Course Co-coordinator:
Dr Francesco de Zwart
Room 2.13 Ligertwood Building

Phone: (08) 8313 8304
Email: francesco.dezwart@adelaide.edu.au

Lecturer
Dr Beth Nosworthy
Room 3.09 Ligertwood Building

Phone: (08) 8313 5543
Email:beth.nosworthy@adelaide.edu.au  

On successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Apply and evaluate the principles of equity, engaging actively with both primary and secondary materials.
2. Resolve complex equity problems, engaging in advanced critique of the operation of equity from a theoretical perspective.
3. Structure and sustain concise and persuasive written arguments for a legal audience.
4. Exercise appropriate judgement in conducting and analysing legal research and applying principles of equity.
5. Analyse the impact and operation of equity from a social and policy perspective, in the context of social and cultural diversity.
6. Research, apply and evaluate the principles of express trusts, including the duties, rights and powers of trustees and the consequences of breach of trust and the remedies available to, and respective rights of, beneficiaries, engaging actively with both primary and secondary materials.

The Legal Practitioners' Education and Admissions Council (LPEAC) sets rules for the academic requirements for admission to legal practice in South Australia.

Students must demonstrate a satisfactory level of understanding and application of 11 core areas of legal knowledge. This course teaches the following topics within these core areas:

EQUITY:
The nature of equity
Equitable rights, titles and interests
Estoppel in equity
Fiduciary obligations
Unconscionable transactions       
Equitable remedies.

Trusts, with particular reference to the various types of trusts and the manner and form of their creation and variation. The duties, rights and powers of trustees should be included, as should the consequences of breach of trust and the remedies available to, and respective rights of, beneficiaries.  (It is expected that about half the course will be devoted to trusts.)

The required textbook for this course is:

Radan and Stewart, Principles of Australian Equity and Trusts (4th edition, LexisNexis, 2019).

Students might also find it useful to refer to the following:

1. Radan, Stewart and Vickovich, Principles of Australian Equity and Trusts Cases and Materials, 3rd Edition, LexisNexis, 2016
2. Dal Pont, Equity and Trusts in Australia, 7th Edition, Thomson Reuters, 2019
3. Dal Pont, Equity and Trusts Commentary and Materials, 7th Edition, Thomsom Reuters, 2019

It is the intention of this course to record all lectures and place them on MyUni.

Learning and teaching in this course will take place through both lectures and seminars. Lectures will be supported and more fully developed by problem-solving seminars, so as to develop material introduced in lectures and aid students' understanding of the concepts.

Seminars will be held weekly, beginning in Week 2.  Seminars will both consolidate material covered in earlier lectures and canvas new material which will not be addressed in lectures.  Seminars are an important component of students' learning in this course. The communication skills developed by regular and active participation in seminar discussions are considered to be most important by the School and are highly regarded by employers and professional bodies.

In this course, each student will receive two (one hour) lectures plus one (one hour) seminar per week. It is essential to realize that the University expects full-time students (that is, those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies. As Equity is a 3 unit subject, a student should devote approximately 12 hours to it a week (obviously this is an average figure, as some weeks will be very busy with the assignment or preparing for the exam, while other weeks will be less busy). As students can see, the total contact hours per student totals 3 hours per week. Therefore, a student in this course would be expected to do approximately 9 hours work per week for this course in addition to the lectures and seminars times. It is very important that students begin working on their own (in addition to attending lectures and seminars) from the very start of this course. Without doing this, students are compromising their own learning outcomes.

Schedule of Lecture Topics

Week 1	History and Nature of Equity (TBA)
Week 2	Express Trusts (TBA)
Week 3	Express Trusts (cont'd) (TBA)
Week 4	Resulting Trusts (FdZ)
Week 5	Fraud in Equity (FdZ)
Week 6	Fraud in Equity (cont'd) (FdZ)
Week 7	Fiduciary Relationships (FdZ)
Week 8	Fiduciary Relationships (cont'd) (FdZ)
Week 9	Constructive Trusts (FdZ)
Week 10	Constructive Trusts (cont'd) (FdZ)
Week 11	Remedies (FdZ)
Week 12	Summary and Revision (FdZ)

There may be changes in content and to the order in which the various topics are taught.

Assessment Task	Weighting	Assessment Type	Due	Length	Redeemable	Learning Outcome
Problem Question Assignment	40%	Individual	2.00pm Friday 9th April 2021	2,500 words	Yes, provided a mark of 40 % is achieved or a bona fide effort (as assessed by the course co-ordinator) has been made in respect of it	2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Take Home Assignment	60%	Individual	9.00am-3.00pm Friday of Week 13  11th June 2021	6 hours (4,000 word limit)	No	1, 2, 3, 4, 5

It is NOT compulsory to attend lectures and/or seminars. However attendance is strongly advised.The mark(s) a student receives for the problem question assignment is redeemable by the exam provided that a mark of 40 per cent is obtained or a bona fide effort (as assessed by the course co-ordinator) has been made in respect of it.

The mark for the exam is NOT redeemable.

Problem Question Assignment

40% - 2,500 word limit - Due by 2.00 pm on Friday 9 April 2021

This item of assessment will examine material covered in the first 3 weeks of lectures (and any material covered in tutorials up to the end of week 4). It will constitute 40% of the student’s final mark.

A 2,500 word limit applies.

This assignment is redeemable, provided a mark of 40 % or more is achieved or a bona fide effort (as assessed by the course co-ordinator) has been made in respect of it.


Take Home Assignment (60%)

6 hours
4,000 word limit
9.00 am - 3.00 pm on Friday 11 June 2021 of Week 13

A late penalty of 5% of the student’s final mark per hour or part thereof will be imposed.
A word limit penalty of 5% of the student’s final mark per 100 words or part thereof over the limit will be imposed.
Detailed instructions with marking criteria will be distributed with the Assignment.

Problem Question Assignment

Submission process for Problem Question Assignment:  You will be informed of all submission procedures when the assessment question is distributed.  Where possible, students will be requested to submit a copy of their assignment through Turnitin on MyUni.  By submitting a copy of your assignment through Turnitin you are agreeing to the following: (a) I declare that all material in this assessment is my own work except where there is clear acknowledgement and reference to the work of others. I have read the Policy on Cheating in Examinations and Related Forms of Assessment. I have also read the University's Plagiarism Policy; (b) I give permission for my assessment work to be reproduced and submitted to other  academic staff for the purposes of assessment and to be copied, submitted and retained in a form suitable for electronic checking of plagiarism.

Late submission penalties for Problem Question Assignment: When an assessment is submitted after the due date, without an extension, 5% of the total mark possible will be deducted for every 24 hours or part thereof that it is late, including each day on a weekend and public holidays. For example, an essay that is submitted after the due date and time but within the first 24 hour period, and that has been graded at 63%, will have 5% deducted, for a final grade of 58%. An essay that is more than 24 hours late will lose 10%, etc.

Word length penalties for Problem Question Assignment:  5% of the total mark possible for a written assssment
will be deducted for every 100 words (or part thereof) by which it exceeds a stipulated word limit. For example, a 3,000 word essay graded at 63% will have 5 % deducted if it is between 3,001 and 3,100 words long for a final mark of 58%. If the essay is between 3,101 and 3,200 words long, 10 % will be deducted for a final mark of 53%, etc. Word limits include all words in the text, in headings, in quotations, but exclude citations in footnotes. Any separate cover page, table of contents, bibliopgraphy or list of sources is excluded from any word limit. If the word limit is misstated, this may be regarded as academic dishonesty.

Style of written work: All written work in the Law school is required to comply with the approved Law School style guide, the Australian Guide to Legal Citation, 4th Edition (available electronically at: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/mulr/aglc/about).

Take Home Assignment 

Submission process, late submission penalty and word length penalty for Take Home Assignment

Submitted answers will be checked through the Turnitin plagiarism software.

A late penalty of 5% of the student's final mark per hour late or part thereof will be imposed.

Word Limit: 4,000 words in total. You must place your total word count at the end of your answer document. A penalty of 5% of the student's final mark per 100 words or part thereof over the limit will be imposed. In-text referencing does not count in the wordcount. Footnote referencing does not count in the word count but cannot include any substantive discussion. Headings and sub-headings do not count in the wordcount provided they are reasonable in length.

Finality of Assessment Grades

Students are advised that Course Coordinators will not enter into negotiations of any kind with any student regarding changes to their grades. It is irrelevant, in any given circumstance, that only a minimal number of additional marks are required to inflate a student’s grade for any individual assessment item or course as a whole. Pursuant to the University’s Assessment for Coursework Programs Policyand the Adelaide Law School Assessment Policies and Procedures, grades may only be varied through the appropriate channels for academic review (such as an official re-mark).

Moderation

In accordance with the University’s Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy, course coordinators ‘ensure that appropriate marking guidelines and cross-marking moderation processes across markers are in place’ in each course. Procedures adopted by Adelaide Law School to ensure consistency of marking in courses with multiple markers include:

• assurance of the qualifications of markers, and their knowledge of the content covered in each course;
• detailed marking guidelines and assessment rubrics to assist in the marking of items of assessment;
• sharing of example marked assessments at various grade bands across markers;
• reviewing of selected marked assessments from each marker by the course coordinator;
• comparison of the marks and their distribution across markers;
• automatic double-marking of all interim assessment receiving a fail grade, and of final assessments where a student’s overall result is a fail grade;
• the availability of re-marking of assessments in accordance with Adelaide Law School’s Assessment Policies and Procedures.

Approval of Results by Board of Examiners

Students are reminded that all assessment results are subject to approval (and possible moderation/change) by the Law School’s Board of Examiners. Assessment results at the University are not scaled. Under the Assessment for Coursework Programs Policy, students are assessed ‘by reference to their performance against pre-determined criteria and standards … and not by ranking against the performance of the student cohort in the course’. However, under that same policy, the Board of Examiners (as the relevant Assessment Review Committee for courses at Adelaide Law School) is required to ‘ensure comparability of standards and consistency’ in assessment. On occasions, the Board of Examiners will form the view that some moderation is required to ensure the comparability of standards and consistency across courses and years, and accordingly provide fairness to all law students. All assessment results are therefore subject to approval (and possible change) until confirmed by the Board of Examiners and posted on Access Adelaide at the end of each semester.

The University Writing Centre provides academic learning and language development services and resources for local, international, undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students enrolled at the University of Adelaide.

The centre offers practical advice and strategies for students to master reading, writing, note-taking, time management, oral presentation skills, referencing techniques and exam preparation for success at university through seminars, workshops and individual consultations.

Lex Salus Program

Lex Salus (law and wellbeing) is an initiative of the Adelaide Law School aimed at destigmatising mental health issues; promoting physical, mental and emotional wellness; building a strong community of staff and students; and celebrating diversity within the school. It also seeks to promote wellness within the legal profession, through the involvement of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia, the Honourable Chris Kourakis, as the official Patron of the program.

Students can participate in the Lex Salus program by attending barbecue lunches, pancake breakfasts, knitting and crochet circles, seminars, guest speakers, conferences and other activities. Our Facebook page, website and regular all-student emails promote upcoming events, and have tips and information on wellness.

Our Lex Salus YouTube channel also includes videos on topics like managing stress, and interviews with LGBTQ lawyers and their supporters which celebrate diversity and individuality. Students who commit to 10 hours of volunteering with Lex Salus in one year can have their service recognised on their academic transcript and through a thank you morning tea with the Chief Justice and law school staff.

Student Life Counselling Support

The University’s Student Life Counselling Support service provides free and confidential service to all enrolled students. We encourage you to contact the Student Life Counselling Support service on 8313 5663 to make an appointment to deal with any issues that may be affecting your study and life.

Academic Integrity

All students must be familiar with the University’s Academic Integrity Policy. Academic Misconduct is a serious matter and is treated as such by the Law School and the University. Academic Misconduct (which goes beyond plagiarism) can be a ground for a refusal by the Supreme Court of South Australia to admit a person to practice as a legal practitioner in South Australia. Academic Integrity is an essential aspect of ethical and honest behaviour, which is central to the practice of the law and an understanding of what it is to be a lawyer.