Tag: Law
Long Working Hours Are Making Australians: Unproductive, Mentally Ill, Physically Ill
Research indicates working more than 48 hours a week is associated with significant declines in productivity, more mistakes and more mental health problems. Yet the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons reckons working up to 65 hours a week “is appropriate for trainees to gain the knowledge and experience required”. It’s an attitude that explains why a 2017 audit found ...
Hypotheticals by Geoffrey Robertson (1985 – 1990): A TV Review
In the early 1980s, Geoffrey Robertson was approached by a CBS broadcaster to create the first of his ‘Hypotheticals’ for American television. [1] The premise of the show was simple. In each episode, Robertson, an established QC, would pose hypotheticals to a panel of top-profile guests, guiding them through the scenarios with interogative questioning. The ...
Book Review: Inside Family Law: Conversations from the Coalface
I was recently given an advanced copy of Zoe Durand's Inside Family Law: Conversations from the Coalface. I decided to review the book, in part because it sounded interesting to read firsthand accounts of family law in practice. Below is my review in full: Family law is an area of law known for emotional and psychological ...
Law Schools are Failing Their Students
This is a brief excerpt from my book Legal Education, Privatization and the Market, about the role universities play in guiding young law students away from charity and towards private practice.
Can creativity SAVE your job from automation?
Around 40% of all law jobs are at risk of automation, according to a 2016 Deloitte report. Traditional skills expected of law graduates are increasingly going to be undertaken by new AI-driven software. Basic skills such as database research and document drafting are already being automated by large Australian law firms. The race is on ...
The Real Socratic Method: Law Schools Fail to Understand Why Socrates Asked So Many Questions
In a true Socratic law school, I suggest, students would be instructed to ask questions to those in authority instead of answering them. Nothing and no one would be beyond a student’s questioning, especially by virtue of claims to authority or expertise alone.
Is law a social science? Lessons from a Canadian law school
From their very first lectures, law students are told not to equate legal ethics with morality, to ignore emotional responses to cases and to ignore any idea of reforming the law. Instead, they are taught legal positivism or ‘pure law’. Pure law is the teaching of law without the ‘baggage’ of the social sciences: without history, politics, ...
