LAWS12063 - Legal Drafting

General Information

Unit Synopsis

Lawyers engage in legal drafting on a daily basis and effective written communication skills are essential for legal practice. The unit focuses on the foundational principles for drafting legal documents to prepare you for the significant and diverse range of tasks you may face as a legal practitioner. This unit aims to enhance your legal drafting skills by providing you with an authentic practical learning experience. You will complete a variety of practical drafting tasks that newly qualified lawyers are likely to undertake in practice, such as drafting pleadings, affidavits, contracts and letters of advice.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 2
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Pre-requisite of 36 credit points of law units. 

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).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2024

Term 2 - 2024 Profile
Online

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).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Online Quiz(zes) 25%
2. Written Assessment 50%
3. Portfolio 25%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University’s Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

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Previous Feedback

Term 2 - 2023 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 94.12% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 26.98% response rate.

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.

Source: SUTE and emails
Feedback
Due to the timing of submission of part B of the drafting portfolio (week 11) and the reflection task (week 12), feedback on part B of the drafting portfolio is not received until after the reflection task is submitted. Although students may use feedback received on the online test and part A of the drafting portfolio (and feedback received from peers and the unit coordinator on documents submitted to MS Teams) to construct their reflection, some were concerned about the fact that feedback on part B could not be provided before submission of the reflection.
Recommendation
As part B is focused on the materials covered in the second half of the unit, it is not possible for its submission date to be brought forward to allow for sufficient time for the unit coordinator to mark part B prior to the submission of the reflection. As students are frequently asked throughout both parts of the portfolio to reflect on their draft documents, and identify where their skills are improving and those aspects that require improvement, it is recommended that the reflection task be removed as a standalone assessment task and that reflection be emphasised in the portfolio criteria instead.
Action Taken
The unit coordinator reviewed the assessment across the unit and the reflection task was removed as a standalone assessment task. Reflection is now incorporated into the portfolio and emphasised in the portfolio's criteria rubric. The unit now includes a mid-term drafting task in addition to a portfolio.
Source: SUTE, workshops, emails
Feedback
Students appreciate the opportunity to receive feedback on a weekly basis from the unit coordinator and their peers on their draft documents via MS Teams
Recommendation
The unit coordinator should continue to provide feedback on all drafts posted on MS Teams prior to the workshop and identify other ways to reiterate the importance of engaging in a 'drafting community' to ensure students receive feedback from multiple sources on their work.
Action Taken
The collaborative 'drafting community' was continued in 2023 with both the unit coordinator and students providing feedback via MS Teams on drafts posted prior to the workshop. Peer review exercises were also incorporated into the weekly portfolio tasks.
Source: Reflection by the unit coordinator.
Feedback
The unit includes a week focused on digital drafting, including the practical and ethical implications of using generative AI in legal drafting. As generative AI is advancing all the time, further content should be directed towards this topic.
Recommendation
Expand discussion of the ethical implications of lawyers using generative AI when drafting legal documents and encourage students to investigate the quality of legal documents generative AI produces.
Action Taken
Nil.
Source: Student feedback and reflection by the unit coordinator
Feedback
Students benefited from extensive feedback on the two different drafting tasks in the mid-term written assessment, but there was only a short amount of time between completing the content relevant to the second task and the due date.
Recommendation
Review the timing of the mid-term written assessment.
Action Taken
Nil.
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Communicate effectively in writing, including the appropriate usage of grammar, syntax and punctuation.
  2. Apply principles of plain English drafting, principles of interpretation, and drafting conventions to create legal documents that comply with the client’s instructions and the objectives of the document.
  3. Reflect critically on written work and provide comprehensive feedback to others through a peer review process.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3
1 - Online Quiz(zes) • •
2 - Written Assessment • • •
3 - Portfolio • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3
1 - Communication • • •
2 - Problem Solving • •
3 - Critical Thinking •
4 - Information Literacy •
6 - Information Technology Competence • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10