Overview
Effective, professional communication is central to legal practice. Lawyers must be able to think critically, communicate effectively with clients, opponents and the courts and also draft legal documents with precision. This unit develops these essential legal skills by providing an authentic, practice-based learning experience. In this unit you will undertake a variety of tasks that newly qualified lawyers are likely to undertake, such as drafting pleadings, affidavits, contracts, and letters of advice. You will also refine your oral communication skills by exploring strategies for effective client interviewing and persuasive advocacy.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Pre-requisite of 24 credit points of law units including LAWS11057, LAWS11066 & LAWS11069.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2027
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Academic Progression Policy and Procedure
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from SUTE comments and informal feedback
Some students identify that they do not keep on top of the weekly tasks because they are not required to submit anything until the end. This also means that the peer review exercises are often rushed and completed (if at all) shortly before the deadline.
Explore with the Learning and Teaching team whether any teaching and learning assets (i.e. in Moodle) can be leveraged so that students submit a compilation of drafting tasks across the term while also requiring students to engage in peer review and collaborative learning on a regular basis.
Feedback from Tutor reflection
Although one module is dedicated to learning the benefits and pitfalls of using generative AI, students should not rely on generative AI to build their portfolio or complete the practical assessment task as they need to first acquire a sufficient level of competency in drafting to be able to recognise any drafting issues produced by generative AI. The assessment design must therefore include components which cannot be completed through reliance on generative AI alone.
Incorporate an oral component into the assessment design.