Tertiary and Continuing The Law Thread

[Seb]

I second the hate for Admin.

During the semester I found it OK. The trouble I had with it was it seemed rather pointless. The 'remedies' get you.... nothing. I just had a take home exam for it which was a bit ridiculous because of the sheer amount covered within the limited word limit.

Also second the hate for Constitutional. I did it quite early on in the degree, though. I didn't really have a great understanding of how the Constitution operated prior to doing the unit. I learned a phenomenal amount doing it. But as I did other units (e.g Corps) Constitutional seemed to make more sense to me.

Units I really enjoyed were
Torts
Contracts (1 and 2)
Crim
Property
Insolvency

Looking forward to finishing in 2 weeks.

 

[jo172]

The remedies you get in Admin are something that mean **** all from a theoretical perspective but in practice are strangely useful. It's one of those things, if you can get a Full Court (it's usually a Full Court) to give you certiorari (yeah a bit of a wank of a term) the government will often give you the all clear at the risk of spending another 12-18 months in litigation.

 

[Affidavit]

Speaking of Admin. Anyone have any really good notes they would like to share?

The text book we've got sucks and the lecture notes are basic. Plus it doesn't help missing the first month due to a variety of reasons!

 

[checkraiseulite]

What textbook are you using?

I may have some notes somewhere from two or so years ago, from what I remember I learned this subject front-to-back in about three days so take that fwiw. Managed to get a relatively decent score in the scheme of things though.

Our course was pretty much exclusively judicial review/merits review stuff though, not sure what it's like elsewhere.

I hated this subject, but I liked constitutional (as much as one can like a law subject) which others view as strange.

 

[jonoman89]

Admin exam i had today was pretty basic. I definitely overrated the subject's difficulty. Found it quite manageable in the end once i put in the effort.

Still...boring as bat shit.

 

[Affidavit]

Michael Head 'Administrative Law' 2008

 

[ssfc0203]

Michael Head 'Administrative Law' 2008

Michael Head is actually my lecturer at Uni!

 

[Affidavit]

Awkward...... lol

 

[ssfc0203]

Nah, he SUCKS. I'm doing a course called Law Foundation and the textbook is literally Socialist propaganda picking out the ways in which everything is worse off now and could be better under socialism. He's a shameless book promoter too.

 

[Affidavit]

Lol I have one shameless book promoter as well. Funniest thing was when he told us he was launching a CD at uni in a few weeks where it is him playing the banjo!

 

[jonoman89]

Nah, he SUCKS. I'm doing a course called Law Foundation and the textbook is literally Socialist propaganda picking out the ways in which everything is worse off now and could be better under socialism. He's a shameless book promoter too.

Love a good shamelessly biased law text book.

The constitutional law book we had was so pro-State power it was almost comical.

 

[DTRAIN87]

Nah, he SUCKS. I'm doing a course called Law Foundation and the textbook is literally Socialist propaganda picking out the ways in which everything is worse off now and could be better under socialism. He's a shameless book promoter too.

In Com we had a marketing lecturer who did this. Said we're wnot here to sell text books but then told us that without the book we would not learn the material sufficiently and fial. All because the tables had the exam questions in them. I and a number of my cohort blasted him fro this in the evaluation and he got a good ticking off from the admin.

Love a good shamelessly biased law text book.

The constitutional law book we had was so pro-State power it was almost comical.

This. Still loved the fact the book got me enough marks in the semester to allow me to fail the exam and still get a credits.

 

[Seb]

The remedies you get in Admin are something that mean **** all from a theoretical perspective but in practice are strangely useful. It's one of those things, if you can get a Full Court (it's usually a Full Court) to give you certiorari (yeah a bit of a wank of a term) the government will often give you the all clear at the risk of spending another 12-18 months in litigation.

Yeah?

I guess that will help me sleep at night then

What about the Ombudsman? Largely an irrelevant body? How often are the recommendations actually acted upon? Given the wide discretion afforded to him to on whether to investigate matters or not, you'd think the poor bastard would have a little more power than a mere 'recommendation'.

I have two exams left, legal ethics being my main concern. I've just sat down with the rules and a highly repetitive textbook (Dal Pont) for a week and it seems relatively straight forward.

 

[Seb]

Love a good shamelessly biased law text book.

The constitutional law book we had was so pro-State power it was almost comical.

There's a lot of love for Statism in Constitutional Law. My lecturer spent perhaps a week and a half on it? Basically said it was unlikely to be on the exam in any meaningful way, but he was ensuring we had an 'appreciation' for it. Of course, retrospectively thinking about it, that should have been the alarm bells ringing, telling me it was a certainty to be on the exam.

Day of the exam it is 40 degrees, I'm dripping wet walking into the exam, open the paper, first question 40 marks, and it is a bloody State constitutional law problem. Everybody was livid.

 

[jo172]

What about the Ombudsman? Largely an irrelevant body? How often are the recommendations actually acted upon? Given the wide discretion afforded to him to on whether to investigate matters or not, you'd think the poor bastard would have a little more power than a mere 'recommendation'.

Ombudsman recommendations really depend on what it's about/how bigger prick they're giving the recommendation to.

If you've got something you can whip up a bit of public sentiment behind they'll carry a bit of force similar to an equitable declaration or a coroner's recommendation.

 

[deeman12]

There's a lot of love for Statism in Constitutional Law. My lecturer spent perhaps a week and a half on it? Basically said it was unlikely to be on the exam in any meaningful way, but he was ensuring we had an 'appreciation' for it. Of course, retrospectively thinking about it, that should have been the alarm bells ringing, telling me it was a certainty to be on the exam.

Day of the exam it is 40 degrees, I'm dripping wet walking into the exam, open the paper, first question 40 marks, and it is a bloody State constitutional law problem. Everybody was livid.

Are you talking about the great man Balu here? We were told it wasn't going to be on the exam and that it was taught to us to ensure we have an appreciation for it. Wasn't on today's con.law exam luckily enough!

 

[checkraiseulite]

There's a lot of love for Statism in Constitutional Law. My lecturer spent perhaps a week and a half on it? Basically said it was unlikely to be on the exam in any meaningful way, but he was ensuring we had an 'appreciation' for it. Of course, retrospectively thinking about it, that should have been the alarm bells ringing, telling me it was a certainty to be on the exam.

Day of the exam it is 40 degrees, I'm dripping wet walking into the exam, open the paper, first question 40 marks, and it is a bloody State constitutional law problem. Everybody was livid.

That's pretty ridiculous IMO.

I wish lecturers would STFU and just teach the content instead of engaging in speculation about what may or may not be on the exam. It should be made clear in the unit guide what topics are and aren't examinable and nothing else should be said, it'll only lead to confusion and people complaining. I can't see the upside.

At my uni the lecturers play favourites a lot. So many douchey bishes having private meetings with lecturers where they put on the drama, cry and get told pretty much what the exam is going to be based around.

For example in civil procedure last semester we got a softie lecturer who was more interested in being friends with the students than teaching the content. There was no mention of a new act in the textbook or in any of the unit material which the exam was supposed to be based on. He discussed it in one of his classes which are only attended by a polarised range of the really smart and really stupid and no-one in between.

Then in the exam there is a 30% essay on this new legislation. People who don't go to class, and don't listen to the lectures at home due to their poor quality/repetitiveness, get completely blind-sided.

First and only time I've ever considered making a complaint. In the end, I got lazy and didn't bother. Very annoying though.

 

[jo172]

Did you have any Course Guide or anything which said what was covered?

It's a bit hard to feel sympathy for missing things when you don't go to class/catch-up with it/find out from a friend if you missed something important?

 

[checkraiseulite]

No. There was a 12-topic 'study-guide' which did not include any mention of the new legislation.

I don't think it is my responsibility to check if material that is not contained in the study guide is examinable.

The study-guide also had not even been completed at the start of the semester and was essentially released on a week-by-week basis.

I could understand if it was a 5%-10% question designed to essentially reward students who had followed the lectures (though I still don't think this should be done as a matter of principle) but a 30% essay is excessive.

Very unprofessional IMO.

Edit: I had some very rudimentary notes on the new leg from a friend so I managed to get something down [and presumably got some marks for it], but I didn't really have as good an understanding as I would have liked to have had for a 30% essay in a very important subject.

 

[jo172]

I don't understand this study guide? Was it sort of a lecture accompaniment which wrote about the material supposedly covered by the lecture?

I'm more shocked you didn't get given/have access to a course outline or profile stipulating the areas of study to be covered. Not having that is pretty piss poor in my opinion.

Don't agree with you that there shouldn't be the possibility of penalties for not going to lectures, particularly when there's (the admittedly tedious) option of watching internet recordings of them. Like it or not Law School isn't confined to reading cases/text books. They'd give you the guff about 12 contact hours + 36 study hours a week. If you choose to miss out on the contact hours you're effectively risking not picking up 25% of the material to my eyes.

 

[checkraiseulite]

A study guide divides the content into 'topics' which will be covered each week. Lets u know what is the required reading and cases etc. Very amateurish to not have this ready to go prior to the semester commencing.

I guess your final point and its validity will differ from law school to law school. At Deakin they typically don't place a significant emphasis on attendance (no tutorials, no marks for participation/attendance etc) and market their flexibility as a USP. I think at the very least they should've put an additional topic into the study guide, along the lines of 'Week 13 - New Act XYZ'. Once I know it's examinable I have the option to listen to the lecture (which I would have given the absence of commentary in the text) or to conduct my own research online. If I had failed to do either it would be my own fault, but to fail to mention it at all, and expect 22+ y.o students to follow every word of your lectures is unrealistic in an environment where attendances are generally low due to people having other commitments.

 

[jo172]

Definitely alot comes down to the idiosyncrasies of the relevant uni. Pretty poor that a guide with supposedly all relevant content missed a great big relevant chunk to be honest.

Even if you haven't bitched I imagine someone would have knowing the amount of busy-body, entitled law students around the place!

 

[checkraiseulite]

Definitely alot comes down to the idiosyncrasies of the relevant uni. Pretty poor that a guide with supposedly all relevant content missed a great big relevant chunk to be honest.

Even if you haven't bitched I imagine someone would have knowing the amount of busy-body, entitled law students around the place!

Yeah, especially considering I was told that what he said on the new legislation lasted about 40 minutes in total.

Another unfortunate thing was that the people most likely to complain (religious attendees) would have been the ones who benefited in this scenario.

Complaints after every disappointing grade are the norm here, no wonder law students have a certain reputation!

 

[jonoman89]

I'm at Monash and it's pretty frequent that the lecturers will add things to the course which aren't on the reading guides. Especially appeals on previously studied cases.

The reading guides are pretty useless anyway...there's heaps of examinable cases and legislation that are vital but only scantily mentioned on the guide. If you only know the cases on the reading guide you might know 70% of the course. Max.

If you don't go to lectures you leave yourself wide open to a few "surprises" on the exam. Moral of the story is: go to lectures.

Many law exams this semester have had blatant errors on them. The equity exam this year was a complete **** up because the examiner mixed up the parties' names. People were crying because they had no idea what as going on. The admin law exam had an entire paragraph which had to be replaced.

It's comical how much law schools expect you to know, yet at the same time the chief examiners obviously don't even read over their exam papers even once.

I find the quality of my lecturer directly affects my marks. I have had so many hopeless lecturers and received shit marks in return. One woman I had this semester had a grand total of 2 lecture slides for a 3 hour lecture on equitable interest in unregistered property.

What a complete waste of space she was.

 

[checkraiseulite]

I don't agree. The entirety of the content should always be clear, anything else is unacceptable in my opinion.

If attendance is vital, it should be compulsory, or you should fail if you don't attend a certain percentage of lectures.

I've only 2 subjects left and have been learning the content myself since the second semester of 1st year, haven't really had any major problems save this essay in civil.

There is just too much variance in lecturer quality to rely solely on attendance, add in differences in marking styles/delivery methods between staff from different campuses and it is its own regular little shit storm.

Also, I have had a few subjects where there is no material whatsoever other than a reading guide. No slides/notes whatsoever, only the lecturer sitting there talking.

Finance is even worse, 90% of my lecturers can't speak yr 7 level English.

I also agree with the multitude of errors in law exams, twice I have pointed out such errors in reading time that clearly don't make sense to the bewilderment of the senile fossils entrusted with supervising our exams.

Surely you would think the unit chair should be contactable during the exam as people were literally having panic attacks.....