Thursday 1 October
Public Lecture: The Rise of Animal Law Education: A Discipline Whose Time Is Now
Proudly hosted by Voiceless, the Centre for Professional Legal Education at Bond University and the Center for Animal Law Studies at Lewis & Clark Law School.
Animal law education was introduced into U.S. law school curricula half a century ago, but it has only been in recent years that the field has witnessed dramatic growth. Today, over 150 U.S. law schools offer at least one course in animal law, with a half dozen now boasting fully fledged animal law programs. As impressive as this trend may be, it fails to capture the discipline’s hard-fought struggle for legitimacy within academia, as well as the critical need for animal law education beyond the U.S. today. Dr Rajesh K Reddy, the director of the world’s first advanced animal law degree program, will discuss the rise of a field that few in the world had ever heard of into one that the world can no longer do without. Attendees will leave this talk with a deeper appreciation of this burgeoning area of the law, as well as how they can help sustain its success in the years to come.
Dr Rajesh K Reddy
Director, Animal Law LLM Program, Center for Animal Law Studies, Lewis & Clark Law School
Friday 2 October
Plenary Panel: Is legal education in Australia over-regulated or under-regulated?
This panel session will explore whether law schools and other legal education providers are unreasonably constrained by the obligation to comply with the ‘Priestley 11’, Admission Requirements, the LACC Standards, the Competency Standards for Entry Level Lawyers, the CALD Standards, the AQF, the Higher Education Standards, and so on, or whether legal education providers require additional or alternative regulation to raise the standard of teaching and improve student learning outcomes. A key focus will be upon whether the current regulatory environment promotes or inhibits harmonisation of the stages in a lawyer’s lifelong learning journey.
Emeritus Professor Sandford Clark
Former Chair, Law Admissions Consultative Committee (LACC)
Professor Lesley Hitchens
Dean, Faculty of Law, UTS; Chair, Council of Australasian Law Deans
Professor Alex Steel
Director Teaching Strategy, University of NSW
Associate Professor Kate Galloway
Griffith University; Editor-in-Chief, Legal Education Review
Professor Caroline Strevens
Head, School of Law, University of Portsmouth; Academy Chair, Association of Law Teachers (UK)
Saturday 3 October
Plenary Debate: ‘You had one job!’: Law schools are failing at preparing graduates for practice
This debate will explore both sides of the argument about whether or not law schools in Australia are doing enough to prepare law students for contemporary legal practice, adopting an approach that is simultaneously insightful, informative and playful.
Professor Sally Kift
President, Australian Learning and Teaching Fellows; former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), James Cook University
The Hon Michael Lavarch AO
Emeritus Professor and former Dean of Law, QUT
Luke Murphy
President, Queensland Law Society
Ann-Maree David
Executive Director, College of Law
Assistant Professor Tanya Atwill
Director, Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Bond University
Matthew Roach
Director, Parampara
Saturday 3 October
Plenary Presentation: Trauma, stigma and compassionate engagement: The need for reform in legal education, training and practice
Psychological trauma is a common experience of clients and witnesses in criminal law practice and other areas including family law, child protection, domestic violence and refugee law. Trauma interferes with the legal process by disturbing a person’s memory and their decision-making and may cause a range of PTSD symptoms including anxiety and depression which can reduce their effective participation in mediation or litigation. In this plenary presentation Dr Colin James, ANU, will propose a trauma-informed culture-change in all three branches of the profession: legal education, training and practice.
Dr Colin James
ANU College of Law