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

1. Explain the history and contemporary features of the Australian legal system, including its key institutions, doctrines and principles.
2. Apply fundamental legal rules and principles in a wide range of selected areas of the law.
3. Conduct legal research and analysis.
4. Communicate effectively in small group settings.
   
   

Reading / Textbook

The required textbook for the course is:

• Nickolas James, Rachael Field & Jackson Walkden-Brown, The New Lawyer (2nd edition) (Wiley, 2019)

Students may access copies of the textbook in the high use collection of the Law Library, which is located on the Ground/Lower Ground floors of the Ligertwood Building, Adelaide Law School.

In addition to the textbook, a variety of other materials including academic articles, legislation and case law, will be assigned as required readings. These materials will be made available to students through the MyUni course site.

None.

Given the wide range of topics covered in this course, there is no one text which adequately covers all of the material. Moreover, much of the content is legal in nature and the principal texts in each area are designed for scholars and students of the law. However, should you require assistance with any particular area of the law as covered in the course, there are plenty of useful resources available in the Law Library in the Ground/Lower Ground floors of the Ligertwood Building, Adelaide Law School. The Law Library staff would be more than willing to assist you in this regard. You are also welcome to consult your teachers for guidance on texts that might be of use to help deepen your understanding of particular legal concepts.

The MyUni course page for this course can be accessed at http://www.adelaide.edu.au/myuni/.

Besides this Course Profile, students can use MyUni to access copies of the PowerPoint slides used in lectures, recordings of lectures, assessment tasks and other course materials. Students are expected to check MyUni regularly to keep up to date with these materials and additional learning resources throughout the course.

The delivery of this course consists of a 2 hour lecture and a 1 hour seminar each week. Lectures will provide students with an overview of the week's topic while seminars will build on the lectures by having students work through problem questions and practical exercises to help students develop their understanding of the content. Students will also be assessed for their active participation in the class.

Each lecture will be recorded automatically and posted on Echo360 on MyUni. Seminars are not recorded. It is therefore to the benefit of students to attend and actively participate in each weekly seminar.

Contact time: attend 2 hours lecture plus 1 hour seminar each week.  This amounts to 36 hours of formal class time across the semester.

The University expects full-time students (ie those taking 12 units per semester) to devote a total of 48 hours per week to their studies during semester. This means that in addition to lectures and seminars, students should spend an additional 9 or 10 hours per week in private study in the course across the semester – this includes doing the readings, preparing for the lecture and seminar activities, participation in group work, and undertaking the assessment tasks.

Learning activities will involve weekly lectures and seminars.

Lectures are a teacher-driven learning activity that involve the relaying of knowledge and information. Seminars are designed to be more interactive than lectures. Students are expected to prepare preliminary answers to seminar questions in advance of the seminar to facilitate useful in-class discussions among students in a small group setting. Seminars are largely student driven with seminar leaders having the role of learning facilitators. 

Schedule

Week	Topic to be covered
1	Introduction to the Australian Legal System and the Legal Profession
2	Australia's Legal Foundations and Constitutional Law
3	Parliament – Overview
4	Parliament and the Law Making Process of Statutes
5	Law and the Media
6	Statute Law: Statutory Interpretation (Into)
7	Statute Law: Statutory Interpretation (Cont)
8	Courts, the Common Law and the doctrine of precedent
9	Legal Research and referencing
10	Legal Theory and Conducting Legal Research
11	Criminal Law and Procedure
12	Future Directions and Trends in Law

Assessment Task	Task Type	Due Date	Weighting	Redeemable?	Learning Outcomes
Active Participation	Individual assessment	Ongoing through semester	10%	Yes	1-4
Academic Integrity Quiz	Individual assessment	Week 2 Open for 48 hrs	5%	No	University Policy / Ethics
Law Online Quiz	Individual assessment	Week 5 Open for 48 hrs	10%	No	1-3
Media Analysis	Individual assessment max 1500 words	Friday, Week 7, 2pm	30%	No	1-4
Research Essay	Individual assessment max 2500 words	Friday, Week 12, 2pm	45-55%	No	1-4

1. Active Participation - 10% of final grade
   
   This assessment item requires all students to attend and actively participate in class, particularly in seminars where students will need to work through problem questions and legal research exercises. Students will start the semester with a default full active participation grade with any deductions being made throughout the semester for missing seminars or failing to actively participate in class.
   
   A student's active participation mark is reedeemable against the Research Essay.
   
   
2. Academic Integrity Quiz - 5% of final grade
   
   This assessment requires all students to complete a module on appropriate referencing for University work and related academic integrity issues and then complete an online quiz. Students can take the quiz multiple times. The module and quiz must be completed by the end of Week 2.
   
   
3. Law Quiz - 10% of final grade
   
   This assessment item requires all students to take an online quiz which assesses student comprehension of legal principles discussed in the first four weeks of the course. The quiz involves answering 15 multiple choice questions and 2 short answer analysis questions.  The quiz will be available for completion by students at any time during a 48-hour period during Week 5. During this time, students may log in and out of the quiz. Completed answers can be saved but the quiz cannot be resubmitted. Questions will be randomised from a larger pool of questions.
   
   See above for due date.
   
   
4. Media Analysis - 30% of final grade
   
   This assessment item requires all students to submit a written paper of no more than 1500 words in length. Students will be required to identify and critically assess a law-related media article and consider its relevance to the Australian legal sytsem, the techniques utilised by media to present legal issues and the role played by media in the legal process.  Further instructions on the expected content and formatting will be provided at the start of semester.
   
   See above for due date.
   
   
5. Research essay - 45-55% of final grade
   
   The final assessment item requires all students to engage in legal research and submit a written argumentative essay of no more than 2500 words in length. Students will be given a choice of essay questions at the start of semester.  Further instructions on the expected content and formatting will be provided at the start of semester.
   
   See above for due date.

1. Students must retain a copy of all assignments submitted.
2. The assignment paper must be submitted via 'TurnitIn' on MyUni. Details for electronic submission through Turnitin will be provided with the task instructions. All assessments will be submitted and monitored through text or code comparative software (e.g. Turnitin) where possible.
3. By submitting your papers you are agreeing: (a) That all material in the assessment is your own work except where there is clear acknowledgement and reference to the work of others; (b) That you have read the University's Academic Integrity Policy; and (C) To give permission for your 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.
4. Late Submission: When an assignment 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 assignment graded 63% will have 5% deducted if it is one hour late, for a final grade of 58%, 10% if it is 25 hours late, etc.
5. Word Length: 5% of the total mark possible for a written assessment will be deducted for every 100 words (or part thereof) by which it exceeds a stipulated word limit. For example, a 2,000-word assignment graded at 63% will have 5% deducted if it is between 2,001 and 2,100 words long for a final mark of 58%. If the assignment is between 2,101 and 2,200 words long, 10% will be deducted for a final mark of 53%. Words are calculated including all words in the text, including headings and quotations, and citations (footnotes or in-text references). Any separate cover page, table of contents, bibliography or list of sources is excluded from the word count. If the word count is misstated, this may be regarded as academic misconduct.
6. Extensions: Requests for extensions must be made using the appropriate 'Assessment Task Extension' online form available at https://www.adelaide.edu.au/student/exams/assessment-applications/assessment-extension?check_logged_in=1. Extensions will be granted only for limited medical, compassionate or extenuating circumstances in accordance with University Policy.
7. Style of written work: All written work in the Law school is required to comply with the most recent edition of the approved Law School style guide, the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. This is freely available online and in hard copy in the Law Library. However, on account that students in this course are not Law students, Harvard referencing will be accepted. 
8. Turnaround time: All written works for this course will be returned to students within 3 weeks of the submission date. Individual feedback will be provided on each paper.

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.

Student feedback The course is constantly being updated and revised to reflect the evolution of the law, to respond to student feedback, and to engage with the latest teaching practices. Student feedback is collected each time the course is run, including through SELT reports. Previous SELT reports, and staff feedback on them, are posted on the course MyUni site for students to view and consider.

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.