The Challenge of Defining Unmet Legal Need

Research on unmet legal need in Australia is long overdue and this delay has been articulated in many spheres. Although there was significant work done on defining and studying the problems of access to justice in the 1970s and early 1980s, there has been little academic work done since.In June 1998, the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee noted that there were inadequate data on the "unmet need" for legal aid.The same committee reported in 2004 that there had been no progress and restated the urgent need for reliable data on which to base government decisions. A number of other Australian organisations have acknowledged that research into unmet legal need should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. They include the Victorian Parliamentary Law Reform Committee, National Legal Aid,and the Law Council of Australia

Innovation and Disruption: Exploring the Potential of Clinical Legal Education

It’s a great privilege to deliver this year’s Susan Campbell Oration. I, like many others, had the pleasure of working with Sue on a range of activities. In 2007, Sue conducted a review of the La Trobe Law School Clinical program which was instrumental in helping ensure the program remained an integral aspect of the La Trobe University law course. I hope what I have to say honours Sue’s memory and her contributions to legal education and clinical legal education in particular2.  My focus in this presentation is on how Australian clinical legal education responds to the various innovations and disruptions occurring in the legal arena. The scope and breadth of innovations is mindboggling. There are many predictions about what the future holds for the legal profession, from gloom and doom to utopia, and there is a growing body of literature discussing the implications for the legal profession and legal education. In reality, it is impossible to envisage what the legal world will look like in ten years let alone thirty and that poses a real challenge for those involved in legal education, including clinical legal education. How best to prepare today’s students for the unknown future?  Given that I have no expertise in digital technology and am certainly not a futurologist my comments relate to those areas about which I have some background: access to justice, social security and clinical legal education.  I briefly outline the variety and scope of innovations occurring in the legal world, discuss two related aspects namely access to justice and government decision making, using the example of Robodebt, and then examine the potential for clinical legal education in these disruptive times. I argue that clinical legal education is well placed to take a more central role in Australian law schools and the training of 21st century legal workers.

Time to rework the brand ‘Clinical Legal Education’

At the Tenth International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, the involvement of more than 200 participants from 22 different countries and jurisdictions highlighted the varying circumstances and challenges facing clinicians around the globe. The conference discussions were vibrant and often inspiring. The conference themes were: Clinic for All? Should clinic integrate into traditional legal teaching? Should all students have the opportunity to do clinic? Should clinics engage more with the profession? It was not the first time these themes have been addressed at clinical legal education conferences. They are perennial issues for the clinical legal education movement and their merits have been forcefully argued over several decades. For many of those attending the conference, the definitive answer to all four questions is “Yes”.Clinical legal educators can readily recite a litany of reasons why clinical legal education is a preeminent form of legal education. The benefits for students, the communities they serve and the legal profession are clearly apparent to clinicians. These positive attributes have been recognised in a range of different documents reviewing legal education. However the real challenge is how to make clinic for all students a reality. How can we make this happen?In reflecting on this question I wondered why if the merits of clinical legal education are so obvious, why is it that we do not have clinic for all? Why isn’t clinical legal education an integral part of legal education? Why don’t all students get the opportunity to undertake clinical legal education and why isn’t the legal profession advocating for clinical legal education to be a mandatory aspect of law degrees?Obviously the answers to these questions are going to be jurisdiction and university specific. In this paper I address one possible response, the branding of clinical legal education. Although my comments are informed by what is happening in Australian university sector and my recent work with five Australian clinicians in our best practices project, I hope my remarks have some common resonance to differing clinical legal education environments

The Challenge of Defining Unmet Legal Need

Research on unmet legal need in Australia is long overdue and this delay has been articulated in many spheres. Although there was significant work done on defining and studying the problems of access to justice in the 1970s and early 1980s, there has been little academic work done since.In June 1998, the Australian Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee noted that there were inadequate data on the "unmet need" for legal aid.The same committee reported in 2004 that there had been no progress and restated the urgent need for reliable data on which to base government decisions. A number of other Australian organisations have acknowledged that research into unmet legal need should be undertaken as a matter of urgency. They include the Victorian Parliamentary Law Reform Committee, National Legal Aid,and the Law Council of Australia

Ethical Challenges for Mediators around the Globe: An Australian Perspective

Like much of the western world, in Australia, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) is an integral aspect of the modern legal system, and mediation is used extensively to resolve civil disputes in courts and tribunals. Additionally, Australian governments have recognized mediation as an important tool in improving access to justice for ordinary citizens. However, what justice means in the mediation context is a contested concept. The widespread use of mediation and the increase in the number of practitioners from various disciplines means there is a diversity of views on issues of justice, which are outlined in this Article. This Article explores the ethical challenges mediators face, including how they identify and respond to those challenges. The authors contextualize the research study and detail the current academic analysis of mediators’ views and their research approach. Then, the authors examine the concept of justice in mediation, sketching the debates about justice in mediation and mediation ethics. This Article explores the topic of ethics in mediation, including what is an ethical issue, standards in mediation, and the core values of mediation. The authors describe the current regulatory system for mediators in Australia, as well as provisions of relevant codes of conduct. Then, this Article sets out the participant mediators’ responses to a sexual harassment scenario and summarizes the participants’ responses concerning mediators and ethical issues, with a discussion of the role of informed decision-making and reality testing in ethical mediation practice

Pushing The Boundaries or Preserving the Status Quo? Designing clinical programs to teach law students a deep understanding of ethical practice

The clinical legal education environment is one that is ripe with professional and ethical situations. Students involved in this educational experience inevitably are exposed to ethical dilemmas and choices. In this paper we examine the role played by clinical legal education programs in the development of ethical awareness among those law students. Within the context of the well documented concerns in the wider legal profession as to the standard of ethics teaching and ethical practice we assert that the clinical environment provides a rich opportunity for a deep learning experience about the nature and extent of a legal practitioner’s professional and ethical responsibilities

Pushing The Boundaries or Preserving the Status Quo? Designing Clinical Programs to Teach Law Students a Deep Understanding of Ethical Practice

The clinical legal education environment is one that is ripe with professional and ethical situations. Students involved in this educational experience inevitably are exposed to ethical dilemmas and choices. In this paper we examine the role played by clinical legal education programs in the development of ethical awareness among those law students. Within the context of the well documented concerns in the wider legal profession as to the standard of ethics teaching and ethical practice we assert that the clinical environment provides a rich opportunity for a deep learning experience about the nature and extent of a legal practitioner’s professional and ethical responsibilities