Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Law (Volume 3 page 226)
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Optional Law subject.
Pre/Corequisite: Environmental and Planning Law I; Environmental and Planning Law II.
Contact: 11/2 hours of class contact per week. 1/2 hour individual contact with each student per week.
Timetable: First semester
Objectives:
The primary aim of this subject is to facilitate the construction of legal competence and the facility for self-evaluation in students as environmental lawyers by providing a variety of structured "real life" environmental problems for students to work through and by providing intensive feedback. At the end of the course successful student interns will be able to: understand the nexus between environmental legal theory and practice and the dynamic context in which law is created, used and applied; deal with "real life" legal problems in the role of a lawyer and assume a lawyer's responsibility for decision and action to solve problems of the sort that environmental lawyers actually encounter in practice; identify and analyse complex environmental problems and issues; formulate, consider and evaluate possible responses to a problem situation; plan a course of legal action and execute the plan to solve the problem; understand the importance of the delivery of pro bono legal services to indigent clients; grasp the seriousness of professional responsibility and ethics, especially as it relates to client confidentiality; understand the importance of the link between technological innovation and legal research and communications in the field of environmental law; appreciate the capacities and limitations of lawyers and the legal system and various approaches to environmental problems; develop models of analysis for understanding past experience and modifying future behaviour and legal strategies.
Content:
The subject is designed along the lines of an environmental law clinic. The clinic will operate as a "law firm" by using real cases of the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW), a group of public interest environmental lawyers, academics and scientists from over 35 different countries dedicated to promoting environmental protection across borders by sharing legal and scientific information and resources. As interns with E-LAW, students will make extensive use of the internet and email (as well as more traditional forms of legal research) to develop legal tactics, strategies and policies in a large number of public interest environmental cases that are being investigated or currently pending before municipal courts all over the world.Student interns will learn to function as environmental lawyers. Each intern will spend the majority of their time working on a number of assigned cases. Class contact time will consist of a weekly 11/2 hour Case Review Session with all interns, similar to those at major law firms or government litigation offices. Case Review Sessions will provide an opportunity for student interns to focus on their individual cases or special issues arising therefrom. In the Case Review Sessions, interns will be expected to be prepared to quickly summarise the substance and status of their cases and present current legal, factual, or scientific issues. The lecturer and all student interns will then discuss strategies and tactics, legal research, scientific and technological issues, policy and politics. The lecturer will also meet with each intern for a scheduled weekly 1/2 hour Individual Case Review Session to expand on previous discussions or to review performance. Before these sessions, interns will turn in a time-sheet accounting for their time and a Case Status Report which records an intern's progress on each file he or she is working on and sets future tasks and goals.
As interns work through and complete projects, it will be necessary to review performance and provide feedback. In addition to feedback provided in the Individual Case Review Sessions, a more formal class seminar will be held fortnightly to analyse and evaluate completed projects. Interns will be expected to take the class through the project and discuss, among other things, how objectives were set, what courses of action were considered, how decisions were made, and satisfaction with the outcome.
Assessment:
Student interns will be assessed based on five considerations: individual conferences, case status reports, participation in case review, informal meetings and discussions, and perhaps most importantly, an evaluation of final work product. The grade will be based on the following criteria and percentages:Legal work product (pleadings, memoranda, briefs, etc. ) (70 per cent)
Case Status Reports/Time Sheets (15 per cent)
Case Review participation (15 per cent)
Prescribed texts:
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Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Law (Volume 3 page 226)
Status: Official 1996 Date created: Oct 9 1995 Last modified: Oct 9 1995 Authorised by: Academic Registrar Email enquiries: Course_Information@registrar.unimelb.edu.au
Maintained by: Faculty of Law.
Copyright © University of Melbourne 1995,1996.