Insights from the Australian’s for Science and Freedom 2025 Conference at UNSW.
We were both fortunate enough to participate in a collaborative workshop toward the end of the conference where one of the authors of this paper, Professor Zimmermann, in his newly appointed role of Foundation Dean of Law at Alphacrucis University College facilitated discussionaround the topic “redesigning legal education”. He brings more than 20 years of experience in legal education in Australia and Dr. Hatzikalimnios, the other author of this article, has been a legal academic for several years, with both being involved in the impending establishment of Alphacrucis’ Law School.
Before discussion commenced, Professor Zimmermann laid out his vision and mission for what he believed should be in the DNA of a ‘premier’ law school. The statements are included below for reference:
- A VISION: A premier Law School must have a vision for the future that needs to be inspirational and ambitious, but also developed with a deep understanding of the past and the present and an awareness of what needs to be done to ENSURE a prosperous, secure, and peaceful future.
- MISSION: A premier School of Law must seek to provide society with tomorrow’s leaders, attracting top students through an educational experience which focuses on governance, constitutional law, politics, and commerce, and discusses law in context.
One of the goals is to equip students with the power to think for themselves, as opposed to being told what to think. This provides a real opportunity for the absorption and synthesis of information learned in the classroom.
Over the 30 or so minutes of discussion with the workshop participants, the group ended up covering a lot of ground and produced the document below:
We first started discussing the problems that the group perceived within the legal system, which, by extension, developed most of the discussion about the formation of our cornerstones of the subjects that should be taught in law schools that seek to uphold traditional legal education.
We considered this to be a holistic approach that incorporated the fundamental principles of natural law and canon law. Natural law is a school of legal thought that acknowledges the inherent moral sense of right and wrong within humans, which acts as the law whereby humans can rely on objective standards of morality to ascertain what is right and wrong, as opposed to needing to rely on the positive commands of the State. An extension of this principle is the concept of canon law, which utilises the law from religious scripture to regulate the church and establish divine law – which can be akin to natural law. The embedding of these legal concepts within a law school will ensure that the students will be classically trained to approach the law from a moral perspective.
Amidst these considerations, the group discussed how the legal system within Australia has moved its focus from a system guided by substantive principles of the rule of law to a system that utilises legal positivism as a means to apply the law of the State regardless of moral considerations. By contrast, the rule of law is a legal principle that ensures that the government is accountable to its people, and promotes the protection of fundamental rights when challenged by those who exercise power arbitrarily. On the other hand, legal positivism is a school of legal thought that relies upon social norms to establish the existence of law and prompt legal decisions based on context, rather than morals and ethics.
A valid question may be, why is legal positivism bad? Well, we can take a look back at the covid pandemic whereby decision-makers upheld the laws/rules enforced or legislated by government and societal expectations with regard to the management of the pandemic over fundamental human rights, leading to the arbitrary use of power by the Australian government. Thus, it is essential that law schools revert to the theory of natural law (and the rule of law) in order to protect human rights and dignity moving forward.
We then moved our focus of discussion to how students will learn the theories discussed above, as technologies like AI tempt students to skip core components of knowledge absorption. The learning pyramid, pictured below, identifies the methods in which some pedagogical researchers believe people retain information.
Credit: https://www.scienceoutside.org/post/pushing-your-teaching-down-the-learning-pyramid
Although this concept has been adopted by some, there are still many who critique its efficacy. Although there are perceived negatives of this model, it provides an insight into modern retention and attention spans that have, clearly, been declining through the instant gratification provided by technology like social media and artificial intelligence (like Chat-GPT). These services have, at least in our view, detrimentally affected the ability for students to critically process and synthesise information to develop arguments, rather than merely regurgitating information.
Adopting an approach that encourages the participatory methods discussed within the learning pyramid will provide a learning environment where the students can meaningfully engage with the lecturer, in what it can subsequently facilitate discourse from key elements discussed within class. Although some may disagree, many believe that teaching others assists in helping develop your learning and overall understanding of the content. Of course, students cannot be equipped without learning the knowledge directly from the lecturer. And we also believe that this participatory approach facilitates higher levels of engagement and knowledge absorption.
Therefore, a law school should incorporate valid mechanisms to ensure that students are producing work that is their own and that they are able to back the outcomes contained within their assessments. Accordingly, assessments should contain both written and oral components, or just oral, to assess the efficacy of the work produced and ensure that the students are displaying the critical thinking skills necessary to be successful in the legal industry or beyond (if they choose to use their classical legal training elsewhere). Some examples of assessments include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Research papers that include a presentation by the students and the ability for the lecturer or other students to question their knowledge of the topics included in their essay;
- Mock-trials where students will form groups and choose to participate as the judge, lawyer, witness and respondent, etc; and
- Viva voce – an oral defense whereby the students will discuss the key concepts of the subject with their lecturer and be assessed on their knowledge base and critical thinking capabilities.
These assessment types, combined with final examinations, will focus on combining the key research skills that lawyers require whilst also addressing the pressures that come within the legal industry, especially with regard to performance in difficult situations lawyers often find themselves in.
To be able to effectively implement these types of assessments and ensure that students are adequately learning, there will be a need for smaller classrooms. The re-imagined law school will have classes of 30-50 students, where each lecturer can know the students by name and be able to follow their academic journey and cater to their needs to facilitate the highest possible learning environment.
There is little doubt that students in small classes do much better in learning, research and overall performance. Combined with personal interaction between students and teacher, small classes significantly increase student achievement. Teaching in small classes allow lecturers to become more acquainted with each student’s needs, and to gain a greater insight into each student’s personality and potential – and how such a potential can be more fully developed. This familiarity cultivates a more caring atmosphere, ensuring that lecturers and fellow students get to know each other on a more personal level. By contrast, large class sizes are correlated with less critical and analytical thinking, less clarity in class presentations, and lower ratings on the instructor’s ability to stimulate student interest.
Research indicates that smaller classes lead to better student engagement and significant effects on academic achievement, including (and notably) for students from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds. Against the backdrop of rapidly increasing enrolment rates in tertiary education, research indicates that the longer students are in small classes, the greater the benefits for disadvantaged and minority groups. In other words, the effect of class size on students’ performance is appreciable. Given this, reducing class sizes and the total number of students that a faculty member is responsible for teaching lead to significant improvements in student outcomes.
Of course, we understand that reducing class size does not provide the same financial benefit as large-scale lectures. However, the primary goal of tertiary education should not be financial benefit, but excellence in legal education. To achieve this goal, class sizes must be kept small, and modern educational technology should be combined with a strong emphasis on academic excellence. Those who teach small classes are able to get a better sense of their students’ progress, and ensure that all students have the opportunity to understand the concepts discussed in class.
There is also the aspect of adopting a new trial, discussed by Dr Jeremy Bell from Campion College in Sydney, where the students are not allowed to use their computers or phones in class to aspire the highest levels of engagement amongst the ever-increasing distractions of modern technology that put a strain on the academy. However, we note that this is not essential to achieve success.
As a law school will endeavour to produce quality legal professionals, it is essential that students have a focus on engaging with the legal profession during their education to ensure that they have the adequate tools to be “job ready” when they graduate. Ultimately, we believe that the more practical knowledge a student can have before they finish law school the better they will look to a prospective law firm looking to recruit competent graduates. To achieve this, there should be a focus on legal clinical education where the students engage with the community and provide legal services via the supervision of experienced legal practitioners. This concept is referred to as the ‘legal clinic’. Of course, these students will not be running court cases, as they are not qualified to do so, but they can learn invaluable skills like drafting affidavits, letters of advice and even conducting client interviews – all skills which are essential to legal practise.
Our-imagined law school should aim to change the way law is applied in the legal system via the delivery of a unique approach to legal education, which should focus on the concepts discussed throughout this article. Throughout our discussion, the group concluded that the best way to achieve this aim is through espousing these principles onto the students during their time in the institution. This is crucial because if students are taught within systems that fail to recognise these schools of legal thought, the system will simply perpetuate itself and remain unchanged. As more students graduate with a legal education that focuses on these principles, there will undoubtedly be a shift in the way the law is interpreted in Australia.
