Publications
This is a searchable catalogue of the College's most recent books, book chapters, journal articles and working papers. The ANU College of Law also publishes a Research Paper Series on SSRN.
Human Rights and Realizing the Right to Health for the Most Disadvantaged – Health Justice Partnerships (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
This seminar/workshop examines innovations such as multi-disciplinary practice, specifically Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) and how they can enhance human rights adherence and protection.
Services are already hard to navigate for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Even where there is no court or tribunal case involved access to legal advice can be critical. It can save mistakes being made, help people understand their rights and responsibilities and according to my research on the impact of HJP's through evidence based field research, such models lead to early intervention and often prevention of problems or their escalation. Fundamental universal human rights such as the right to income support, the right not to experience inhumane or degrading treatment including poor housing, and rights to safety are all aspects that can see vulnerable and disadvantaged people needing legal advice and support.
It is also critical to the Rule of Law. (See author's comments, Chapter 1 (21) ‘Access to Justice’ Global Perspectives on Human Rights (3rd edition, 2015) OHRH, at 22).
This seminar/workshop discusses some of the human rights settings and what HJP can to do help realise rights to health and well being that are effected by the social determinants of health.
It examines some research and findings of the author including the types of lawyers that are critical to successful lawyering and health service support if those programs/services are to be effective in engaging the most vulnerable. The presentation also suggests how HJP might be explored in student clinics and in non government organisations doing work in developing countries which have limited resources and where the reach of HJPs, collaboration and capacity building can be critical. This feeds into Sen's notions of capability and empowerment and the critical importance of systemic work to solve the causes of problems including the alleviation of poverty.
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Realizing the Right to Health and Access to Justice for the Most Disadvantaged – Health Justice Partnerships (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
This Seminar was presented to post graduate students, academic staff and members of non-government organisations and examines recent evidence based research that examines the impact of Multi-Disciplinary Practice such as a Health Justice Partnership (HJP).
The seminar explores the HJPs impact on improving the outcomes of the social determinants of health for clients with legal problems that would otherwise not have been identified or resolved but for the HJP.
It also canvassed empirical data suggestive that there had also been enhancements to the professional capacity of lawyers, health and allied health professionals through working within an HJP setting that benefit clients and enable further reach in resolving legal problems capable of a solution.
Using research in Bendigo a regional, rural of Victoria, Australia the seminar discusses the nature of the research undertaken and key findings. The discussion then led to ideas around expansion of the HJP model in a Danish setting.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Squeezing the Life Out of Lawyers: Legal Practice in the Market Embrace
Author(s): Margaret Thornton
Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology of our time and shows no sign of abating. The undue deference accorded the economy and capital accumulation means that comparatively little attention is paid to the pressures this involves for workers. Although conventionally viewed as privileged professionals, lawyers in corporate law firms have been profoundly affected by the neoliberal turn as firms have expanded from local to national, to global entities, with the aim of maximising profits and making themselves competitive on the world stage. Although corporate clients may be located in a different hemisphere they still expect 24/7 availability of lawyers in contrast to what they normally expect of other professionals, such as accountants. A corollary of global competition is the ratcheting up of billable hours, which has engendered stress and depression. The pressure for firms to be more productive has resulted in increased levels of incivility, including bullying. Despite a plethora of reports attesting to the deleterious effects of stress, scant attention is paid to the neoliberalisation of legal practice. This article argues that the tendency to individualise and pathologise the adverse effects of stress and uncivil behaviours deflects attention away from the political factors that animate them.
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Law and Gender, Legal Education
A Research and Evaluation Report for the Bendigo Health–Justice Partnership: A Partnership between Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre and Bendigo Community Health Services
Author(s):
The Bendigo HJP Research and Evaluation (HJPRAE) was undertaken over three years with an evaluative process embedded in the service from service start-up. At the time it was challenging research as it examines impact and grappled with the internationally renowned challenge of measuring the social determinants of health.
Qualitative and quantitative data have been collected using multiple tools and specific questions.
Findings: 1. The clients of the HJP are complex and more often than not have more than one legal problem and a multitude of other health and social welfare problems. They often feel judged and lack trust in services. They will seek help when they feel they are not judged, where they are respected and where there is service responsiveness. Appointments are problematic – time and place can be critical to engagement, especially for people who have experiences of trauma or negative previous experiences of the legal system. 2. During its life, the Bendigo HJP has provided a significant amount of legal service to clients on a range of matters, often where one client has a significant number of legal issues. The clients’ lives are complicated and building trust takes time. Given the project has only one lawyer co-located at the HJP, the number of clients and client problems tackled is significant in view of the limited staff, funding and resources. 3. The Bendigo HJP is reaching clients who would otherwise not have sought legal help. The role of their trusted health or allied health professional in facilitating that reach has been overwhelmingly critical – 90% of clients interviewed in the HJPRAE said that without the HJP they would not have sought legal help. 4. Clients who have multiple and complex problems reported they were anxious and frightened as they did not know their rights/position. They reported this impacted on their health and wellbeing. The effectiveness and quality of the HJP service and its impact as reported by health/allied health professionals delivered the following relevant responses: • confidence in engaging with services in clients to have increased by 90.9% • knowledge of rights and responsibilities in clients to have increased by 72.7% • knowledge of options and more skilled over time in clients to have increased by 90.9%. 5. The capacity of professionals, due to the HJP, to respond to legal issues with confidence has increased; that is, they have become ‘empowered’.
General Application to Other Replicable Models of HJP Clients turn to ‘trusted’ health/allied health professionals but may not turn to lawyers without the facilitation and transferral of trust. Some clients will not turn to a lawyer as they are not emotionally ready (e.g., due to trauma, fragility, fear) and so the health/allied health professional that they trust becomes an important intermediary for them to gain legal help and information at salient times. A service which is a HJP needs to be ‘opportunistic’ in taking advantage of clients’ health appointments to provide legal assistance – due to complexities of their lives and confusion, lack of confidence and being overwhelmed etc. The capacity of professionals, both lawyers and non-lawyers, as well as client service staff, is key/critical to being able to support clients in a timely way, when in crisis or ready for help. Legal Secondary Consultations (LSCs) ‘are pivotal’; ‘it would not work if we did not have LSCs’. A significant majority of research participants noted that the LSC enables quick, efficient and targeted building of knowledge which can ‘save time’ in the long run. The type of lawyer used has been critical to the success of the Bendigo HJP and should be considered when hiring and recruiting staff. Lawyers can’t ‘just sit in their office’ but need to interact, integrate, not be ‘too stuffy’ or ‘too hierarchical’, ‘avoid jargon’ and show ‘respect’. The type of person used in the role is key to the HJP’s success. Trust and relationships take time to demonstrate an impact and their effectiveness as they are predicated on relationships, human experience, confidence and positive interactions and cannot be driven by a ‘top down’ approach.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Medical-Legal Partnership: Prevention, Access to Justice and the Next Generation of Legal and Healthcare Professionals.
Author(s):
Inequality of access to legal services is a significant problem in Australia.
In a panel discussion Dr. Curran of the Australian National Research gave a short paper responding to the key note address by Liz Tobin Tyler, Adjunct Professor, the Roger Williams University School of Law in Rhode Island and Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University and of Health Services, Policy and Practice at the Brown University School of Public Health on the topic ‘Medical-legal partnership: Prevention, access to justice and the next generation of legal and healthcare professionals.’
In the response Dr. Curran noted similarities and difference between the USA and Australia and reports on her participatory action research that ANU has been commissioned to undertake in a range of Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) including the embedded research evaluation of ACR Justice Bendigo pilot of an HJP which commenced in January 2015. The Executive Officer of ARC Justice, Peter Noble has also asked Dr. Curran to measure impacts of the HJP on the social determinants of health which she is grappling with given international recognition of the challenge. Dr. Curran has come up with some tools informed by affected community, service providers and international research in an action research collaborative approach within a continuous learning, reflection and development model and is using these to measure in concrete terms the social determinants of health outcomes from the HJP.
Dr. Curran discussed a number of Australian HJP evaluations in terms of quality, impact, outcomes and the social determinants of health. She discusses tools and some preliminary findings in the various research projects which are ongoing.
Centre: CIPL
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Preliminary Findings on the Value of Secondary Consultations in Reaching Hard to Reach Clients and in Building Professional Capacity
Author(s):
For ten years in a CLC setting Curran routinely conducted secondary consultations for non-legal professional staff. Since 2011, Dr Curran has undertaken research evaluations of services that now form what are now collectively described in Australia as ‘Health Justice Partnerships’. Dr Curran will outline preliminary findings in the under-researched area of the impact of secondary consultations. Evidence is emerging from evaluation research on a range of Health Justice Partnerships (where a lawyer works in a multidisciplinary health and allied health setting) including a family violence program, a project examining urban mortgage stress/well being, a program where a lawyer is based within a health service in a regional setting and in relation to a specialist Community Legal Centre (the Consumer Action Law Centre) non legal worker advice line which integrate legal and non-legal services. This paper highlights the impact secondary consultation has and is having in terms of reaching hard to reach clients and building capacity of non-legal professionals in a climate of limited resources.
Centre: CCL
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Conference Paper- ‘Access to Justice – Making it Come Alive and a Reality for Students and Enabling Engaged Future Practitioners’
Author(s):
The presentation commenced with a 20 minute discussion and illustration by Dr. Liz Curran who has worked for many years as a clinical legal education supervising solicitor in an academic role and now works in Professional Legal Training role in the ANU Legal Workshop. She has been an active researcher on access to justice and human rights for over a decade with numerous research projects, articles and as a commentator.
In 2008 Dr Curran wrote in the Alternative Law Journal that ‘from this vantage point, being an academic and a practitioner, a constructive inter-play occurs where theory can inform practice and vice versa.’ It is this inter-play which can make a valuable contribution to policy debates, student learning and development and their sense of being involved in upholding justice and the rule of law. From such a vantage point, universities in their teaching and research and policy makers can tap into evidence based information on the experience of the day-to-day dilemmas facing the members of the community for whom survival, emotional and physical well-being can be precarious.
Centre: CLAH
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Partnerships in Healthcare Delivery: Health Justice Partnerships (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
Dr. Curran’s Conference Paper discusses how Health Justice Partnerships (HJPs) are reaching people who would otherwise not get help with their legal problems by community lawyers working in a multi-disciplinary setting. The paper shares her preliminary empirical research findings, case studies and some lessons.
The Bendigo HJP project is a partnership between ARC Justice’s Program and Bendigo Community Health Service. The HJP project aims to address the social determinants of health capable of legal redress. The partnership is based on the empirical data which reveals that many vulnerable and disadvantaged people do not consult lawyers for problems instead they see their trusted health worker.
An embedded evaluation is being undertaken by Dr. Liz Curran of ANU examining not only the effectiveness of the service but also measuring the social determinants of health. Dr. Curran has a practical background in the community health sector. She is also involved in other HJP evaluations and service start-ups in Australia and Canada. Critically, this evaluation includes the clients and service providers and their experience in its process. This is ethical and ensures the measurements are not remote from the reality of the lives of people the HJP is assisting.
The evaluation is gathering qualitative as well as quantitative data so is not a process evaluation. In Australia there is little money for evaluation and services are keen to evaluate. The paper discusses the empirical research which reveals the HJP is reaching community members who are otherwise excluded. Findings include the value of legal secondary consultations in building confidence and capacity of non-legal professionals to assist clients through legal information being readily accessible through consultations with a lawyer.
Centre: CLAH
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Health Justice Partnership Research ANU Research in Progress Seminar (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
Research by the Legal Services Research Centre (UK) and the Australian LAW Survey demonstrates that unresolved legal problems are likely to have deleterious impact on stress and health outcomes. Individuals only consult lawyers for about 16% of their legal problems and a key access point for disadvantaged individuals is the health profession. Research shows legal problems have a detrimental impact on the health and well being of individuals.
The Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) see 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, access to services. The author is evaluating and assisting in some start –ups of HJPs across Australia and in Canada. She will discuss her work so far but the paper focuses on the project that is the most advanced in Bendigo.
The Bendigo Health Justice Partnership (HJP) project is a partnership between ARC Justice’s Program and Bendigo Community Health Service. The HJP project aims to address the social determinants of health capable of legal redress. The partnership is based on the understanding that many vulnerable and disadvantaged people do not consult lawyers for problems instead they see their trusted health worker.
An embedded evaluation is being undertaken by Dr Liz Curran of ANU examining not only the effectiveness of the service but also measuring the social determinants of health. Dr Curran has a practical background in the community health sector. Critically, this evaluation includes the clients and service providers and their experience in its process.
With ethics approval the evaluation is gathering qualitative as well as quantitative data in a context where there is little money for evaluation and services are keen to evaluate. This paper will discuss the evaluative process, present findings and some lessons emerging so far, in this three year longitudinal study. The study uses a participatory action research approach within a model of continuous reflection, development and improvement so as to inform policy and funding building and empirical evidence base to good practice to reach people who would otherwise not gain legal help.It measures the impacts on social determinants of health, an area largely un-chartered and so this methodology hopes to add to the polity around how social determinants of health might be measured and what they look like in reality for people affected.
The Final Report is due to be finalised at the end of 2016.
Centre: CLAH
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Health Justice Partnership Research ANU Research in Progress Seminar (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
Research by the Legal Services Research Centre (UK) and the Australian LAW Survey demonstrates that unresolved legal problems are likely to have deleterious impact on stress and health outcomes. Individuals only consult lawyers for about 16% of their legal problems and a key access point for disadvantaged individuals is the health profession. Research shows legal problems have a detrimental impact on the health and well being of individuals.
The Health Justice Partnerships (HJP) see 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, access to services. The author is evaluating and assisting in some start –ups of HJPs across Australia and in Canada. She will discuss her work so far but the paper focuses on the project that is the most advanced in Bendigo.
The Bendigo Health Justice Partnership (HJP) project is a partnership between ARC Justice’s Program and Bendigo Community Health Service. The HJP project aims to address the social determinants of health capable of legal redress. The partnership is based on the understanding that many vulnerable and disadvantaged people do not consult lawyers for problems instead they see their trusted health worker.
An embedded evaluation is being undertaken by Dr Liz Curran of ANU examining not only the effectiveness of the service but also measuring the social determinants of health. Dr Curran has a practical background in the community health sector. Critically, this evaluation includes the clients and service providers and their experience in its process.
With ethics approval the evaluation is gathering qualitative as well as quantitative data in a context where there is little money for evaluation and services are keen to evaluate. This paper will discuss the evaluative process, present findings and some lessons emerging so far, in this three year longitudinal study. The study uses a participatory action research approach within a model of continuous reflection, development and improvement so as to inform policy and funding building and empirical evidence base to good practice to reach people who would otherwise not gain legal help.It measures the impacts on social determinants of health, an area largely un-chartered and so this methodology hopes to add to the polity around how social determinants of health might be measured and what they look like in reality for people affected.
The Final Report is due to be finalised at the end of 2016.
Centre: CLAH
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
The Practice of Law and the Intolerance of Certainty
Author(s): Tony Foley
This paper seeks to challenge a lingering view that law is and should be intolerant of uncertainty and must strive for certainty. Although inconsistent with the embedded uncertainty and ambiguity of law as a system, there is still an implicitly accepted view that the practice of law, and the role of lawyers, is to make determinate the indeterminate, to use legal rules to remove the uncertainty from human existence. This paper provides a preliminary sketch of an alternative and humanising epistemology of law in practice, one that embraces and makes adaptive use of uncertainty at the level of psychological experience, rather than just at a conceptual or institutional level. It focuses its attention on the preparation for practice of new lawyers and their lived experience of uncertainty as one of the defining aspects of their transition from law student. In the process, the paper challenges the conventional perceptions that thinking like a lawyer involves an additive set of skills sitting above and beyond those of ordinary thinking. Learning to think like a lawyer is more often subtractive, leaving out the messy world and in the process leaving out the messiness of uncertainty. As an alternative, the paper examines what many good lawyers have taught themselves: the importance of embracing uncertainty, complexity and acquiring a healthy intolerance of certainty. It suggests these skills and habits would be better taught and learned in advance of practice.
Centre:
Research theme: Criminal Law, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Legal Education, Regulatory Law and Policy
The Mirage of Merit: Reconstituting the 'Ideal Academic'
Author(s): Margaret Thornton
This paper takes a hard look at merit and the ideal academic, twin concepts that have been accorded short shrift by the scholarly literature. For the most authoritative positions, the ideal displays all the hallmarks of Benchmark Man. Despite the ostensible 'feminisation' of the academy, the liberal myth that merit is stable, objective and calculable lingers on. As a counterpoint to the feminisation thesis, it is argued that a remasculinisation of the academy is occurring as a result of the transformation of higher education wrought by the new knowledge economy. In response, the ideal academic has become a 'technopreneur' – a scientific researcher with business acumen who produces academic capitalism. This new ideal academic evinces a distinctly masculinist hue in contrast to the less-than-ideal academic – the humanities or social science teacher with large classes, who is more likely to be both casualised and feminised.
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Law and Gender, Legal Education
‘Working Collaboratively, Holistically and Strategically in and with Community – The Power of Community Development in Legal Education’ (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it” Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee.
I have been asked to answer the following questions today: 1. What is Community Development 2. What it means in terms of approach 3. To provide examples of when I have used it in my work 4. To distill any examples of how it is done 5. To discuss how to evaluate its impact and worth and 6. To examine why it might be a core service of CLCs. 7. Dome key challenges in terms of funding and funders.
Now in Australia we have the empirical data that had been lacking to support anecdotally what had been observed by some service providers over many years. These empirical studies not only demonstrated that similar issues arise in Australia for people who are the recipients of legal assistance services (largely people on social support or with incomes of under $26,000K) but that inroads could be made by joined- up services both legal and non-legal, holistic approaches, community legal education that reaches out and is targeted and responsive to community needs and behaviour. The studies confirmed that the direction of many legal assistance services to work collaboratively, holistically and strategically to assist people, to educate them and to work towards law reform to ensure that recurring problems are all critical if access to the legal system and equality before the law are to be attained.
CLCs have a vital role as community agencies along with others to enable community members to have and find a voice.
“If funders and the community want the legal assistance sector to make a difference in solving people’s problems and advancing and protecting community rights then they must recognize the need to approach problems strategically and use various approaches to obtain results. To achieve this, organizations must be given a level of autonomy that frees them up to use their skills, experience and knowledge of the system as well as the client's actual circumstances to decide the best strategy.”
Centre:
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Building Capacity to Cope with Ethical Dilemmas in Legal Practice Through Teaching ‘Giving Voice to Values’ Techniques (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
This panel presentation will be a basic introduction for a more detailed session on Saturday with Viv Holmes, Anneka Ferguson (in absencia) which will discuss the theory, practice, research and student responses that informs our courses.
In the context of Recommendations 6 and 7 Critical issues and challenges are presented. How can teachers challenge students to explore ethical dilemmas emerging in all area of practice be they commercial, property, consumer and civil law? How can we as teachers not just teach students to identify ethical issues but also assist them in building the tools necessary to actively and appropriately deal with such dilemmas?
In the ANU Legal Workshop (delivered in a blended mode with face to face and on-line teaching) the professional legal training course for graduates to become admitted to legal practice, we use Mary Gentile’s ‘Giving Voice to Values’ (GVV) approach. This will be briefly explained.
I have taught ethics in an undergraduate context and am now teaching at graduate levels and see more opportunities using the GVV approach. In Legal Workshop’s Ethics subject and in a subject, ‘Professional Development’ (PM) that supports key practice areas, we use GVV to engage students at a deeper level so they learn about themselves and their working environment. The key GVV approach is to equip students with not only the ability to identify an ethical problems but also strategies to enable them to act on their ethical duties.
Our aim is to build the students’ resilience, build their capacity to act ethically and speak up appropriately and wisely.
During my section of the panel presentation, I will ask the audience to participate by doing the first exercise students undertake- a Professional Development Journal Entry. This activity is based on GVV’s ‘Tale of Two Stories’ and requires students to recall and then reflect on a time in their lives when they have, and have not, ‘spoken’ their values. The activity is a useful lead-in to tackling ethical issues in legal workplace scenarios as the course progresses (tomorrow’s session). This activity starts the reflective practice conversation and flags issues that emerging lawyers face in responding ethically. In student debriefs some of our students (many of whom work in legal practice as para-legals, judges associates, waitressing, marketing and fact food outlets etc.) indicate they already often encounter unethical practice and that examining the reasons why they speak or do not speak out is useful for the later exercises. The discussion also has scope for teachers to share their experiences, values and ethical dilemmas and how they did or not deal with them. In the follow-up session on Saturday we will explore how the GVV approach enables students to develop and practise skill for acting ethically. It is suggested a similar activity could be used in undergraduate level to start reflective practice and the values and ethics discussion with students earlier.
Centre: CLAH
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
'CLCs Having an Impact on Lives - Strategic Approaches to Problem Solving’ (Presentation Slides)
Author(s):
Theme - Advancing (by discovering and creating, developing innovative ideas and strategies, including and incorporating the learning and perspectives of others):
Strategic thinking can and has enabled the benefits of early intervention and prevention of legal problems and their escalation. This goes beyond one-to-one case work and can address problem at their core. This paper will explore easy, useable, relevant and replicable results of research evaluations undertaken by Curran of what is effective legal service action that has prevented the public from having to go through the same problem and thus enhancing service impact. Reflective practice is a key way to inform strategic action and continuous learning and how this can be done will also be explored.
This paper examines case studies from CLCs, good practice, responsiveness, strategic thinking and processes that foster having significant impact. It will share how to, up to date action research, facilitate sharing of experiences through the session’s interactive approach.
The session will take an adult learning approach to delivery meaning it will involve centres in discussion about their experiences rather than being in a traditional or lecture mode of delivery. People in the room have expertise and skills that can be shared by all in participants in the session.
Centre:
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
Solving Problems – A Strategic Approach: Examples, Processes & Strategies
Author(s):
The report has been commissioned by Consumer Action Law Centre and the Footscray Community Legal Centre and launched at a National Conference and the Ruby Hutchison Lecture on Thursday 14 March 2013. The ACCC and CHOICE jointly host the Ruby Hutchison Memorial Lecture each year. Ruby Hutchison was the founder of the Australian Consumers' Association which is now known as CHOICE.
Dr Curran's report which was written with the assistance of the staff of Consumer Action Law Centre and the Footscray Community Legal Centre illustrates the importance of going beyond an individual approach to casework to benefit individuals, groups and the broader community. It argues that a strategic approach to problem solving can better ensure that a service is effective, efficient and targeted, with a broader and long lasting impact or as government says - a “successful outcome”. It also proposes that community legal centres should be given more support to encourage and foster an environment where strategic thought and planning about service mix approaches are used to make the service more outcome-focused. This would lead to service being more effective and mindful of what interventions are needed to achieve the best outcomes rather than merely providing case work, information and referral in isolation from a broader strategy that improves clients’ lives.
Centre:
Research theme: Human Rights Law and Policy, Indigenous Peoples and the Law, Law and Social Justice, Legal Education
My Top Ten Tips for Good Deaning
Author(s):
In this paper, which originated as an after-dinner speech to other Deans, the author reflects on his 15 years as Dean of the ANU College of Law and shares his 'top ten tips' for succeeding in this important and challenging leadership position. Without diminishing the importance of attention to budgetary matters, especially fund raising, and to mundane matters of management and administration, he rather stresses the importance of fostering collegiality, energising one's colleagues, and generally creating an environment in which everyone can thrive and realise their own true, and unique, potential.
Centre:
Research theme: Legal Education
The Expansion of Global Law Firms in Australia and Asia
Author(s):
Over the last 18 months the legal profession has seen unprecedented growth in the operations of global law firms in Australia. Recent mergers between top-tier and leading Australian law firms demonstrate the importance of Asian markets and the shifts in economic power from the West to the East. For such firms there are clear market and competitive drivers for expansion into Australia including proximity to rapidly developing Asian economies and increased opportunity to expand the firm’s global brand. Yet understanding the role played by Australian law firms in these developments can be tricky. For some newly merged global firms, the Australian operations are central to the firm’s regional and global expansion, allowing the firm to draw upon the strong performance and reputational capital of the Australian offices. For other global firms their alliances with Australia firms provide a strategic foundation for their expansion into Asia. And for third group of firms Australia remains a destination in its own right, sitting within the firm’s overall global network of international offices.
Research theme: Legal Education, Private Law, Regulatory Law and Policy
Strategic Privatisation of Transnational Anti-Corruption Regulation
Author(s):
This article discusses the privatisation of transnational anti-corruption regulation. Increasing global non-state rules, guidelines and standards have become a visible and legitimate form of corruption regulation and a key influence on the development and implementation of state-based anti-corruption laws. These private regulatory instruments are created by multilateral development banks, bi-lateral and multi-lateral development agencies, NGOs, industry groups, private corporations and technical experts. The result is that state-based transnational anti-corruption regulation is now increasingly privatised, harmonised and globalised. This not only affects developments in national anti-corruption regulation, but also the direction of corporate governance more generally. Whilst the interaction between public national and private global regulation is clearly of strategic benefit to governments, it is also creating a multi-level framework of incentives and pressures on global corporations to improve the integrity of their activities and reduce the incidence of corruption.
Research theme: Legal Education, Private Law, Regulatory Law and Policy
Tough Love: Professional Regulation of Lawyer Dishonesty
Author(s):
Regulating lawyer dishonesty is a key focus of professional misconduct cases in most jurisdictions. And rightly so. In any legal system aimed at the just resolution of disputes between citizens, it is essential that lawyers’ words and behaviour can be relied upon by the courts, clients, other lawyers and the public. Yet research into seven years of disciplinary cases in New South Wales (NSW), Australia suggests that only a narrow range of dishonest conduct is actioned, often with harsh results for the practitioners involved. Research outlined in this article shows that 65% of the cases decided in this jurisdiction between 2004-2010 involved findings of practitioner dishonesty, 80% of the practitioners involved in those cases were disbarred and 89% of the total number of lawyers disciplined worked as solo and small firm practitioners.
The Australian research reported in this article may be emblematic of similar issues that occur in the regulation of lawyer dishonesty in both the United States and Canada. It is therefore argued that, for disciplinary cases to be seen as legitimate and just, it is important for the profession and regulators to consider the way dishonesty is being characterized and the harshness of the penalties imposed. When these questions are asked in the Australian context, the research suggests there is a tendency to treat small and sole firm practitioners particularly harshly even where small instances of dishonesty are involved. In addition, the dominant regulatory approach is still to link dishonesty with poor character, a connection that is unsupported by empirical research in psychology. Finally, there appears to be limited appreciation by regulatory authorities of the links between dishonesty, stress and psychological conditions.
Research theme: Legal Education, Private Law, Regulatory Law and Policy
