Practical Legal Training Programme
The Practical Legal Training programme at Flinders Law School is integrated within the Bachelor of Laws and Legal Practice degree in two ways.
Firstly, professional legal skills are taught within the context of substantive law topics throughout the course as follows:
- Legal Research is taught within Legal Method;
- Oral advocacy is taught within Advanced Contract;
- Working in a group is taught within Constitutional Law;
- Interviewing skills are taught in the topic Administrative Law;
- Drafting skills are taught in Corporate Law;
- Negotiation skills have been taught in Resolving Civil Disputes and from 2006, in Advanced (Principles of) Civil Litigation.
In addition, the first year topic Lawyering: Procedures and Ethics provides an overview of legal practice, a study of ethical responsibilities of lawyers and an introduction to the skills components.
The second level of integration of the PLT programme is found in the practice topics which relate to specific areas of legal practice. Those topics are:
|
Advocacy
Criminal Practice
Legal Practice Management [Placement]
Civil Litigation and
|
Advanced Civil Litigation
Commercial and Corporate Practice
Succession and Estates Practice
Property Practice
|
Enrolment requirements and deadlines must be regarded as likely to be strictly enforced. The Law Society teaches Legal Practice Management [Placement] for us, and their planning is based on numbers we are obliged to provide by mid-December. We cannot compel the Law Society to accept those students who fail to enrol on time.
All practice topics are taught in concentrated forms so that they are completed in part of a semester. The details of the offering in 2006 are set out on pages to be inserted.
Students must complete both the skills topics and the practice topics to satisfy the requirements for admission to practice.
Students must carefully note the following. The approval of the LLB/LP degree by this State’s admitting authority (LPEAC) is premised on the requirement that students not enrol in Legal Practice (ie Practical Legal Training) topics until they have the necessary background for doing so. That means that students must follow the progression of topics as set out in the following chart, at least so far as completing certain topics prior to enrolling in Legal Practice topics. Failure to do so could put admission to practice in jeopardy.
The Law School attempts to control progression through the imposition of prerequisites. While waivers of prerequisites are possible in exceptional circumstances, in some cases students will need to get the approval of LPEAC first if they want to be sure that admission to practice will be able to go ahead. For this reason, all students seeking waivers of prerequisites for Legal Practice topics must direct their applications through the Director of Practical Legal Training, who can, in exceptional circumstances, assist with seeking the approval of LPEAC. See further below in the section on Prerequisites.
The co-ordination of the Practical Legal Training programme is the responsibility of the Director of Practical Legal Training, Rachel Spencer, located in Room 2.27 of the Law and
Commerce Building . She can be contacted via email: rachel.spencer@flinders.edu.au or by telephone: 08 8201 3986. Please note that communication to students about practical legal training matters will be via email and via WebCT. Students must check their Flinders email account regularly for notices and information.
|
