LAW5642 - The global lawyer - 2018

6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Postgraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Law

Not offered in 2018

Prerequisites

For students enrolled in the Master of Laws (Juris Doctor) or the Juris Doctor, completion of 72 credit points of core units.

Synopsis

This unit focuses on building professional capacity to engage in international, supranational, and transnational legal practice. It seeks to make students aware of the opportunities as the role of traditional lawyering is broadened, as well as the ethical concerns and responsibilities of being a global, digital lawyer. It introduces the fundamentals of global legal systems and develops the skills to embark upon legal practice across different cultures and systems, including interacting ethically with clients and lawyers from diverse jurisdictions. International management and firm operation will be dealt with as students are challenged with the problem of how to maintain local identity while providing international service. The unit also equips students to harness digital technologies in the globalisation of legal practice, and to deal with the challenges they pose to the traditional understanding of key legal concepts and to the lawyer's professional identity. Issues such as the changing use of digital technology, modern understandings of privacy and control over information, copyright and ownership of data, and issues of data retention, data security, legal informatics and legal professional ethics will be considered.

Outcomes

  1. Draw on professional experience and theoretical frameworks to analyse the role of the lawyer within diverse legal systems in the face of globalisation
  2. Synthesise diverse constructs of inter/trans/supra-national legal practice to critically analyse the impacts of 'borderless legal practice' upon professional ethics and accountability
  3. Critically analyse the challenges likely to arise in legal practice from the increasing use of digital technologies

Assessment

Class participation: 10%

Law firm brochure or LinkedIn page: 30%

Critical analysis task (digital media) 60%

Workload requirements

The unit is taught over four days, six hours each. It is hands on and interactive. Students will work in small groups on in-class activities that incorporate allocated readings and students' professional experience.