成人大片

Semester 1:

Course Coordinators: Dr Joshua Curtis and Dr Michaela Okninski

Lecturers and Seminar Leaders: Details will be advised on MyUni.

Semester 2:

Course Coordinator: Dr Michaela Okninski

Lecturers and Seminar Leaders: Details will be advised on MyUni. 

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

1	Identify the sources of law in Australia and undertake legal research at a foundational level using legal databases.
2	Analyse legal cases at a foundational level.
3	Apply principles of statutory interpretation to solve legal problems.
4	Communicate effectively individually and prepare written documents in a professional manner.
5	Appreciate the ethical dimension of the role of lawyers, and the functioning of law and legal systems. Exercise professional judgement in the application of case law and statute to solve legal problems.
6	Analyse the impact of case law and statute from a policy perspective. Critically reflect on the operation of the law as a social institution in the context of Indigenous and theoretical perspectives.

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:

ETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY:
Professional and personal conduct in respect of a practitioner's duty:
(a) to the law;
(b) to the Courts.

• Lecture and Seminar Guide (on MyUni)
• Course Readings on MyUni
• Acts Interpretation Act 1901 (Cth) and Legislation Interpretation Act 2021 (SA)
• Textbook: Robin Creyke et al, Laying Down the Law (LexisNexis, 12th ed, 2023) (the 11th or 10th editions are also fine)
• Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, 2018) Melbourne University Law Review Association, Melbourne (available for viewing on the web at http://law.unimelb.edu.au/mulr/aglc/about and available for purchase). A link will also be placed in the ‘Additional Materials’ folder on the MyUni subject website).

• A dictionary of legal terms such as LexisNexis, Concise Australian Legal Dictionary (6th ed, 2020) or Oxford, Australian Law Dictionary (3rd ed, 2018). Again, this is a resource students will find useful throughout their degree.

The course is supported by the Foundations of Law MyUni website. The website contains links to the following resources:

1. Course information, including the lecture and seminar guide.
2. Course materials – such as items of assessment, lecture PowerPoint slides, and other course materials which will be posted from time to time.
3. Lectures – lecture recordings will be posted (where available) on MyUni as soon as possible after each lecture.
4. Discussion Forum – This is available for students to discuss the course among themselves and to communicate with academic staff in relation to administrative or substantive questions about the course.
5. Grades – where students’ grades will be entered for each assignment.

MyUni will also be used to post announcements, and assignment tasks. Students are expected to check MyUni regularly to keep up to date with these materials and additional learning resources throughout the course.

Students should also regularly check their email.

This course will be taught in a 2 hour lecture and a two hour seminar weekly. A full timetable for the course is available on the MyUni course website.

Lectures and seminars commence in the first week of semester.

Seminars examine and apply the material addressed in the lectures and in the readings, as well as covering new material that is better taught in a ‘hands-on’ way, such as legal research. It is essential to prepare for the seminars by undertaking the prescribed reading for the week and preparing the exercises.

In addition to attending formal classes it is anticipated that students will do substantial independent work to prepare for classes and to
complete the course assignments. In total, students should anticipate committing 156 hours to this course across classes, preparation,
revision and assessment.

Schedule

Week	Lecture	Seminar
MODULE A: SOURCES, LAWYERS AND CASES
Week   1	The Concept of Law	Introductions
Week 2	Sources of Law / Doctrine of Precedent / Australian Courts	The Concept of Law
Week 3	Solving Legal Problems / McBain Case Analysis	Sources of Law and Solving Legal Problems
Week 4	Legal Profession / Re AJG Case Analysis	The Legal Profession
Week 5	Wed 10am: Review of Case Analysis	Case analysis (Part 1)
Week 6		Case Analysis (Part 2)
MODULE B: STATUTORY INTERPRETATION
Week 7	Wed 10am: Statutory Interpretation Problem Qu A	Statutory interpretation (pt 1)
Week 8	Wed 10am: Statutory Interpretation Problem Qu B	Statutory interpretation (pt 2)
MID SEMESTER BREAK
Week 9	Introduction to Legal Research	Legal Research (in a computer suite - see your timetable for location details)
MODULE C: LEGAL THEORY AND INDIGENOUS PERSPECTIVES
Week 10	Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory (pt 1)	Reconciling Indigenous and non-Indigenous understandings of law
Week 11	Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory (pt 2)	Revisiting the story of colonisation and the clash of legal systems
Week 12	Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory (pt 3)	Aboriginal Heritage, Development and the Environment

**This program is subject to change. A more detailed progarm will be posted on MyUni in O'Week**

Assessment Task	Task Type	Due	Weighting	Length	Redeemable	Learning Outcomes
Academic Honesty Quiz	Individual, summative	Week 2	2%	10 questions	No	5
Case Analysis Quiz	Individual, summative	Week 5	2%	10 questions	No	2
Case Analysis and Court Report Assignment	Individual, summative	Week 6	20%	1250 words	No	2,4,5
Statutory Interpretation Quiz	Individual, summative	Week 8	3%	15 questions	No	3
Statutory Interpretation Assignment	Individual, summative	Week 9	20%	1000 words	No	3,4,5
Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory Quiz	Individual, summative	Week 12	3%	10 questions	No	1,2,3,5,6
Statutory Interpretation & Indigenous Perspectives & Legal Theory Assignment	Individual, summative	Week 13 (Swot Vac week)	50%	2500 words	No	1,2,3,4,5,6

No component of the assessment is redeemable.

Academic Honesty Quiz (2%)

Students are required to complete a 10 question quiz as their first item of assessment in Law School, in order to familiarise them with the expected standards of Academic Honesty required at Adelaide Law School. Students can take this quiz multiple times, but must score 80% or more in the quiz on at least one attempt in order to receive any marks for this item of assessment (e.g. if a student's highest mark in this quiz is 70%, they will receive 0/2 for this assessment; if their highest mark is 90%, they will receive 1.8/2 for this assessment).

Case Analysis Quiz (2%)

Students are required to complete a 10 question quiz to test their understanding of the material covered in the Case Analysis module of the course. The quiz is an important opportunity to obtain feedback on skills of case analysis in advance of the Casa Analysis and Court Report Assignment.

Case Analysis and Court Report Assignment (20%)

This assignment comprises two parts. In part 1, students will be given a passage from a judgment in a case, and will be required to answer questions similar to those modelled in the seminars on case analysis and application. In part 2, students will watch a prerecorded mock court procedure and answer questions related to the formalities and etiquette of court proceedings.

Statutory Interpretation Quiz (3%)

Students are required to complete a 15 question quiz to test their understanding of the material covered in the Statutory Interpretation module of the course. This quiz is an important opportunity to obtain feedback on skills of statutory interpretation in advance of the Statutory Interpretation Assignment.

Statutory Interpretation Assignment (20%)

Students will undertake a process of statutory interpretation in the application of a statute to the facts of a problem scenario in a form similar to the exercises undertaken in lectures and seminars.

Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory Quiz (3%)

Students are required to complete a 10 question quiz to test their understanding of the material covered in the videos of the Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory module of the course.

Statutory Interpretation & Indigenous Perspectives & Legal Theory Assignment (50%)

This assignment comprises two parts. In part 1, students will undertake a process of statutory interpretation in a form similar to the exercises undertaken in seminars. In part 2, students will answer questions addressing the Indigenous Perspectives and Legal Theory module of the course.

All assessments will be submitted and monitored through text or code comparative software (e.g. Turnitin) where possible.

Submission requirements for each piece of assessment will be set out in the information provided when the assessment item is released. Students should read the information on MyUni carefully in relation to submitting each piece of assessment and follow the instructions.

Extensions

Extensions beyond the due date will only be granted in the case of serious and unforeseen incapacity. Extensions will be granted only for unexpected illness, hardship or on compassionate grounds in accordance with University Policy. Work commitments, travel, holidays or sporting engagements are NOT unexpected circumstances. If you require an extension, you will need to use the on-line application form available on the Law Student Intranet as soon as you are aware of the need for an extension, and before the due date of the assignment.

The course coordinator will reply by email, determining whether an extension is warranted, what evidence is required to verify the student’s incapacity, and the length of the extension. Evidence of the incapacity must be submitted with the assignment, and must be consistent with details in the email requesting the extension. If the details of the request for an extension, and the medical or other evidence verifying the extension are not consistent in all respects, the extension is nullified, and the assignment may be penalised.

There will be NO EXTENSIONS on any of the quiz assessments. These will be available to students to complete on MyUni for at least several weeks prior to the due date and students should take responsibility for completing them in a timely fashion.

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 ed).

Penalties:

1. Late Submission: 5% of the total mark possible will be deducted for every 24 hours or part thereof that submission is late, including each day on a weekend. 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 assignment that is more than 24 hours late will lose 10%, etc. Hard copy submissions made after 5.00pm on a Friday will be assumed to have been submitted on the next business day and will be penalised accordingly.
2. Word Length: Assignments which exceed the allocated length (word length) will be subject to a penalty of 5% of total marks possible per 100 words or part thereof (ie with a word limit of 1,250, an essay graded 63% will have 5% deducted if it is 1,251 words long, for a final grade of 58%, 10% if it is 1,351 words long, etc). Words are calculated including all footnotes and headings within the text but excluding cover page information. Quotations and all referencing information are included in the word count.

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.

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Student Life Counselling Support

The University’s 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.