Student enrichment: Professor Frank Bloch - Inaugural Visiting Fellow of the Susan Campbell Memorial Fund

The Faculty recently hosted Professor Frank Bloch as the inaugural Visiting Fellow under the Susan Campbell Memorial Fund.

Professor Frank Bloch

Professor Bloch is an internationally renowned expert on clinical legal education, legal aid, social security, disability and other public benefit programs. He is Professor of Law Emeritus at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee, where he served as Director of Clinical Education and as Director of the Social Justice Program. Professor Bloch is a leader in the international clinical legal education movement and one of the founding members of the Global Alliance for Justice Education where he currently serves as Executive Secretary. (For a more complete biography, please visit our website.)

Professor Bloch spent six weeks working closely with the Faculty’s Clinical Legal Education Program and then visited other clinical programs at Griffith University, Brisbane and at the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

Based on Professor Bloch’s observations and discussions about the Faculty’s Program, he provided feedback, useful insights and advice with the benefit of his extensive experience and expertise in this field. He also gave a couple of presentations during his visit on Clinics, Professional Competence and Social Responsibility. A video of one of these presentations can be viewed on our website.

Mr Malcolm Bennett (Coordinator of
Family Law Assistance Program
at Monash Oakleigh Legal
Service (MOLS)), Ms Fay Gertner
(Director of MOLS),
Professor Frank Bloch,
Ms Sandra Nottle (Administrative Officer
at MOLS), Mr Ross Hyams
(Convenor of the
 Legal Practice Program).

The Susan Campbell Memorial Fund was established in honour of the late Ms Susan Campbell AM, who contributed significantly to establishing clinical legal education at the Faculty, and ensured that the Clinical Program offered the highest standard of legal education and training. Her career at the Faculty spanned 25 years from 1980 to 2005. Ms Campbell was a Law lecturer and a key driver of the Faculty’s pioneering Clinical Legal Education Program and was actively involved in the ongoing operation and evaluation of the Program. She also contributed extensively to the ground breaking Lawyers Practice Manual Victoria as a writer and editor, was significantly involved in the review and repeal of the system of articles, and was on the Board of the Judicial College of Victoria. Ms Campbell was the first clinical teacher at Monash to be appointed Professorial Fellow in 2000 until 2005.

The aim of the Visiting Fellowship is to enable a distinguished practitioner, academic or clinician from Australia or overseas to contribute their expertise to the Clinical Legal Education Program and provide long term structural development of the Program. The Fellowship also exposes the Clinical Program to the latest international clinical research, practice trends and developments, improves the student clinical experience, elevates the profile of the Program nationally and internationally and enables important new linkages and partnerships to be developed.

The expected outcome of the Visiting Fellowship will be to raise the Clinical Legal Education Program to a new level of excellence.

We wish to acknowledge and thank the donors to the Susan Campbell Memorial Fund and the Monash Law School Foundation for their generous support.

Please also see the Expert Legal Commentary from Professor Bloch.