students, but better learning outcomes.
Asmi Wood focuses on Indigenous student wellbeing, identifying gaps for Indigenous law students in areas such as
educational and financial readiness, incomplete support networks, insufficient recognition of the holistic experiences
and responsibilities Indigenous law students face, and a lack of authenticity between the learning of the rule of law
and experience of their people in dispossession and non-recognition of Indigenous law. He puts forward a case
study on an effective program for law school which supports Indigenous student wellbeing and success and thereby
contributes to closing the gaps faced by Indigenous law students. Matthew Ball adds to the debate by examining the
attempts to govern depression, which steer efforts in the direction of student self-government – students are to self-
assess their wellbeing, to identify risk factors in those around them, and to take responsibility and steps to address
their own lack of wellbeing and that of others, through a community of care. He argues that this privatises the issue
of depression, focusing on identification of individual illness and actions to treat it rather than focusing on the overall
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contexts in which people are becoming unwell, including the law school environment and the broader social
environment.
Thanks are due to the members of the 2011 Editorial Committee for their work in putting this Volume together —
Nick James, Sonya Willis, Wendy Larcombe, Allan Chay, Donna Buckingham, Anne Hewitt and Patrick Keyzer.
Thanks also to our Administrator Alysia Saker, our proofer Jonathan Tyne, and our longstanding typesetter Maureen
Platt. We are also grateful to our Editorial Advisory Board for their support, advice, and refereeing services – Sally
Kift, Carl Monk, William Twining, Michael Kirby AC CMG, Larissa Behrendt, David Weisbrot AM, Michael Coper,
Richard Johnstone, Justice Marcia Neave, Wesley Pue, Rimon Rice, David Barker AM, Michael Adams, John Farrer,
Nigel Duncan, Marlene Le Brun, Erica McWilliam and Elizabeth Sheehy.
Each issue of the Legal Education Review involves the efforts of many other people, mainly academics, who
volunteer their time and expertise with little thought of reward or recognition. Special thanks needs to go to the
Faculty of Law at University of Technology, Sydney, the School of Law at the University of Western Sydney, and
Professors Rosalind Mason and David Barker for support provided through the Australasian Law Teachers
Association (ALTA). A special thanks to our former Administrator Nathalie Poludniewski for her on our website and
her continued support.
Submissions for the 2012 edition (Vol 22) are due by 30 April 2012. In addition to our general issue, we have a
special issue titled ‘The Teaching-Research Nexus in Law: Opportunities and Challenges’. We welcome articles that
address any aspect of the nexus between teaching and research within the discipline of law, including articles
addressing the following:
How can law educators maximise learning outcomes through bringing law and/or education research into
the classroom?
How can law teachers maximise their research outcomes by conducting research into the pedagogy and
practice of law teaching?
How can law educators achieve excellence in supervision of higher degree research students?
In an environment where few law academics were trained in socio-legal or empirical research
methodologies, does the conduct of educational research and the supervision of non-doctrinal legal
research pose particular challenges?
We follow the AGLC (3rd
ed, 2010); all articles are double blind refereed and go through a rigorous editorial process.
For more information see www.ler.edu.au.
Dr Michelle Sanson
Editor-in-Chief
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It is quite encouraging to return from the recent (3 to 6 July) 2011 Australasian Law
Teachers’ Association (ALTA) Brisbane Conference hosted by the Queensland University
of Technology (QUT) Law Faculty, knowing that it has been regarded by all the participants
as another outstanding success. Much of this was due to the additional events which
surrounded the Conference which this year included not only meetings of the Council of
Australian Law Deans and the Legal Education Review Editorial Committee but also, for the
first time, an Australian Academy of Law Roundtable Symposium on the topic – Trends in Legal Education for
Practice: Competing Tensions. This was chaired by the Hon. Justice John H Byrne RFD, with Professor Michael
Coper, Dean of the ANU College of Law, Noela L’Estrange, Chief Executive Officer, Queensland Law Society and
Rachael Field, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, QUT as the principal speakers. It was also a special occasion for the
editors and authors of Excellence and Innovation in Legal Education launched at the Conference by the Hon. Chief
Justice Robert French AC of the High Court of Australia, who was also the Conference’s opening plenary speaker.
The book, published by Lexis Nexis, is the subject of this edition’s book review.
It is also appropriate to note in this editorial of the closing of the United Kingdom Centre for Legal Education
(UKCLE), yet another victim of government spending cuts. During its 10 years existence the Centre has had a
profound effect on the development and quality of law teaching in the United Kingdom, and its influence on legal
education, not only there but world-wide, will be sadly missed.
Moving on to the articles digested in this edition of the Digest, the first is categorised under Ethics. Here Wiley and
Burke adopt what they describe as a constructivist approach to business ethics whereby they seek to develop a
student code of professional conduct.
Under the rarely used heading of History, Chester recounts the saga of the founding of Boston’s Portia Law School
for women in 1908, intertwining the story of its increasing expansion during the 1920s and 1930s until its demise in
1944 with that of its founder and mentor Arthur Winfield MacLean. However this is not the end of the story as readers
learn that the law school was re-established subsequently in Boston as the New England School of Law.
Individual Subject/Areas of Law covers an article by Danov which explains some successful techniques which
were adopted for the teaching of international commercial arbitration to postgraduate students who had obtained
their first degrees overseas prior to their coming to the United Kingdom. The author explains that the research
outcomes of the project carried out during the teaching of the postgraduate program concluded that a ‘deep
[learning] approach required the adoption of a mix of teaching methods which took account of each individual
students’ interests, needs and abilities’.
Legal Education Generally incorporates three contrasting articles. The first by Johnson challenges the prevailing
attitude of most law academics that ‘learning the law’ must not be made ‘too easy for our students’. The main thrust
of the article is an argument for the re-introduction of the textbook in contrast to the casebook. It is for the reader of
the article to judge the effectiveness of the author’s group study outline entitled the ‘wypadki’. This is a most
stimulating and evocative article. In contrast Ribstein examines the developments which have taken place in the
history of legal education arguing that law schools are increasingly subject to the effect of market forces. The author
argues that the increasing competition placed on large law firms leaves them with less time to focus on the training of
young lawyers thereby increasing the law schools’ overall training burden. The final article under this heading is by
Coper, a highly respected Australian law professor. Anyone who is seeking to gain an insight into contemporary
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developments in Australian legal education is well-advised to read his article.
Practical Training is the heading for the review by Evers, Olliffe and Petit of the University of Technology, Sydney
(UTS) Law Faculty’s practical legal training program introduced in 1996, when this Editor was the Associate Dean of
the Faculty. A distinctive feature of the UTS Law degree at that time was the introduction of an option to include the
practical legal training programme in the final year of law study. The article incorporates the results of a survey made
incorporating three groups of PLT students who had studied in the UTS law programme since its introduction in
1996.
Magat under Research deals with a problem being faced by an ever increasing number of students undertaking
assignments and more in-depth research as to how to facilitate the proper use of footnotes as a form of referencing.
It is difficult to avoid the influence of the Carnegie Foundation when considering any facet of legal education,
particularly its practical application. Within the heading of Skills Cunningham and Alexander explain the techniques
adopted by their law school in developing professional judgement as a response to the Carnegie Foundation’s
critique of American legal education. Under the same heading Kowalski describes the methods adopted for the
teaching of legal writing in law school clinics.
Students encapsulates the approach adopted by Corbin, Burns and Chrzanowski in seeking to challenge law
students, both in respect of class attendance and their engagement when in the classroom situation. This response
is based upon a study that examined student attendance across the law degree taught at the authors’ law school.
The next article digested in this edition is by Collins, Brackin and Hart, which although it involves assessment, is
placed within the wider setting of Teaching Methods & Media. The authors express their concern in respect of the
difficulties placed on law academics by the introduction in Australia of increasing numbers of students at tertiary
level, and the way in which ‘academics are therefore tasked with overcoming this problem by engaging students
through the use of ever-changing new technologies’. They stress that this involves the importance of affording
students the opportunities for ‘active’ learning with both the time for student reflection and the ability to manage their
own learning processes
Technology is the appropriate heading for the final and challenging article by Jones who explains that: ‘In the online
environment [whereby] the students and instructor are virtually, but not physically, present in the same environment’,
stating that this is just as, or even more effective, than the conventional professor/student physical classroom
relationship. In the view of the author the online environment creates greater pressure on the instructor ‘to create an
effective learning environment in a virtual setting’.
The articles digested in this edition are yet again illustrative of the amount of care and innovation which law
academics exercise in order to ensure that their teaching can be effective within the modern learning environment,
particularly where there are constraints of large numbers of students or lack of funding.
Emeritus Professor David Barker AM
Editor, Legal Education Digest
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2012 Legal Education Digest:
Volume 20 (1) Editorial
With everyone well into the New Year – 2012 – there are changes in the air!
First, the Legal Education Digest (LED) has a new home. After approximately 10 years of
being based at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Law, the Digest,
together with the Centre for Legal Education (CLE), has moved to the University of
Western Sydney (UWS) Law School. However to save any confusion the staff of both the
Digest and Centre remains the same, whilst at this stage it is just the address that has
changed! This is an appropriate time to thank Professor Jill McKeough, the Dean of the UTS Faculty of Law, for her
support during the time that both the CLE and the Digest have been located at UTS. Also our thanks are extended to
Professor Michael Adams, Co-Director of the CLE, for agreeing that the UWS Law School would in future host both
the CLE and the Digest. We note that already the UWS Law School has expressed their wish to embrace future
changes with regard to the CLE and the Digest by cooperating in respect of initiatives for the furtherance of Australia-
wide legal educational research issues.
Professor McKeough has also been involved in another change (at a personal level), taking leave of absence as
Dean from the UTS Faculty of Law to undertake an appointment as a Commissioner at the Australian Law Reform
Commission, carrying out research into the aspects of the Federal Government’s Referral with respect to Copyright
Law in the Digital Environment. Her place as Chairperson of the Council of Australian Law Deans (CALD) has been
taken by Professor Gillian Triggs, Dean of the University of Sydney Law Faculty. Gillian is also currently the ongoing
President of the Australasian Law Teachers Association. Whilst recognising this current spate of changes across the
Australian legal education sphere it is also appropriate to welcome the Hon. Kevin Lindgren, AM to the position of
President of the Australian Academy of Law, replacing the Hon. Bob Nicholson, AO who had completed his three
year term of office.
There will be more news relating to the LED in future issues, especially with regard to the August Issue when we will
celebrate the fact that 2012 marks the 20th year of the publishing of the Digest.
The book selected to be reviewed is the long-anticipated Privatising the Public University by Margaret Thornton, a
highly respected Professor of Law at the Australian National University.
And so to the articles digested in this edition starting with the category of Assessment Methods which is the
heading for the explanation by Wu and Dilena relating to a second chance assessment project for a property
transactions course conducted in the University of Hong Kong Law School. In the view of the authors moving from
‘assessment of learning’ to ‘assessment for learning’ and from ‘giving feedback’ to ‘giving feed-forward’ represented
‘a milestone development of assessment reform in Hong Kong legal education’. It will be interesting to see whether
this study encourages other law academics to re-examine and review their assessment practices.
Elder Law is becoming a more important aspect of many law schools’ curriculum. In this respect under Clinical
Legal Education Mewhinney has focused on the increase in the number of clinical courses concentrating on this
growth area for legal education. There is no doubt that this account of the Wake Forest University, North Carolina
Centre on Aging and Rehabilitation which provides law students with an invaluable opportunity to gain a multifaceted
experience created by the Centre’s involvement with a variety of professions including physicians, pharmacy experts,
social workers and pastoral-care providers, will be of great interest to all those teaching in Elder Law programs.
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Under Individual Subjects/Areas of Law Ali reviews the complex issues of teaching and learning Islamic Law in a
globalised world recommending the adoption of a ‘law in context’
approach in order to appreciate the inherent complexities and intricacies of Islamic Law. This an extremely
challenging article recognising the problems arising from teaching a subject caught between the conflicting normative
frameworks on which the Islamic legal tradition and western legal systems are based.
Legal Education Generally encompasses two articles. In the first, Ball considers how the formation of resilience
among law students has become a significant concern for legal educators owing to the mental health risks posed by
the study of law. He questions the current approach to government of the problem, cautioning against treatment of
the problem merely through focus on the individual, without looking at the overall context in which student mental
health decline occurs. In the other article under this heading Rothstein includes an account of how law school
pipeline programs operated under the aegis of the American Bar Association (ABA) and the Law School Admissions
Council (LSAC) are increasing diversity within the legal profession in the United States. An important outcome of
these programs is the impact which they also have on the providers of the programs who can gain a greater
appreciation not only of diversity but also an awareness of social justice and the opportunity to be involved in
community engagement. Articles such as this will be of increasing value as Australian law schools implement the
Bradley Report recommendations to significantly increase the diversity of students in tertiary education.
Skills embraces three contrasting contributions. The first by James examines the role of critical thinking as a
desirable attribute for law school graduates. His explanation stresses the importance for law students to learn how to
be informed, skilful and reflective critical thinkers. As the Digest stated in its last edition it is difficult to avoid the
influence of the Carnegie Foundation when reporting on legal education. In their article Herring and Lynch choose to
challenge the claim in the Carnegie Report that one aspect of legal education in which law schools excel is that of
the use of the case-dialogue method to teach legal analysis. This is a complex article questioning the effectiveness
of traditional legal education in teaching the skill of functional analysis, concluding that at this time the research
indicates that legal education neither diminishes nor enhances law students’ skill of reading and reasoning. The
editor is sure that this article will give rise to much debate on this highly controversial topic! In the concluding article
under this heading Kochan continues in the esoteric vein embraced by the three earlier articles by questioning
whether an ‘attitude of suspended conclusion’ is wasted on lawyers. The content of the article is centred on the book
authored by John Dewey and published in 1910 entitled: ‘How We Think’.
Students covers an article by O’Brien, Tang and Hall which again like the earlier article by Ball is concerned with
student distress particularly that relating to psychological distress and its perceived connection with the rigorous
academic process required to prepare students for a learned profession.
The heading Teaching Methods and Media is concerned with two articles involving the application of innovative
teaching techniques. Kirby contrasts the Juris Doctor degree at the University of Melbourne Law School with the LLB
Course at Central Queensland explaining how the need for outreach to regional and rural communities created the
necessity for the latter to be substantially taught online. It is encouraging to discover a former Justice of the High
Court of Australia still retaining a keen interest in legal education, noting also his involvement on the Editorial
Advisory Board of the Legal Education Review. In the other article under this heading, Young describes the methods
adopted by a course in Florida adopts a variety of teaching techniques to instil ethical values and ensure mediator
impartiality.
The two contributions incorporated under Technology involve two very different applications of computerised
information systems. Waye and Faulkner discuss the importance of e-portfolios as a useful tool in legal education,
linking them into an entire e-learning strategy whilst Strevens, C Welch and R Welch evaluate the current trends in
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the legal service market and recognise a future where clients will obtain legal services over the internet. In this
respect they believe that the logic of these developments is that students should be exposed to different methods of
communication and interaction that will involve these new technologies.
As always the Editor never ceases to be surprised at the contrasting nature of the articles which the Digest presents
in each edition presenting as it does the ongoing variety of all aspects of legal education.
Emeritus Professor David Barker AM
Editor, Legal Education Digest
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There have been a number of changes to CALD, especially to the CALD Executive, since
Professor Jill McKeough’s report as Chair in October last year. In particular Jill has been
appointed as the Commissioner in charge of the Australian Law Reform Commission’s
Inquiry into Copyright Law and, in consequence, has taken leave from her position as
Dean of Law at UTS and has stood down as Chair of CALD. She has been replaced in
that position by Professor Gillian Triggs, the Dean of Law at the University of Sydney.
In addition, Professor the Honourable Michael Lavarch AO has been appointed as a
Commissioner of the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) and, as a result, has
resigned as the Executive Dean of the QUT Faculty of Law effective April this year. He will also vacate his position
as joint Deputy Chair of CALD.
Professor Anne Rees, Head of the School of Law at Deakin University and the CALD Treasurer has also stood down
from both of those positions and has been replaced as the CALD Treasurer by Prof Andrew Clarke, Head of the
School of Law at Victoria University.
Major issues with which CALD dealt at its November meeting included:
The upcoming visit by a delegation of Chinese Law Deans in June/July 2012 to coincide with both the
2nd
CALD meeting for the year and the ALTA Conference;
Measuring the impact of research in law;
The role of, and Terms of Reference to guide, the Standards Committee established under the CALD
Standards document;
The outcomes of a meeting with LACC in October 2011, at which both the duration of law degrees and
online delivery was discussed;
Level 9 Threshold Outcomes (TLOs) – though noting that the ADTL Network had still to review the
draft document;
AQF issues, both with current Law School practices in awarding Honours in Law and with the one year
coursework LLM, as well as the issue of whether the LLB should be a level 7 or a level 8 qualification
within the AQF.
A number of these issues will be further discussed at the upcoming March meeting. In particular:
A report from Prof Kathy Bowrey on the impact of research in law will be considered;
Reports on the AQF commentary and the consequences for both Honours in Law and the one year
coursework LLM will be presented and considered;
The proposed Terms of Reference for the Standards committee will be presented for discussion and
endorsement;
The Council will consider a report on presentations to LACC on online delivery that were made by staff
from CDU and UNE as CALD’s representatives at LACC’s request.
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Also to be discussed is the detail of the visit by the Chinese Law Deans. The theme for the visit is “The Impact of
Globalisation on Legal Education” and it is planned to be as interactive as possible.
Finally, to allow CALD to better advance its agenda on behalf of all Australian Law Schools it is in the process of
appointing an Executive Director to provide it with the capacity to engage more proactively with the issues the Law
Schools face. It is hoped to make that appointment in the very near future.
Professor Stephen Graw
Deputy Chair of CALD
Head of the School of Law JCU
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This year a fresh approach has been taken to the Education Portfolio to
‘bridge the gap’ that existed between the work of the portfolio, and the needs
of the students that ALSA represents. Eight months in and all projects for the
2012 team are well underway. This year the Education Portfolio has taken to
cleaning up house and initiating a strong policy and external profile focus.
Overseen by Education Officers Alice Crawford and Naomi Elford, the
Working Parties will focus ALSA projects in four key areas - Higher Education
(HE), Curriculum Review (CR), Social Justice (SJ) and Depression & Mental Heath (DMH).
Vice-President (Education) Aimee Riley said the Working Groups aided ALSA in generating discussion and
information sharing between students to enable the Education Portfolio remains most effective in representing
students.
“The Working Parties provide a good collaborative environment for Council members to plan projects and discuss
strategy on any given topic that falls under the umbrella of one of our four groups,” Aimee said.
Policy and partnerships
The Education Portfolio has strengthened important relationships with relevant stakeholders in the legal education
sector, playing an active role in the Law Council of Australia (LCA) Legal Education Committee, AsiaLSA Conference
in Kuala Lumpur, consultation to DEEWR in relation to the Lomax-Smith Base Funding Report, and reference groups
for the ALTC Capstone and Clinical Legal Education Projects and Rural and Regional Law and Justice Conference.
The Education Portfolio is currently writing discussion papers on the current Australian Qualifications Framework
(AQF) and removal of meritious Honours issue, introducing RRR work placement into the legal curriculum, and a
review of Base Funding and the HECS system. Recently ALSA Education has made submissions to the Government
in response to the Lomax Base Funding Review Paper reiterating the under performance of the current HECS
contribution system and underfunding issue faced by law schools.
Most recently the ALSA Education and Conference Team have cemented a partnership with BeyondBlue to produce
a Student Guide offering a toolbox of tools students can use to approach and dealing with positive mental health in
both the studies of law and continuing into their professions. It is anticipated this Guide will be released at
Conference in July at a charity cocktail evening. ALSA Education is hopeful of collaborating with NZLSA, CALD, the
medical profession, LCA and high profile professionals in the production of this Guide.
“ALSA has been the leader in creating awareness of mental health and depression in the legal profession. It is well
supported that our profession places our colleagues at a heightened risk of developing symptoms of such distress
due to the increased pressures both at law school and in the workplace. Now there is a strong awareness and
somewhat acceptance of this issue, it is time now to look to preventative measures that will aid the future leaders of
the profession to be the image of healthy mental health.” Aimee said.
ALSA intends to continue dialogue with Senator the Hon Chris Evan’s Minister of Tertiary Education, Skills, Science
and Research in the lead up to the ALSA Conference. Lobbying government about issues that matter to law
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students will be an ongoing task that cements ALSA as a reputable voice among other student representative
groups. To this end the Education Portfolio is actively consulting with its Council to develop and finalise a position on
the proposed AQF paper. Over the past two months the group has been in discussions with each of the individual
law student societies across the country and the National Union of Students in particular with the view to developing
a strong submission to lobby the importance of a meritious award of Honours in Law.
The ALSA Council is due to convene its second sitting in late April and will continue driving all scheduled projects for
2012.
To read ALSA’s detailed statements about Base Funding, HECS, the AQF and other matters please see
www.alsa.net.au/media-
Compiled by the ALSA Education Portfolio, January, 2012
For more information see our website or contact Vice-President (Education) Aimee Riley by emailing
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The Academy cooperated with the Centre for Legal Governance, Macquarie Law School in respect of its Inaugural
Conference: Tomorrow’s Law: Disclosure of Information – Balancing Publis and Private Interests – held at the
Custom House, Circular Quay, Sydney on the 18th November 2011. The Conference had a number of outstanding
speakers including Jennifer Robinson, Attorney for Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, Richard Ackland and Donald
McDonald AC, formerly Chairman of the ABC.
During the Conference the Academy held its AGM with the following elected as both office holders and directors: The
Hon. Kevin Lindgren AM (President), Emeritus Professor David Weisbrot AM (Deputy President) and Geoffrey Digby
QC (Treasurer). Other members elected as directors were: Emeritus Professor David Barker AM (Secretary),
Professor Paul Fairall, Professor Bee Chen Goh, Professor Les McCrimmon, Professor Brian Opeskin, Melissa Perry
QC, The Hon. Justice Michael Slattery. In accordance with the Constitution the Hon. Robert Nicholson AO, Professor
Michael Coper, Professor Rosalind Croucher, Glen Ferguson and Professor Margaret Thornton had all completed 3
consecutive terms as Directors and were therefore prevented from being considered for re-election.
The next AAL Symposium will take place on Thursday 19 April 2012 from 5.00 pm to 6.00pm in the Banco Court of
the Supreme Court of Victoria on the topic: The Victorian Charter of Rights. This will be followed by refreshments
in the Supreme Court Library from 6.15 pm to 7.00pm
FREE ATTENDANCE. To register as a member of the audience for the symposium, please email rsvp to
the Australian Academy of Law Secretariat: [email protected]
Emeritus Professor David Barker AM
Secretary
The Australian Academy of Law
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This year, the theme of the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law
Schools is Global Engagement and the Legal Academy. As President, I want to issue a
special invitation to members of ALTA to join us for this meeting, as we invite engagement
with the intellectual, theoretical, pedagogical, professional, and collegial opportunities and
challenges that globalization presents.
Theoretically, globalization’s challenges include, among many others, the limits of
sovereignty and the reach of regulation in a globalized economy; the effects of supranational organizations on
national enforcement regimes; the increasingly strategic interactions between individuals and nongovernmental
organizations and the supranational; the impact of proliferating sources of law; and the development of new fields of
legal knowledge that address all of these issues. Pedagogically, our challenges include how to prepare our students
to recognize and analyze transnational legal issues; how to build the global into the curriculum; how to teach
effectively to globally diverse student bodies; how to develop cultural competencies for practice; how to provide cross
-boundary professional opportunities; and how to do all of this in a time of cost constraints. Professionally and
collegially, we face questions of how best to build effective and respectful relationships and collaborations with legal
academics, institutions, and scholarly organizations in other countries and how to determine what ethical
engagement with the traditions in other countries entails.
The Association of American Law Schools is an association representing 176 member law schools and more than
10,000 legal educators, dedicated to the improvement of the legal profession through legal education. The AALS
Annual Meeting is the largest annual gathering of legal educators in the world and attracts over 3,000 law school
faculty members, deans and law librarians from the U.S and other countries for the most comprehensive week of
continuing education available for legal educators. As AALS considers its role as a scholarly membership
organization in supporting the global engagement of its members, this annual meeting will provide opportunities to
define and expand our understanding of our shared needs in a globalized world. It is critically important that this
conversation includes our colleagues from associations of law teachers in other parts of the world, and particularly
appropriate to encourage the participation of ALTA, whose annual meeting is similarly grappling with globalization’s
implications for legal education.
The 2013 AALS Annual Meeting will be held in New Orleans, Louisiana from January 4-7, 2013, and will include over
150 programs, including a day-long workshop on globalizing the curriculum. To facilitate participation by non-U.S.
faculty members, AALS offers a discounted Annual Meeting registration fee for professors at law schools outside the
United States on our website at www.aals.org/am2013.
Professor Lauren Robel
President, AALS
Association of American Law Schools
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Discipline Lead for Law
The Higher Education Academy (HEA) champions excellent learning and teaching in higher education. Founded in
2004, it is a national and independent organisation, funded by the four UK higher education funding bodies and by
subscriptions and grants.
Many ALTA readers will have been familiar with the UK Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE) based at the University
of Warwick and funded by the HEA as a subject centre. As funding cuts continue to hit higher education, the HEA
restructured in 2011 and adopted a model providing discipline based support directly, which has not cut so deep as
last year’s cost-saving decision by the Australian government to wind up the Australian Learning & Teaching Council
(ALTC).
The HEA has provided grant funding for legal education projects over the past few months. National Teaching
Fellowships were awarded to four academics based in law schools:
Steven Curtis is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the Faculty of Law, Governance and International
Relations at London Metropolitan University. Steven is passionate about the educational benefits of what he
calls ‘learning in public’, establishing connections – both physical and virtual – between students and practitioners
through placements, guest lectures, educational visits and Web 2.0 tools.
Sarah Greer is the Head of Law and Criminology at the University of Greenwich. Sarah is a passionate believer in
providing opportunities for her students, and equal access to the legal profession. At Greenwich she has worked with
colleagues to develop a range of impressive employability opportunities for her students with magic circle firms,
barristers’ chambers and other legal employers.
Paul Maharg is Professor of Legal Education in the Law School at Northumbria University. Paul is an innovative
teacher who has designed technology-enhanced learning environments for undergraduate, postgraduate and
professional education. Students work in simulations, for instance, often collaboratively in ‘firms’, and on legal
transactions, through which they learn how lawyers act for clients and come to understand, critically, how law
operates in society, how it affects process and experience, and how it can be transformed.
Julie Price is the Head of Pro Bono in the Law School at Cardiff University. Julie’s mission is to create innovative
ways of introducing students to real-client work, and to promote public engagement activities, with a view to instilling
in students a willing culture of voluntary community work. She hopes that Cardiff’s students will take this pro bono
ethos with them into their chosen careers, whether as part of an international or high-street law firm, at the Bar, or in
a non-law career.
The Higher Education Academy
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Teaching Development Grants were awarded to develop two student clinical legal education initiatives. David Collins
at City University London is supporting students to offer commercial advice, which so far has not been the aim of UK
law clinics. John Russell at London South Bank University will produce a face-to-face triage-based operating manual
for university law clinics. Also, Paul Maharg, at University of Northumbria sets out to design, use and assess the
value of a professional learning portal (PLP) on a mobile device that will facilitate mobile professional learning –
namely the iPad.
Over the coming year, the HEA will be supporting legal education with a number of seminars, workshops and events.
They will address one or more of the seven themes in higher education:
Assessment and feedback – this is a particularly significant area of work, given the National Student Survey
(NSS) responses, which perennially request more feedback.
Education for sustainable development – which, for law, encompasses many areas of the curriculum such as
energy law, housing, banking and regulation.
Employability – how we teach skills, legal skills, and equip students for either a legal and non-legal career.
Flexible learning – the routes into the profession, distance learning, accelerated and decelerated programmes
are increasingly provided for law as any other subject.
Internationalisation – of the curriculum, the student population, and of staff. With our international scholar
scheme, we may well see some of our UK academics visiting Australian law schools!
Retention and success - retention refers to students completing their programme of study within a specific
timeframe. Success recognises students benefit in a wider range of ways, including personal development.
Reward and recognition – explores the ways that teaching is recognised or rewarded within institutions. This
theme is uniquely aimed at staff, but will of course, benefit the student population.
HEA invites you to follow Discipline Lead for Law on Twitter for regular updates on @HEA_Law or, find us on
Facebook.
Michael Bromby
Discipline Lead for Law
The Higher Education Academy
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Interest Group Conveners
2011-12
Evidence & Procedure
Kathy Douglas
Family Law Susan Armstrong
Indigenous Peoples & the Law
Matiu Dickson
Intellectual Property
David Price [email protected]
International Law
Daud Hassan
Labour Law
Kristy Richardson
Law & Computers
Alexandra Sims
Law & Economics George Barker
Legal Theory and Law in Context
Michael Head
Law & Medicine
Shih-Ning Then [email protected]
Law & Social Justice
Patricia Easteal
Law for Non Law Students
Patty Kamvounias
Legal Education
Judith McNamara
Legal History
P.M Vasudev
Legal Research & Communication
Natalie Cuffe
Property Law
Fiona Burns
Revenue Law
Robin Woellner
South Pacific Legal Studies
Jennifer Corrin
Tort & Contract
Penelope Watson
Clinical Legal Education & Practical
Legal Training
Paul Rogers
Competition and Consumer Law
Alex Bruce
Company Law
Anil Hargovan
Comparative & Asian Law
Simon Butt
Constitutional Law
Imtiaz Omar
Criminal Law
Kris Gledhill [email protected]
Dispute Resolution
Marilyn Scott
Environmental Law
Trevor Daya-Winterbottom
Equity and Trusts
Sue Tappenden
Ethics & the Legal Profession
Maxine Evers
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CLINICAL LEGAL EDUCATION & PRACTICAL LEGAL
EDUCATION
Convener: Paul Rogers
As we head towards the National Profession, its timely for
those interested in this substantial shift to be updated and
informed. You will be by attending the CLE & PLT
Interest Group.
COMPETITION AND CONSUMER LAW
Convener: Alex Bruce
After several years of planning, I am very happy to
welcome you to the newly constituted “Competition and
Consumer Law” Interest Group. With the extraordinary
amount of legislative reform in competition and consumer
law over the last 24 months I am looking forward to a
lively ALTA conference in Sydney this year.
This year’s conference theme “Legal Education for a
Global Community” is particularly suited to our Interest
Group. As our own competition and consumer regime
progressively integrates international legislative and
policy initiatives in cartels, international enforcement
measures and consumer protection it is appropriate that
we should reflect upon and evaluate on the associated
benefits and drawbacks.
I would especially like to encourage members who are
new to ALTA and those who have not presented at an
ALTA conference in recent years to join us this year and
to share your thoughts and insights in the form of
presentations and papers. It would be wonderful to
commence this relatively new Interest Group with a good
number of presentations at the conference and I will look
forward to being inundated with them!
COMPARATIVE AND ASIAN LAW
Convener: Simon Butt
I am looking forward to a great session on Comparative
and Asian Law. This year’s theme is ‘Legal Education for
a Global Community’. Please keep in mind that this
interest group will accept abstracts on a wide range of
topics. These include any area of law in an Asian country,
aspect of comparative law theory, and comparisons
between legal systems of non-Asian and Asian countries.
CRIMINAL LAW
Convener: Kris Gledhill
The 2011 ALTA Conference in Brisbane, building on
previous years, contained an interesting set of
presentations, covering a range of issues – substantive
criminal law (two papers on drugs and homicide, and one
paper on whether common law case law should be used
to interpret Code provisions), the intersection of criminal
law and tort law (failing to care for children), and the
pedagogy of both substantive criminal law and of criminal
evidence. The 2012 Conference provides an opportunity
to develop the work of the Criminal Law Interest Group.
Please send in your abstracts. I look forward to hearing
from you; and please encourage colleagues with an
interest in criminal law to attend.
EQUITY & TRUSTS
Convener: Sue Tappenden
At last year’s conference I was disappointed to see that
there were not enough papers submitted for presentation
to warrant running a separate Equity & Trusts Interest
Group. This is not the first year when this has happened
but I am hoping that this year will be different!
There is plenty of opportunity to write on trusts and
equitable principles since equity seems to be cited in
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almost every area of law, including commercial and
company law. For example in situations concerning the
actions of company directors and commercial
transactions, equity is being called upon to establish a
standard of honesty and integrity. Also in New Zealand
the impending reform of law relating to trusts and trustees
gives us plenty of scope for interesting papers. I hope to
see you all at the conference.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Convener: David Price
As the Convenor of the Intellectual Property Interest
Group, I am delighted to invite you all to consider
submitting an abstract and subsequently delivering a
paper at the 2012 ALTA Conference. And if you are not
moved to deliver a paper, then I hope and trust that you
will attend the IP interest group session(s) and engage
actively with those who do.
There should be no shortage of current, active and
somewhat controversial subject matter on the national IP
agenda to arouse our interest and attention – such as the
iiNet matter before the High Court, and some proposed
regional trade agreements with significant IP implications
hovering over our heads … and with the government
proposing to ‘raise the bar’ legislatively. … And let’s not
forget the IP implications that can accompany a carbon
tax scheme and carbon trading schemes. --- just to
mention a few.
This Interest Group was unable to mount a session at last
year’s conference. I seek your participation in reversing
this state of affairs for this year’s conference.
I look forward to an exciting and engaging, hopefully with
a dash of controversy, IP session at this year’s ALTA
conference. In the meantime, I await your abstract with
eager anticipation.
INTERNATIONAL LAW
Convener: Daud Hassan
Happy New Year. ALTA Conference 2012 is approaching
soon. This year’s conference is being hosted by Sydney
University Law School from 1 July to 4 July.
In keeping with the international flavour the theme of
ALTA 2012 conference is Legal Education for a Global
Community. This conference will provide us a wonderful
platform for discussing some key issues in international
law. It will also create an opportunity to develop
networking between colleagues and thus promote
research and scholarship in various areas of international
law. I encourage my international law colleagues to start
thinking about the IL paper, submit an abstract to ALTA
Secretariat and make plans to travel to Sydney for ALTA
2012.
The ALTA conference is an important event for all of us. I
believe as previous ALTA conferences, ALTA 2012 will
also be very informative and enjoyable. I look forward to
seeing you in Sydney soon.
LABOUR LAW
Convener: Kristy Richardson
Another great year to be involved and interested in the
area of Labour Law! In Australia, the Fair Work Act is
under review, the majority of states have enacted the
harmonised occupational health and safety regime and
the effects of global financial crisis and global economy
continue to impact upon the employer/employee
relationship. Given all this action there must be an idea
that YOU can form into an abstract to submit to this
year’s ALTA Conference. Looking forward to being
inundated with abstracts …
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LAW & COMPUTERS
Convener: Alexandra Sims
The 2012 ALTA conference theme of legal education for
a global community fits in well with Law and Computers
as many of the changes taking place in legal education
revolve around computers. Indeed, in previous
conferences many of the papers have dealt with this
theme. I look forward to another conference with a rich
and varied offering of papers for the Law and Computers
Interest Session which will be sure to spark debate.
LAW & MEDICINE
Convener: Shih-Ning Then
To all those interested in and who teach in the realm of
law and medicine, the call for papers and registration is
now open and I would encourage you to consider joining
us for the ALTA 2012 conference.
In addition to calling for general law papers that fall within
the broad law and medicine theme, we would also like to
extend invitations for those interested to give
presentations on teaching medical law related areas. As I
know many of us are involved in teaching in this area,
including to health care professionals, and would like to
invite those interested to submit papers on their teaching.
I look forward to seeing you there.
LAW AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Convener: Patricia Easteal
We will consider any paper that relates in some way to
the theme of law and social justice.
LAW FOR NON-LAW STUDENTS
Convener: Patty Kamvounias
Warm greetings to members and friends of the Law for
Non-Law Students (LNLS) interest group! The theme of
the 2012 ALTA conference “Legal Education for a Global
Community” will attract a number of interesting papers
but papers on any topics that fit into any of the interest
groups are most welcome. The LNLS sessions at the
annual conference provide an opportunity to present
research in a supportive environment and I would
especially like to encourage members who are new to
ALTA and those who have not presented at an ALTA
conference in recent years to join us in Sydney this year.
LNLS sessions also provide a forum for discussion of
common concerns with colleagues from across Australia
and New Zealand. I look forward to seeing you in July.
LEGAL EDUCATION
Convener: Judith McNamara
I will not be able to attend the ALTA conference this year
as I will be on long service leave. Accordingly, I am
seeking volunteers to assist with the legal education
interest group sessions at the conference. If you are able
to chair a legal education interest group session and
provide a report for inclusion in the ALTA newsletter
could you please email [email protected]
This year I would like to theme the interest group
sessions and I am particularly interested in legal
education papers around the following themes:
Student engagement and support;
Teaching innovations, and
Curriculum design.
Please indicate on your abstract whether your paper is
intended to address one of these themes. Submissions
in relation to other topics and particularly those which
relate to the conference theme, legal education for a
global community, are also welcomed.
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LEGAL RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATION
Convener: Natalie Cuffe
The Legal Research and Communication interest group
was formed in 1994 with the specific aim of addressing
LLB curriculum issues in both legal research skills
training and legal writing skills training. It was originally
envisaged that “communication” could cover advocacy
and mooting, that is the verbal communication of the
results of legal research. Legal research curriculum has
evolved significantly since this time. What do you see as
the legal research curriculum direction for the future?
How is technology (such as Blackboard or other learning
management systems) changing the way you teach legal
research and writing? What new ways are there for
assessing legal research knowledge? Is there still debate
to be had about legal research as a curriculum ‘add-on’
or is curriculum integration accepted? Are
undergraduates ready for more than the doctrinal
method? What is happening in the postgraduate domain?
There are many conversations to be had about legal
research and communication and we look forward to
having them with you at the University of Sydney in July
2012.
PROPERTY LAW
Convener: Fiona Burns
The ALTA Conference will be held at the University of
Sydney this year. It promises to be an exciting and
stimulating conference covering a wide variety of
interesting topics.
I understand that the Call for Papers will soon be issued
by the organising committee. I hope that there will be a
Property group session this year, but that will depend
upon whether there are a sufficient number of worthy
papers for presentation. In the past, some interesting and
original papers have been presented and I am hopeful
that again this year the property lawyers will showcase
their wide-ranging and stimulating research. I strongly
encourage members of the Property group to consider
submitting an abstract for consideration.
I look forward to seeing you all at the ALTA Conference
in July this year.
SOUTH PACIFIC LEGAL STUDIES
Convener: Jennifer Corrin
The ALTA Conference offers the opportunity for South
Pacific legal scholars to discuss their teaching and
research. This year, we are planning to be particularly
active, with a number of longstanding members
attending, including ALTA Life Members Guy Powles and
Tony Angelo. We are planning to have at least one
interest group session and hope to have a workshop with
country updates and a panel session on the morning of
the last day of the Conference.
The Conference theme is ‘Legal Education for a Global
Community’, and the 2012 Organising Committee is
encouraging presenters to give consideration to this
theme, and its relevance for the interest group for which
is it intended, in developing their paper. However, as
usual, there will be some flexibility in our Interest Group.
The Call for Papers closes at 5pm on Friday 6th April, so
please put your mind to submitting an abstract right
away.
I am looking forward to seeing members of SPLSIG, old
and new, at the Conference.
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The 2011-12 ALTA Executive
Chairperson
Professor Rosalind Mason
Faculty of Law
Queensland University of Technology
ALRS Editor-in-Chief
Professor Michael Adams
School of Law
University of Western Sydney
New Zealand Executive Member
Associate Professor Alex Sims
Department of Commercial Law
University of Auckland
New Zealand Secretary
Dr John Hopkins
School of Law
University of Canterbury
New Zealand Chairperson
Mr Wayne Rumbles
Law School
University of Waikato
General Executive Member
Dr Jennifer Corrin
TC Beirne School of Law
The University of Queensland
General Executive Member
Professor Stephen Graw
School of Law
James Cook University
General Executive Member
Professor Michael Coper
ANU College of Law
Australian National University
Deputy Chairperson
& JALTA Editor-in-Chief
Professor Dale Pinto
School of Business Law and Taxation
Curtin University of Technology
General Secretary
Emeritus Professor David Barker AM
Faculty of Law
University of Technology, Sydney
General Treasurer
Associate Professor Helen Anderson
Melbourne Law School
The University of Melbourne
LER Editor-in-Chief
Dr Michelle Sanson
School of Law
University of Western Sydney
New Zealand Executive Member
Ms Brenda Midson
School of Law
University of Waikato
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Newsletter edited by:
Nathalie Poludniewski
ALTA Administrative
Coordinator
Contact Us
If you have any questions, concerns or suggestions for our organisation, please contact us:
Australasian Law Teachers Association
Faculty of Law University of Technology, Sydney
PO Box 222 Lindfield. NSW 2070
Ph: +61 2 9514 5414 Fax: +61 2 9514 5175 [email protected]
www.alta.edu.au
