Student enrichment: Pilot Clinic with the Supreme Court of Victoria to start in 2015

At the recent 2014 Fiat Justitia Lecture, the Honourable Chief Justice Marilyn Warren AC of the Supreme Court of Victoria publicly announced a new and exciting initiative between the Faculty and the Supreme Court of Victoria – a pilot student clinic program which will commence in 2015.

This program is intended to provide Law students with a range of clinical contacts with judges in different areas of judicial work.

We will keep you updated on further details about this pilot clinic as it unfolds.

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.)

Celebrating achievement: Family Law Assistance Program visited Indonesia with the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Justice

Mr Bennett’s presentation to delegates
from Indonesian universities,
CSOs, DPOs, National Board
of Legal Development and
the National Planning and
Development Agency. 

In early May 2014, two representatives from Monash’s Family Law Assistance Program (FLAP) were invited to participate in a series of strategy meetings in Indonesia aimed at strengthening services provided by Professional Practice courses and university legal aid clinics to justice seekers. Mr Malcolm Bennett (Principal Lawyer and Monash lecturer) and Ms Jennifer Lindstrom (Lawyer and Program Administrator) were invited to represent the Monash Law Faculty along with other delegates, including deans and lecturers from Law faculties around Indonesia.

As part of these meetings, Mr Bennett and Ms Lindstrom presented papers on the operations of FLAP which dealt with matters such as preparing students for participation in clinics, maintaining quality of service and data collection.

Expert legal commentary: Clinical Legal Education and Legal Education Reform

By Professor Frank S. Bloch
Professor of Law Emeritus, Vanderbilt University School of Law
Executive Secretary, Global Alliance for Justice Education



Professor Frank Bloch

Legal education faces uncertain times, not only in Australia but around the world.  This is due in part to the Global Financial Crisis, which has hit law schools on two fronts: severe budget pressures from their home universities and a shrinking demand for their graduates from the profession.  But there are longer-existing uncertainties about the future of legal education resulting from a widening gap between the legal academy and the legal profession, as both institutions have become more distant from the societies they serve.  How law schools respond to these challenges will dictate the course of legal education for generations to come.