Units

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Sample subject outline - 6 Week Teaching Period - 1 2013

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

The Australasian Professional Legal Education Council (APLEC) and the Law Admissions Consultative Committee LACC) have published standards for the pre-admission practical training of Australian legal practitioners (APLEC & LACC (2000) Practical legal training: competency standards for entry level lawyers). Those standards have been adopted in Queensland as part of the admission rules for the legal profession. The learning outcomes and content of this unit reflects core elements of those standards.

Aims

The aim of this unit is to equip you to demonstrate competence in certain legal skills at the level required for admission as a legal practitioner in Australia.

Objectives

On completion of this unit, you should be able to demonstrate competency in the areas listed below, at the level required for admission as a legal practitioner:

1. Effective communication in the context of client Interviewing, letter writing and advocacy


2. Document drafting


3. Negotiating settlements and agreements


4. Facilitating the early resolution of disputes


5. Representing a client in court

Content

This unit consists of training in:

• plain English writing and drafting;


• letter writing;


• document drafting;


• legal interviewing;


• public speaking;


• negotiation and other dispute resolution alternatives;


• court etiquette, procedures and advocacy.

QUT expects graduates will have developed graduate capabilities of a kind and level appropriate to their award. This unit aims to develop the capabilities that are identified within the context of the unit content.

Attitudinal skills
Ethical orientation
Social justice orientation

Cognitive skills
Problem solving
Discipline knowledge
Ethical knowledge

Communication skills
Oral communication
Oral presentations
Advocacy
Legal Interviewing
Negotiation
Written communication
Drafting

Relational skills
Work independently
Team work
Diversity appreciation

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

This unit will involve you in attending a short attendance school (which may include weekends) to participate in briefing sessions, group work, workshops and skills performance activities such as interviewing.

The unit also relies on 'learning by doing' which in this context means that you learn by working through a series of problems that simulate real legal transactions or proceedings, or parts of them. Advice on how to approach each problem and hints to help you complete the problem are built into the problem materials. You will receive further assistance at the intensive weekends and on-line.

Because this unit forms part of your pre-admission training for the legal profession, you must participate in all prescribed teaching and learning activities and you must make a satisfactory or pass attempt at all the problems set for assessment.

Assessment

Assessment context

You undertake assessment in the context of working on the type of problems that you might encounter in real-life legal practice. You should expect to spend the equivalent of approximately 6 hours per week over a 13 week teaching period working on these problems. The problems are realistic legal tasks that will require you to demonstrate one or more of the following:

1. skills (such as advising and letter writing);


2. an understanding of the law, practice and procedures involved in a stage of a legal transaction or proceedings;


3. an ability to identify and deal with ethical issues; and


4. an ability to carry out aspects of legal proceedings or transactions.

You will be provided with a unit work schedule that will indicate that some assessment tasks are assessed on a satisfactory/not satisfactory basis. These are formative assessment items. The assessment statement will show that other problems are assessed on a 'graded' basis. These are summative assessment items.

Formative assessment (Satisfactory/Not satisfactory assessment items)

These assessment tasks are building blocks for your learning and skills development in a particular context. They provide an opportunity for you to test your knowledge and skills and obtain feedback on your performance before attempting summative (graded) assessment items. Feedback will be provided by one or more of these means:

• workshops;


• individual comments on your work;


• peer review;


• on-line feedback either to you individually or to the whole student cohort.

Although no marks are attached to these items, you must complete them all to a satisfactory standard to pass the unit. If your first attempt at one of these items is not satisfactory, you will be asked to redo it. The criteria for determining a satisfactory standard of performance is contained in the GradDipLegalPrac assessment policy.

Date Due: Multiple dates throughout the semester;
Weight: 0%.

Graded assessment

These items are marked according to criteria which are set out in the 'Marking Criteria' section of relevant problem materials.

Date Due - Multiple dates throughout the semester;
Weight - 100%.

Assessment name: Laboratory/Practical
Relates to objectives: N/A
Weight: 100%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: various dates

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

We will provide you with electronic copies of the problems that you have to work through for the unit, via QUT Blackboard.

You will be able to access other resource materials via the QUT Library or internet.

Risk assessment statement

There are no extraordinary risks associated with this unit.

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 19-Dec-2012