Profession, Education & Regulation in Law
The Centre for Profession, Education and Regulation in Law focuses upon legal education, the legal profession and the transformation, partly through regulation, of both. It generates and shares research towards extending the value of legal education and the contribution of the legal profession to society at large.
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Upcoming
Associate Director of PEARL, Dr Liz Curran is presenting at the Global Alliance for Justice Education Worldwide Conference in Mexico 5-12 December 2017. Her topic is, ‘New Approaches to lawyering – Imperatives for changes in legal education’.
In this interactive paper Curran's recent research on people’s poor experiences of lawyers and the legal process will be explained. Litigation has its place but is not enough especially given the gaps in legal assistance services. New ways of strategically solving problems not just of individuals but whole communities exist. Multi-disciplinary partnerships, interdisciplinary clinics, problem solving courts, therapeutic, conferencing, empowerment through community development, engagement in decision-making, justice reinvestment, impact on cultures of colonial and adversarial practices, story-telling, restorative justice including conflict conferencing are other ways of doing justice but are rarely taught.
Recently
Dr Liz Curran delivered conference papes and ran workshops throughout the UK, Ontario Canada and Washington DC & New York City on HJP in the second half of 2016. HJPs involve lawyers working alongside health and allied health professionals to reach clients with a range of problems capable of legal solutions e.g. debt, family violence, poor housing, consumer issues, care and protection, human rights, and social supports. She explained the model, how it works, research showing why it works, and share some lessons learned and resources. See SSRN for the range of papers delivered and the audieces.
Dr Curran was appointed in February 2017 as 'expert adviser' to the Law Council of Australia's 'Justice Project'. The Law Council of Australia is undertaking a comprehensive national review into the impediments to justice in Australia, focussing on those facing significant social and economic disadvantage in community. The work will culminate in a Final Report at the end of November 2017 following a literature review and consultation process.
Dr Liz Curran, Associate Director of the ANU Centres for the Profession, Education and Regulation in Law (PEARL) presented in an international interdisciplinary collaboration with the Head of Law and the Head of Nursing, University of Portsmouth on IDSC at the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference, Northumbria University UK . 2 July – 5 July.
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference
Paul Maharg has left the ANU College of Law for the post of Distinguished Professor of Practice - Legal Education at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto. He has therefore stepped down from the directorship of PEARL. Paul said of the move 'it's been a privilege to have spent the last four years working with colleagues in the ANU College of Law, particularly those in Legal Workshop, and of course in PEARL. Our dean has offered me the post of Honorary Professor which I've accepted, so I'll be continuing to work with people in ANU, and helping to build strong international links between PEARL and networks in Canadian Legal Education.
Latest news
In the Media
ANU wins more than $1.24 million in New Colombo Plan grants
Vivien Holmes, Margie Rowe ANU Newsroom
The funny thing about human rights
Marianne Dickie writes in APPS Policy Forum
Everything you need to know about changes to the Racial Discrimination Act
Dilan Thampapillai, Margaret Thornton speaks to News.com.au
Dutton defends increased immigration power amid 'Trump-like' comparison
Marianne Dickie speaks to SBS World News Radio
Meet your new Assembly: How Aerobics Oz Style led Elizabeth Lee to a career in politics
Elizabeth Lee speaks to Fairfax Media
Attorney-General George Brandis set to silence CLCs
Elizabeth Curran writes in The Saturday Paper
Pell was wrong to blame the lawyers, but they aren’t blameless
Vivien Holmes writes in The Conversation
Upcoming events
No upcoming events found.
Past events
The Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) in England & Wales: How will it affect legal education?
- Paul Maharg, Distinguished Professor of Practice, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Board has agreed to introduce a common assessment for all entrants to the profession in England & Wales from 2020, called the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE).
Simulated Clients: A workshop on interdisciplinary learning and teaching in legal education
- Professor Paul Maharg, York University, Toronto
- Professor Debra Nestel, Monash Medical School
- Julienne Jen, The University of Hong Kong
- Lucy Evans, Flinders University Law School
A workshop on interdisciplinary learning and teaching in legal education
The use of simulated clients in legal education derives from medical education’s simulated patients (SPs), where lay people (ie persons not medically trained) are trained to do three things well: first, simulate specific medical conditions, second, assess the patient-facing skills of communication and physical examination, third, to give feedback on those skills to learners.
When and why do legal professions seek to influence law
- Professor Leslie Levin, University of Connecticut
In this presentation Professor Levin looks at the circumstances under which legal professions throughout the world, through mandatory and voluntary lawyer associations, attempt to influence the law by either advocating for legal change or opposing it.
One day Ethics Roundtable: Reimagining lawyer regulation in light of the realities of practice?
- Professor Leslie Levin, University of Connecticut School of Law
Wellbeing in the Law Week - Mon 8 to Fri 12 May
The ANU College of Law is committed to health and wellbeing in the law, for all our students and academic and professional staff. This is the inaugural Wellbeing in the Law Week, presented by the ANU College of Law Wellbeing Initiative and the ANU Law Students' Society.
The Centre for Profession, Education and Regulation in Law (PEARL) aims to generate and share high-quality research on the theories and practices of legal education and the legal profession, and the regulation of both. One key focus is systemic reviews of existing research within these domains.
Our research supports a range of projects that present radical alternatives to conventional legal educational curricula, in areas such as curriculum design, problem-based learning, clinical learning, transactional learning, use of technology, public legal education, legal writing and legal reasoning. This also extends to analyses of interdisciplinary interventions, particularly involving medical and allied health education and professional education generally.
In this way, we build collaborative networks across disciplines and with national and international institutions, including regulatory bodies.
The Centre is interdisciplinary, future-orientated and international in outlook and its members regularly collaborate with international scholars and institutions.
Research clusters
The Centre’s research is structured by research clusters of scholars working on various projects having a common theme. The research clusters are collaborative online spaces, enabling scholars from near and far to combine effectively towards producing specific research outputs.
- Access to Justice
- Assessment in Legal Education: Global Critical Perspectives
- Ethics in the Legal Profession and Legal Education
- Future Justice
- Legal Mind Network: History, Theory and Pedagogy of Legal Reasoning
- Legal Writing
- Problem Based Learning in Legal Education
- Simulation in Legal Education
- Transitions to Practice
- Wellbeing
The Centre also offers opportunities for publication through PEARL Press, and for promoting awareness of publications and output using other avenues.
International network development
Most of the Centre’s clusters and projects contain international researchers and institutions bringing breadth, difference and fresh experience and insight to the research collaborations.
Directors
Craig Collins
Senior Lecturer
Staff
Scott Chamberlain
Senior Lecturer
Elizabeth Curran
Senior Lecturer
Vivien Holmes
Associate Professor
Members
International advisory board
Furthering the collaborative, distributed and open-access principles that underlie Centre practices, research is conducted within specific project teams falling under the wider umbrella of a research cluster. A research cluster may have multiple active projects and a project may have multiple outputs.
Outputs may include: a book, an article, a conference paper, a series of explorations or investigations, a data project, slide set, workshop, systematic review, the development of innovations in educational heuristics that will lead to a research programme - the categories are not closed. The research output will be agreed between project team members and the Deputy Director.
Clusters and projects are initially approved by the Deputy Director who will organise the initial setup of any new clusters and project spaces.
The Centre will promote the work of the cluster and project teams where possible and final research outputs may appear on the Centre’s publication list or, if published externally, linked via the Centre’s website.
Projects & clusters
Access to Justice
Contact: Elizabeth CurranThe Access to Justice research cluster explores the roles and responsibilities carried by legal professionals and lawmakers in making justice accessible to all members within our communities. The rule of law and human rights protection fails to the extent that access to justice is denied. This project is focused on examining the difficulties faced in accessing justice by vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society, as well as the vital role performed by community legal centres and similar legal services.
Evaluation of the Secondary Consultation Services through the qualitative and quantitative tools. The project is a Secondary Consultation and Outreach and Training Service by the Consumer Action Law Centre & aims to strengthen the capacity of the financial counselling and family violence support sectors to assist and respond to women dealing with family violence-related debt, as well as driving industry change as appropriate based on this work. Building collaboration and respect and trust between the services will be key in building capacity and confidence and responsiveness. (pro bono)
Collaborators, Dr Liz Curran, ANU College of Law and Professor Jane Ching, Professor of Professional Legal Education at Nottingham Law School, the Law Faculty of Nottingham Trent University in England.
Facilitated interactive sessions/workshops/roundtables including at the Centre for Legal Education of Nottingham Trent University Law School where Dr Curran is Senior fellow (2017-2022) bringing together different agencies, students, academics, regulators, policy makers, the profession etc. to discuss new and emerging but effective ways of delivering justice and legal services given problems with the adversarial system (utilising suggestions of recent Royal Commissions into family violence and institutional abuse). What might the law and legal profession look like into the future - discuss opportunities to collaborate on health justice partnerships, interdisciplinary clinics, problem solving courts, therapeutic, restorative justice including conflict conferencing, justice reinvestment and other ways of doing justice + ethical issues that these may present and better opportunities to equip practitioners and students for legal practice in the future. Emergent outcomes article/book and teaching innovations for schools of legal practice.
This project aims to re-examine concepts of civil law legal needs drawing on social, legal and political theory.
The project welcomes collaborators interested in energising and activating concepts of civil law legal needs in socially progressive ways. The project has policy, professional and service implications.
Project leader: Judy Harrison
In health-justice partnerships, lawyers and health professionals collaborate for better health outcomes and access to justice for patients with legal issues. What do existing HJPs look like in geographically remote communities? Is there further potential?
This project will draw in project collaborators, initially focusing on a small number of remote communities. In Australia, the project has policy and service implications in the fields of health, legal services, access to justice and Indigenous programs.
This project aims to examine effective practices to assist the vulnerable and disadvantaged - those most unlikely to gain legal assistance - gain access to the help they need. It will examine the flow on effect of building the capacity of different disciplines to identify, assist and advocate for clients/patients and where possible collaborate to bring about systemic change that improves that social and health determinants of community and leads to positive outcomes in lives.
Project Leader: Dr Liz Curran
Collaborator: Pamela Taylor-Barnett
This evaluation uncovered a number of key lessons on how to deliver effective service and improvements to policing and the courts in relation to family violence assistance and representation. The project has provided a venue for women’s experiences of violence, the court system and the legal process and support system, to be heard through a research project.
Ethics in the Legal Profession and Legal Education
Contact: Vivien HolmesThis ethics cluster contains projects dedicated to exploring ethics and professionalism in legal practice through an interdisciplinary lens. The projects are also focused on researching effective ways to help students develop ethical skills for legal practice.
Dr Curran’s recent research and practical experience as a clinical legal education supervising solicitor within a health service has led to the idea for the development of interdisciplinary student clinic (IDSC) as an important way of building better and more responsive future practitioners in health, law and allied health disciplines. Such an idea is not new, but much of the literature examined looks at interdisciplinary clinics narrowly as lawyers and law students working in non-legal settings. In Curran’s IDSC it envisages law students in joint learning at undergraduate level with students jointly undertaking courses in different fields such as doctors, nurses, psychology, law social worker, dentists, pharmacists and progressing into a joint student advice clinic. Dr Curran is now pro bono adviser on several small pilot IDSC in Australia and abroad and hopes to grow the movement to improve access to justice, legal education and holistic professionals.
Collaborators: Dr Liz Curran, ANU; Dr Isobel Ryder (Director of Nursing) Caroline Strevens (Head of Law) University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom
This project is focused on evaluating the effectiveness of the ‘Giving Voice to Values’ (GVV) module for legal ethics, professional development and wellbeing.
Assessment in Legal Education: Global Critical Perspectives
Contact:This cluster is focused on developing a series of books that provide a global view of assessment in legal education in common law jurisdictions. Each volume in the series will highlight innovative research, theory and practice, as well as the regulatory issues and cultural and social practices that affect assessment in legal education. They will also focus on a single jurisdiction and provide:
- a broad representative sample of assessment practices and thinking in legal education within a jurisdiction
- insights into how assessment can be used effectively in legal education across jurisdictions
- appreciation of the multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary research bases that are emerging in the field of assessment generally, and
- analyses and suggestions of how assessment innovations may be transferred from one jurisdiction to another.
We aim to publish books that evidence at least some of the following themes and traits:
- Disciplinary grounding
Our series will investigate the relation between more conventional ‘signature pedagogies’ and ‘signature assessments’, and new approaches to learning and its assessment. This investigation will not be historical alone: essential as it is to understand how our practices have come to be as they are, the series will point to useful directions for the future of legal education assessment, in the wider context of academic, professional, and legal educational global and local change. - Assessment, collaboration and social relations
Many new forms of educational practice such as games, simulations, and PBL are often highly social and collaborative. While there is much published on such areas in other disciplines, eg medical education, there is little in legal education; and we aim to change that. - Design-led assessment
One of the significant differences between conventional teaching and assessment is the design work that links learning and assessment and that goes beyond conventional ideas of alignment. Our series will seek out innovative examples of design-led assessment in all forms of legal education. - Innovative research methodologies
We encourage all forms of action research (practice research, participatory action research, action science, etc) as well as the challenging of conventional approaches to educational theory and constructs of assessment.
Each volume will be edited by a legal educator local to the jurisdiction, and the volume may be the output of a jurisdictional-wide conference or workshop. The editor will write an interpretive Introduction setting out for that jurisdiction the:
- major social and institutional pressures on assessment
- educational challenges & successes
- regulatory issues and the position of regulators vis-à-vis assessment
- future directions of educational theory and practice within legal education assessment.
This would form a template for each volume’s introduction, and help readers to compare across jurisdictions on these and similar issues. We would also ask editors to engage jurisdictional regulators to contribute on assessment from their perspective, having read the draft contributions (which will be available from the PEARL research cluster platform, Asana).
We aim to publish volumes on at least seven jurisdictions, with the final volume gathering up and stating core themes for the future. Our first volume, on England and Wales, will be published in PEARL Press in 2016, followed by a volume on the USA. The series will thus be an international resource for academics, students, regulators, accreditors, educationalists, educators, technologists and legal librarians. It will bring together some of the best contemporary commentators to challenge, inform and critique assessment of legal education globally.
Wellbeing
Contact: Stephen TangThe Wellbeing research cluster explores how law students, legal professionals and other legal actors think, feel and act in their law-related roles and contexts in positive and negative ways. The project will examine how psychological wellbeing and mental health are directly affected by legal education and practice. It will also apply psychological methods and theory to understand the personal and social processes which help law students and lawyers to develop and thrive not only as ethical, competent professionals but also critical, creative, reflective and values-oriented people.
The first output for this project is an article in the University of New South Wales Law Journal Tang, S. and Foley, T (2014). The practice of law and the intolerance of certainty, 37, 3 UNSW Law Review 1198. Further work is planned for 2016.
This project is in data analysis phase.
Transitions to Practice
Contact:
This project will build on the learnings from the experiences of Protégé.
This project will assess the efficacy of Protégé, an online community of practice designed for early career Australian migration agents.
This project will examine lessons learned and research into communities of practice to determine how they can be integrated within a capstone course curriculum that will combine individual cognition and socio-cultural learning for large cohorts of students.
The Legal Profession Act 2004 (Vic) requires newly admitted lawyers to complete between 18 months and 2 years of 'supervised legal practice' before becoming eligible for a full practising cetrtificate. The Act does not define 'supervision' and policy guidelines are vague and general. By reference to other jurisdictions, this project seeks to lend substance to the supervision requirement to ensure that, for junior lawyers, their developmental opportunities are real, rather than just a matter of serving time.
This project examines the experiences of new lawyers in their first year of practice, specifically how they make the transition from student to lawyer and develop their professional identity.
The legal mind network: History; theory and pedagogy of legal reasoning
Contact:Imagination, communication and cognition are not words normally associated with legal reasoning but they are concepts that lie at the heart of legal analysis and legal education. These concepts are the focus of a network, The Legal Mind Network, set up by Maksymilian Del Mar at Queen Mary University of London, to explore fresh ways of thinking about legal reasoning and its teaching. The ANU College of Law’s Centre for Professional Education and Regulation in Law is collaborating with the Queen Mary and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in this cross-disciplinary inquiry into legal reasoning and its teaching, combining both contemporary accounts and pedagogical challenges with comparative and historical themes.
Three workshops will be held by the collaborating institutions on the history, theory and pedagogy of legal reasoning. These workshops will bring together scholars from a range of different disciplines all interested in legal reasoning – with a focus on discussing common themes as well as differences in the history and theory of the practice of legal reasoning and its teaching Papers from the conferences will be published.
Toronto 2018: mid-June, organiser Simon Stern
London, 15 June 2016, organiser Maksymilian Del Mar
Canberra 2017. Mid-June, organiser Paul Maharg.
Simulation in legal education
Contact:Simulation is still a relatively rare method of legal education. It does not form part of the 'signature pedagogy' of law, nor of its 'signature assessment' culture. This cluster aims to change that. Through a number of projects involving a range of disciplines and professions, this cluster investigates how simulation can be designed for legal education, its effects on learning and assessment and its wider role within education in the community of the law. Projects will aim to investigate how, through simulation, legal education can move beyond merely acquiring knowledge to forms of participation that include, in John Dewey's terms, doing, becoming and belonging.
Simulated clients are non-lawyers who are trained to play the role of clients and others (eg witnesses) and are used in a variety of different learning and assessment roles in legal education. While there have been a number of positive studies in different jurisdictions regarding the design and use of simulated clients in educational settings, there has not been an international overview of the way they are used in different jurisdictions, or their effectiveness in educating and assessing law students and lawyers. This project is focused around hosting an international workshop at the ANU College of Law on simulated clients, and a subsequent peer-reviewed collection of workshop proceedings.
- John Garvey, University of New Hampshire Law School
- Leo Martin, University of Strathclyde Law School
- Wilson Chow, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
- Michael Ng, University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Law
- Clark Cunningham, Georgia State University College of Law
- Rory O’Boyle, Law Society of Ireland
- Freda Grealy, Law Society of Ireland
- Debra Nestel, HealthPEER Faculty, University of Monash
This project seeks to build on the experience of other institutions that have constructed digital simulation engines such as SIMPLE (SIMulated Professional Learning Environment) in Scotland, Cyberdam in the Netherlands, and VOS (Virtual Office Space) in Australia. Funding is being sought to specify and design a new-generation engine, scalable, with open architecture and capable of supporting multiple forms of digital simulations across a variety of professions, build, test and evaluate student learning upon this platform, and publish the research findings.
- John Garvey, University of New Hampshire Law School
- Leo Martin, University of Strathclyde Law School
- Frances Murray, University of Strathclyde Law School
- Kees van Haaster, Kenniscentrum Sociale Innovatie, ISW, Hogeschool Utrecht
- Karen Counsell, University of South Wales
Problem-based learning in legal education
Contact:Problem-based learning (PBL) is an effective and powerful method of learning the intellectual structure and skills of a discipline and a profession. It derives largely from the medical and health sciences. This cluster explores how a number of different law schools are approaching PBL, the variety of methods they use, the variation between practices, the achievements of students, the place of ethics and moral values in a PBL curriculum, and the effects on academics and other staff in the law school. The ANU College of Law is developing its own PBL program and is forming links with other law schools implementing similar learning approaches, including York Law School and Nottingham Law School in the United Kingdom.
An edited book on problem based learning in the teaching of law will be produced by PEARL Press, comprising the papers given at the conference.
A workshop or conference will be held in 2017, on problem based learning in Law.
Legal writing
Contact: Craig CollinsThe Legal Writing research cluster explores theoretical, historical and practical dimensions to legal writing, including how legal writing is shaped by technology and developed by legal education.
The research seeks to place legal writing within the broader historical and theoretical framework of law, discourse and social analysis and, at a practical level, proposes strategies and interventions for assisting law students and lawyers to develop technical proficiency with the art of the written word.
This project seeks to research how writing can support student learning in Law. It takes as its departure point recent research by Spirgel and Delaney which shows that before students can 'write to learn they must first learn to write'. Our pilot research project will set out to determine if this is true of writing practices in Australian law schools.
Just as DNA analysis can tell genealogical stories and explain ways of being for living individuals, exploring the evolutionary path of the common law tradition can yield fresh insights into effective legal communication today.
Future justice
Contact: Scott ChamberlainThe Future Justice cluster examines the impact of technology upon law and legal practice at multiple levels. It includes:
- predicting how technology can generate a restructuring of justice systems in modern societies
- examining the impact of technology upon lawyers, law firms and the regulation of legal professions, and
- the application of argument-mapping techniques towards achieving more effective e-discovery for modern litigation.
This project will test the hypothesis that argument mapping results in more effective e-discovery.
This project introduces and develops the concept of Justice Divided as a concept for analysing and developing new ways of doing law and delivering justice as technology revolutionises the legal profession.
This project analyses and predicts the impact technology could and should have on the way modern societies structure their justice systems.
This project examines the potential impact of technology on lawyers, law firms and the regulation of the legal profession.
The Centre for Profession, Education and Regulation in Law is committed to open access, and to disseminating its research as widely as possible through print and electronic publication. The Centre’s publications are published in a variety of formats, with peer-reviewed research published through the PEARL Press Monograph Series, under the aegis of the ANU Press. The PEARL Discussion Paper Series is published in the ANU Digital Collections. Research associated with the work of Centre researchers published elsewhere is available through External Publications
The Centre is keen to explore new formats and genres of academic research with researchers, and so our PEARL Press Board remains open to the possibility and potential of publishing new types of research and research content. This is in keeping with ANU Press's own policy on innovative forms of academic publication. The Centre’s publication policies and processes for peer review are overseen by the PEARL Press Editorial Board. To discuss any aspect of publication or publication projects, please contact Paul Maharg, Chair of the Editorial Board.
PEARL Press monographs
Our PEARL Press Monograph series publishes a variety of academic texts -- single-author monographs, edited collections, gatherings of research results, analyses of policy on major themes or issues, the proceedings of workshops or conferences, or reports on major pieces of consultancy research. All PEARL Press books are peer-reviewed, a process overseen by the PEARL Press Editorial Board, and published through ANU Press for print-on-demand sale and for free download in PDF, HTML and mobile device formats.
Publication is normally undertaken only where there is a link with the activities of the Centre, or with the ANU College of Law. However, the Centre is open to new ideas, genres, or texts in any of the three areas of its activities, namely legal education, the legal profession and the regulation of both. Book publication proposals can be sent to the Chair of the Editorial Board, Paul Maharg.
Discussion paper series
Informal papers produced by members of the Centre as a result of the research they are undertaking and reviewed by the PEARL Press Editorial Board before publication, but not peer-reviewed, are published in ANU Digital Collections under the category of PEARL Centre Discussion Papers. Authors and titles are listed below that in chronological order.
External publications
The following publications by Centre researchers have been published outside the PEARL Press Monographs, Journal and Discussion Paper Series. They include books, book chapters, journal articles, reports, slide sets and, in the future, will include datasets as well. The listing is alphabetical by author, starting in 2016.
2017
- Curran, L., Taylor Barnett, P., Vernon A. Reflecting on community development practice: Working with communities for effective change by enabling access to justice’, 7 (1) Flinders Law Journal.
- Curran, L., Crockett, A., Measuring the impact, quality and effectiveness of legal assistance services in a climate of reduced funding and increased government expectations: The Australian experience 22 (3), (2016), European Journal of Current Legal Issues (p. 27
2016
- Collins, C. (2016). Story Interface and Strategic Design for New Law Curricula 50(1) The Law Teacher 98-113.
- Maharg, P. (2016). Editorial: Learning/Technology 50(1) The Law Teacher 15-23.
- Maharg, P. (2016). Disintermediation 50(1) The Law Teacher 114-131.
- Thornton, M. ‘The Flexible Cyborg: Work/Life Balance in the Legal Profession’ (2016) 38(1) Sydney Law Review 1-21.
- Thornton, M. ‘Work/life or work/work? Corporate legal practice in the twenty-first century’ (2016) 23(1) International Journal of the Legal Profession 13-39.
2015
- Ching, J., Maharg, P., Sherr, A., Webb, J., "An overture for well-tempered regulators: four variations on a LETR theme" (2015) The Law Teacher, 49, 2, 143-64.
- Foley, T., Holmes, V., Tang, S., Rowe, M., "Helping junior lawyers thrive" (2015) Law Institute Journal, September, 89, 9, 26.
- Ferguson, A., "Creating practice-ready, well and professional law graduates' (2015) Journal of Learning Design, 8, 2.
- Ferguson, A., Seul-gi Lee, E., "The development of the virtual educational space: how transactional online teaching can prepare today's law graduates for today's virtual age" (2015) European Journal of Law and Technology, BILETA Edition, 6, 1.
- Holmes, V. ‘Giving Voice to Values: enhancing students’ capacity to cope with ethical challenges in legal practice (2015) 18 Legal Ethics 2, 115-137
- Maharg, P., "European Journal of Law and Technology" (2015). BILETA Edition, 6, 1, four items.
- Maharg, P., "‘Democracy begins in conversation’: The phenomenology of problem-based learning and legal education" (2015) Nottingham Law Journal, 24, 1.
- Maharg, P., "Shared space: regulation, technology and legal education in a global context" (2015) European Journal of Law and Technology, 5, 1.
- Maharg, P. Interview met Paul Maharg, Christ’l Dullaert, Monique van de Griendt, Juriaan Mensch (eds), De Nieuwe Advocaat. Nieuwe Kansen voor Ondernemende Advocaten, (2015). Sdu Uitgevers, Den Haag, 459-69.
The Flexible Cyborg:Work-Life Balance in Legal practice (312.23 KB)‘Work/life balance’ (WLB) emerged as the catchcry of workers everywhere in the late 20th century. It was particularly appealing to women lawyers as it was thought that if a balance could be effected between work and life, satisfying careers and the raising of children could be combined. The key to effecting this balance, it was believed, was flexible work. Technology has facilitated this flexibility as all that is required is a computer, or other device with internet connection, and a mobile phone. Provided that the firm is agreeable, the lawyer would have a degree of autonomy in determining when and where the work is carried out. However, flexible work has not always proved to be the boon that was hoped, for the shift from face-time to virtual time has blurred the boundary between work and life, insidiously extending the hours of work and impinging on the realm of intimacy. Drawing on a web-based survey and interviews with lawyers Australia-wide, this article considers the ramifications of perpetual connectivity for lawyers in private practice, with particular regard to its gender significance.
State disinvestment in higher education has been a notable characteristic of neoliberalism all over the world and the corporatization of universities has been the typical response. It has led to a proliferation of law schools with students paying high fees. Corporatization has also engendered a culture of relentless competition between universities, which manifests itself in league tables and rankings. The pursuit of prestige has compelled law schools to prioritize research over teaching, which poses a dilemma for what is taught and how it is taught. The contradictions of the corporatization thesis are graphically illustrated by the experiences of Australia, which might be described as the canary in the mine shaft. While corporatization plays out differently in decentralized regimes with a substantial private sector, such as the United States, its impact on the legal academy has been similarly profound. The dilemmas posed by corporatization for the legal academy require considered scholarly attention.
- Higher Education Academy, UK
- GAJE – Global Alliance for Justice Education
- Centre for Computer-Assisted Learning and Instruction (CALI), Chicago, USA
- Osgoode Hall Law School and Osgoode Professional Development, York University, Toronto
- Hong Kong University Faculty of Law
- Chinese University of Hong Kong Law School
- Dundee Medical School, UK
- University of Copenhagen
- University College London
- Nottingham Law School, Centre for Legal Education
Activities archive
Dr Liz Curran delivered conference papes and ran workshops throughout the UK, Ontario Canada and Washington DC & New York City on HJP in the second half of 2016. HJPs involve lawyers working alongside health and allied health professionals to reach clients with a range of problems capable of legal solutions e.g. debt, family violence, poor housing, consumer issues, care and protection, human rights, and social supports. She explained the model, how it works, research showing why it works, and share some lessons learned and resources. See SSRN for the range of papers delivered and the audieces.
Dr Curran was appointed in February 2017 as 'expert adviser' to the Law Council of Australia's 'Justice Project'. The Law Council of Australia is undertaking a comprehensive national review into the impediments to justice in Australia, focussing on those facing significant social and economic disadvantage in community. The work will culminate in a Final Report at the end of November 2017 following a literature review and consultation process.
Dr Liz Curran, Associate Director of the ANU Centres for the Profession, Education and Regulation in Law (PEARL) presented in an international interdisciplinary collaboration with the Head of Law and the Head of Nursing, University of Portsmouth on IDSC at the International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference, Northumbria University UK . 2 July – 5 July.
International Journal of Clinical Legal Education Conference
Paul Maharg has left the ANU College of Law for the post of Distinguished Professor of Practice - Legal Education at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto. He has therefore stepped down from the directorship of PEARL. Paul said of the move 'it's been a privilege to have spent the last four years working with colleagues in the ANU College of Law, particularly those in Legal Workshop, and of course in PEARL. Our dean has offered me the post of Honorary Professor which I've accepted, so I'll be continuing to work with people in ANU, and helping to build strong international links between PEARL and networks in Canadian Legal Education.
Paul Maharg gave two papers at the BILETA (British & Irish Legal Education Technology Association) Conference, held this year in the Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal. The first was entitled 'Legal scholarship and OA publishing: developing radical pathways to free, open models'. It was co-written with his co-editor at the European Journal of Law and Technology, Abhilash Nair (Strathclyde University) and with Catherine Easton (Lancaster University), who is editor of the European Journal of Current Legal Issues. Both journals are entirely open and free online. The second paper was co-written with Dirk Rodenburg (Queen's University, Ontario) and Robert Clapperton (Ametros Learning), and was entitled 'The cognitive revolution in simulation for academic and professional education: an implementation and its implications'. The legal education stream was liveblogged by Paul on his blog at http://paulmaharg.com and there are final thoughts on the conference at http://paulmaharg.com/2017/04/25/bileta-2017-final-thoughts-the-redress-of-legal-education/
Dr Curran appointed Senior Fellow, Nottingham Trent University (2017-2022) based at the Centre for Legal Education with Director, Professor Jane Chin
Facilitated interactive sessions/workshops/roundtables including at the Centre for Legal Education of Nottingham Trent University Law School where Dr Liz Curran is Senior Fellow (2017-2022) bringing together different agencies, students, academics, regulators, policy makers, the profession etc. to discuss new and emerging but effective ways of delivering justice and legal services given problems with the adversarial system. - discuss opportunities to collaborate on health justice partnerships, interdisciplinary clinics, problem solving courts, therapeutic, restorative justice including conflict conferencing, justice reinvestment and other ways of doing justice + ethical issues.
Dr Liz Curran has been working as a Grant Assessor for the Victorian Legal Service Board and Commissioners (LSB) since June 2011.
Liz Curran, presently on sabbatical in the UK, is attending the Law Centres UK National Conference in N. Ireland where she is giving two workshops:
1. Seminar Thursday 10 November 2016 ‘Reaching those most in need and those currently excluded from legal help: Health Justice Partnerships’. This seminar will discuss Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) and Multi-Disciplinary Practice (MDP) in Australia with a focus on Dr Curran’s recent research and evaluation and her own practical experience working in a HJP in Australia for ten years as well as her current work at Consumer Action Law Centre. It will explore MDP, specifically health justice partnerships and lessons emerging in Australia from an evidence base, practice and research experience.’
2. Workshop Friday 11 November 2016 ‘Measuring Impact and evaluation – how and why? and some tips’. This workshop will be a practical workshop about why evaluation is key. It will flag some of the challenges of measuring impact. The workshop will flag some ‘how to’s’ from a vantage point of agencies who have limited resources but which would like to provide evidence of what they do, why they do it and how it has an impact, thus building an evidence base for what works well and why.
PEARL researcher Dr Liz Curran presents to the Oxford Human Rights Hub on Realizing the right to health for the most disadvantaged
On 3 November the NSW Law Society will be hosting a launch for the first wellbeing self-help guide for the legal profession. The guide is a co-publication of the Law Society of NSW, NSW Young Lawyers and the ANU College of Law. It is edited and written by PEARL researchers Tony Foley, Vivien Holmes, Colin James, Margie Rowe and Stephen Tang (with Professor Ian Hickie of the University of Sydney).
In early September two members of PEARL will be presenting at the Society of Legal Scholars conference at Oxford University.
- Professor Paul Maharg (Director, PEARL) will be presenting with Dirk Rodenburg (Queen’s University, Ontario) on The Redress of Legal Education, and
- Craig Collins and Paul Maharg will be participating on an expert panel of four legal education scholars about Technology and the Future of Legal Education – this follows on from a special edition of The Law Teacher (UK) edited by Paul and including papers from Paul and Craig, together with colleagues from the USA, UK and Australia.
Imagination and Legal Reasoning: History, Theory, Pedagogy: An International, Interdisciplinary, One-Day Workshop (Queen Mary London)
Follow Paul Maharg's live blog.
This event is part of the ‘Legal Mind Network’, founded by Dr Maks Del Mar, Reader in Legal Theory at Queen Mary University of London. This network is an international collaboration between the Department of Law, QMUL, the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto and the PEARL Centre at the ANU College of Law, Australian National University. The network explores the theory and history of legal reasoning and its teaching, under the heading of three concepts: Imagination, Communication and Cognition.
A triad of workshops is planned:
- London 2016: ‘Legal Reasoning and Imagination: History, Theory and Pedagogy’ (June, 2016, organiser Dr. Maks Del Mar)
- Canberra 2017: ‘Legal Reasoning and Communication: History, Theory and Pedagogy’ (June, 2017, organiser Professor Paul Maharg)
- Toronto 2018: ‘Legal Reasoning and Cognition: History, Theory and Pedagogy’ (June, 2018, organiser Professor Simon Stern)
The Legal Mind Network a collaboration of PEARL, Queen Mary University of London, and the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto will begin with the first Workshop hosted by Queen Mary London on the theme: Imagination and Legal Reasoning: History, Theory, Pedagogy.
PEARL researcher, Scott Chamberlain, will be joining colleagues at the MNSI on the 'Automated Online Legal Service Project', for which seed funding has just been approved by MNSI. Scott leads our 'Future Justice' research cluster (click on 'Research' tab to view other projects). For more details, or if you may have an interest in related projects or future collaboration, please contact Scott.
