Dean’s Message

Dean, Monash Law Faculty,
Professor Bryan Horrigan

Welcome to the second edition of The Monash Law e-Briefing. We are now well into our 50th anniversary year. It continues to be another successful year for the Monash Law Faculty community. We share our recent collective achievements and developments with you in this edition.

As June 28th approaches, we are very much looking forward to you joining us for our 50th Anniversary Gala Dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne. This event promises to be the highlight of our celebrations!

Our Expert Legal Commentary section is a key feature of this publication. We hope you will find our highly topical thought leadership pieces insightful and useful in your professional work. In this edition we feature the following timely contributions:

• Mr Malcolm Chin, Partner at Minter Ellison, Hong Kong, provides his insights on Hong Kong’s Emergence as a Centre of Transnational Arbitration;
• Ms Rowena Cantley-Smith comments on a recent High Court decision and the implications for use of ‘reasonable endeavours’ clauses in commercial contracts;
• Professor Frank Bloch discusses Clinical Legal Education and Legal Education Reform; and
• I provide an update on recent developments in the regulation of unconscionable, unfair, and bad faith business conduct.

We encourage you to submit your own expert contributions for future editions.

We are also introducing a new section in this edition to provide you with an update on key Faculty research, Research Focus. In this section Professor Susan Kneebone elaborates on her ARC funded three year project on Regulating International Marriage Migration.

To date, we have held a number of special 50th Anniversary events, with our Fiat Justitia Lecture presented by the Honourable Chief Justice Marilyn Warren AC, two Prize Ceremonies and the Great Law Week Debate. I recently attended a most memorable celebration in Hong Kong with our Vice-Chancellor, hosted by one of our prominent Law alumni, where the Honourable Dr Peter Costello AC provided the keynote address.

Visiting Professor Frank Bloch was also a special guest speaker at our Monash Oakleigh Legal Service reception, celebrating the success of the Faculty’s Clinical Legal Education Program.

Our collective achievements continue with great results in a number of international competitions involving mediation, debating and mooting, and a number of significant successes for our Law alumni and Faculty staff.

We are continuing to pursue opportunities to broaden our offerings to students and partner with international organisations to provide the best legal education and experiences we can. We now hold amongst our partners, Cambridge Law School, Oxford Law School and the Washington College of Law. We are collaborating with the Law School at Warwick University and developing a pilot clinic with the Supreme Court of Victoria.
 

Please feel free to circulate this publication amongst colleagues and friends. We hope you enjoy this edition and welcome your feedback as we continue to develop and improve our alumni and legal industry offerings.