The Future of Australian Legal Education Conference was held in August 2017 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Australian Academy of Law (AAL), the 90th anniversary of the Australian Law Journal (ALJ) and the 30th anniversary of the Pearce Report on Australian Law Schools. The conference provided a forum for an informed, national discussion on the future of legal study and practice in Australia, covering practitioners, academics, judges and students.

Clinical legal education (CLE) is potentially the major disruptor of traditional law schools’ core functions. Good CLE challenges many central clichés of conventional learning in law—everything from case book method to the 50-minute lecture. And it can challenge a contemporary overemphasis on screen-based learning, particularly when those screens only provide information and require no interaction. Australian Clinical Legal Education comes out of a thorough research program and offers the essential guidebook for anyone seeking to design and redesign accountable legal education; that is, education that does not just transform the learner, but also inculcates in future lawyers a compassion for and service of those whom the law ought to serve. Established law teachers will come to grips with the power of clinical method. Law students struggling with overly dry conceptual content will experience the connections between skills, the law and real life. Regulators will look again at law curricula and ask law deans ‘when’?

For reasons of effectiveness, efficiency and equity, Australian law reform should be planned carefully. Academics can and should take the lead in this process. This book collects over 50 discrete law reform recommendations, encapsulated in short, digestible essays written by leading Australian scholars. It emerges from a major conference held at The Australian National University in 2016, which featured intensive discussion among participants from government, practice and the academy. The book is intended to serve as a national focal point for Australian legal innovation. It is divided into six main parts: commercial and corporate law, criminal law and evidence, environmental law, private law, public law, and legal practice and legal education. In addition, Indigenous perspectives on law reform are embedded throughout each part. This collective work—the first of its kind—will be of value to policy makers, media, law reform agencies, academics, practitioners and the judiciary. It provides a bird’s eye view of the current state and the future of law reform in Australia.

A History of Australian Legal Education examines the history and development of legal education in Australia by tracing the establishment of university law schools and other forms of legal education in the States and Territories from the time of European settlement in 1788 to the present day. While early Australian legal education was founded on historic practices adopted in England and Wales over many centuries, the circumstances of the Australian colonies, and later States, have led to a unique historical trajectory.The book considers the critical role played by legal education in shaping the culture of law and thus determining how well the legal system operates in practice. In addition, it examines a major challenge for legal educators, namely, the tension between 'training' and 'educating', which has given rise to a plethora of inquiries and reports in Australia. In the final analysis, it argues that legal education can satisfactorily meet the twin objectives of training individuals as legal practitioners and providing a liberal education that facilitates the acquisition of knowledge and transferable skills.

“An essential title for anyone thinking of law school or concerned with America's dysfunctional legal system.” —Library Journal On the surface, law schools today are thriving. Enrollments are on the rise and law professors are among the highest paid. Yet behind the flourishing facade, law schools are failing abjectly. Recent front-page stories have detailed widespread dubious practices, including false reporting of LSAT and GPA scores, misleading placement reports, and the fundamental failure to prepare graduates to enter the profession. Addressing all these problems and more is renowned legal scholar Brian Z. Tamanaha. Piece by piece, Tamanaha lays out the how and why of the crisis and the likely consequences if the current trend continues. The out-of-pocket cost of obtaining a law degree at many schools now approaches $200,000. The average law school graduate’s debt is around $100,000—the highest it has ever been—while the legal job market is the worst in decades. Growing concern with the crisis in legal education has led to high-profile coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and many observers expect it soon will be the focus of congressional scrutiny. Bringing to the table his years of experience from within the legal academy, Tamanaha provides the perfect resource for assessing what’s wrong with law schools and figuring out how to fix them. “Failing Law Schools presents a comprehensive case for the negative side of the legal education debate and I am sure that many legal academics and every law school dean will be talking about it.” —Stanley Fish, Florida International University College of Law

The regulation of technology is an important and topical area of law, relevant to almost all aspects of society. Technology Law: Australian and International Perspectives presents a thorough exploration of the new legal challenges created by evolving technologies, from the use of facial recognition technology in criminal investigations to the rise and regulation of cryptocurrencies. A well-written and fascinating introduction to technology law in Australia and internationally, Technology Law provides thorough coverage of the theoretical perspectives, legislation, cases and developing issues where technology and the law interact. The text covers data protection and privacy, healthcare technology, criminal justice technology, commercial transactions, cybercrime, social media and intellectual property, and canvasses the future of technology and technology law. Written by leading experts in the field, Technology Law is an excellent resource for law students and legal professionals with an interest in the area.

For graduate lawyers to succeed in a global environment, legal education in every system must undergo revolutionary change. Professors van Caenegem and Hiscock explore in detail the new initiatives that are emerging as a response to this development an