LAW4328 - Professional practice - 2017

Students undertake a practical placement at a community legal centre which endeavours to meet the needs of its community. Under supervision by qualified solicitors, students provide legal advice to clients, undertake ongoing casework, brief Counsel, and in appropriate cases, represent clients in Court. Students acquire a diverse range of practical legal skills essential for legal practice including: the capacity to undertake legal research and apply legal research to factual scenarios; the ability to synthesise professional, technical and ethical knowledge acquired in the law degree and apply it in a practical legal context; skills in critical thinking and legal judgment; the capacity to independently devise legal solutions for complex legal problems and to provide non-adversarial options to clients for dispute resolution; and the capacity to identify and respond to ethical, moral and professional dilemmas in legal practice. Students also develop an appreciation of social justice and access to justice issues and have a heightened awareness of the operation of the justice system, law reform and policy issues. The skills learnt in this unit will be useful for students who wish to practice law, along with students interested in policy, government and social justice career pathways.

Students completing this unit will be able to:

1. Independently undertake complex legal research and, using such research:

   (a)Assess and articulate adversarial and non-adversarial options for clients, including the strengths and weaknesses of available legal options;

   (b)Pro-actively develop solutions to complex legal problems; and

   (c)Demonstrate a capacity for recognising and appropriately responding to the strategic and ethical implications of different legal approaches.

2. Effectively communicate (both orally and in writing) legal advice, information, options for litigious and non-litigious pathways, arguments and strategies with a wide range of audiences involved in the justice system.
3. Demonstrate practical legal skills of interviewing, advocacy and drafting; and appropriate use of non-adversarial methods and principles for the resolution of client disputes (mediation, negotiation, collaboration, arbitration).
4. Assess their own capabilities and performance as future legal practitioners by having developed skills of self-reflection and self-management, with the ability to independently synthesise this information to aid in the exercise of sound professional and ethical decisions.
5. Independently identify a law reform or policy problem of relevance to the clinic, isolate and critically analyse the relevant legal principles that underpin that problem, and articulate recommendations for reform through an advanced theoretical and technical knowledge of the designated problem.

Performance of responsibilities at clinic: 80%

Community Engagement: 20%

Ungraded requirement: Completion of a reflective journal entry every two weeks throughout the clinical period.

An ungraded SFR (Satisfied Faculty Requirements) for the reflective journal is required to obtain a pass in this unit.

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcome for this unit is one half-day Legal Service session per week for 19 weeks (including non-teaching period) plus one and a half days per week client follow-up and one 2-hour seminar for 10 weeks. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, client interviewing and advice sessions, supervision and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

See also Unit timetable information

Ms Jackie Weinberg (Trimester 2 2017 )

Mr Ross Hyams (Trimester 3 2017 )

TBA (Semester A 2017 to First semester 2018)

no list For students who commenced their LLB (Hons) course in 2015 or later:

LAW1111; LAW1114; LAW1112; LAW1113; LAW2101; LAW2102; LAW2112; LAW2111

For students who commenced their LLB course prior to 2015: LAW1100 OR LAW1101 and LAW1102 or LAW1104; LAW2100 OR LAW2101 and LAW2102; LAW2200 OR LAW2201 and LAW2202; LAW3300 or LAW3301 and LAW3302. Please see http://www.law.monash.edu.au/cle.html for an application form and more information

For students who commenced their LLB (Hons) course in 2015 or later: LAW3111; LAW3112