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. This unit covers the core practice area of 'Civil litigation practice' as contained in those standards.

Aims

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

Objectives

On completion of this unit, you should be equipped with the knowledge, skills and values that you will need to demonstrate competency in the areas listed below, at the level required for admission as a legal practitioner:

1. Assess merits of case and identify dispute resolution alternatives


2. Initiate and respond to legal proceedings


3. Either take and respond to interlocutory proceedings or take default proceedings


4. Gather and present evidence


5. Negotiate settlement and take action to enforce orders or settlement agreements.

Content

This unit consists of training in:

• Exploring dispute resolution alternatives


• Advice letters


• Claims and responses


• Interlocutory or default proceedings


• Preparation for trial or brief to counsel


• Settlement and enforcement

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 below within the context of the unit content.

Attitudinal skills
Ethical orientation
Social justice orientation
Pro-active behaviour

Cognitive skills
Problem Solving
Discipline knowledge
Ethical knowledge
Legal analysis
Document management

Relational skills
Work independently

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

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 either face-to-face or 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 an understanding of civil litigation practice at a level required for admission to the legal profession.

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 assessment tasks 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: Both
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