Legal Ethics
Subject LAWS30009 (2012)
Note: This is an archived Handbook entry from 2012.
Credit Points: | 12.50 |
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Level: | 3 (Undergraduate) |
Dates & Locations: | This subject is not offered in 2012. |
Time Commitment: | Contact Hours: Two 2-hour seminars per week and occasional common lectures. Total Time Commitment: 144 hours. |
Prerequisites: |
Legal Method and Reasoning; Principles of Public Law; Torts; Dispute Resolution; Obligations, or in each case their equivalents. Note: Graduate LLB students (three-year program) will be permitted to enrol in Legal Ethics at the same time as Torts and Dispute Resolution, and the Obligations prerequisite will be waived.
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Corequisites: | None. |
Recommended Background Knowledge: | None. |
Non Allowed Subjects: |
730-112 Dispute Resolution and Legal Ethics; 730-410 Dispute Resolution and Legal Ethics; 730-383 Professional Conduct; 730-383 Legal Ethics and Professional Conduct; 730-455 Legal Ethics in Context. Students who have successfully completed any of these subjects will not be allowed to study this subject. |
Core Participation Requirements: |
For the purposes of considering requests for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills, and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to providing support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/. |
Contact
Melbourne Law School Student Centre
Email: law-studentcentre@unimelb.edu.au
Tel: +61 3 8344 4475
Subject Overview: |
Legal Ethics is a practical and critical introduction to ethical decision-making for lawyers. The subject has two main components. Firstly, it introduces different moral approaches to legal ethics, focusing on the justifications for and criticisms of the traditional adversarial advocate approach and alternatives to it. Students will be expected to be able to apply different moral approaches to fact scenarios and to be able to articulate and explain which approach/es they find most convincing for each scenario and why. Secondly, the course examines the way that lawyers' ethics and conduct are regulated including the co-regulatory disciplinary process, the professional conduct standards that regulate lawyers including those relating to conflicts of interest, confidentiality and duties owed to the court and other practitioners, and the general law of lawyering, including principles relating to the holding of money on trust, obligations in equity, contract and tort as well as procedural obligations in litigation. Students will be expected to be able to identify and resolve ethical issues that arise in legal practice using the professional conduct rules and law of lawyering. Students will also be expected to be able to critically assess the way lawyers' ethics are regulated by these rules against different moral approaches to legal ethics. |
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Objectives: |
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
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Assessment: |
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Prescribed Texts: |
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Breadth Options: | This subject is not available as a breadth subject. |
Fees Information: | Subject EFTSL, Level, Discipline & Census Date |
Generic Skills: |
On completion of the subject students should have developed the following generic skills:
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