E-learning opportunities and challenges for legal education in rural Victoria

Access to justice extends beyond consideration of the systems and institutions of justice; it includes infrastructure such as transport, health, education and communications. Rural, regional and remote (‘RRR’) communities are more likely to face difficulties in accessing advice and accurate information on laws and processes available for resolution of disputes. Perhaps more fundamentally, they rarely have a voice in effecting reforms in laws and related policies. For several decades, community legal centres, legal aid, courts, and a range of other institutions have used community legal education programs to improve knowledge and access to law and justice systems, services and organisations. The recent Productivity Commission Inquiry into Access to Justice Arrangements notes that, ‘Better coordination and greater quality control in the development and delivery of these [community legal education, legal information] services would improve their value and reach.’ At the same time, research into the professional needs of RRR legal practitioners has found that many of these practitioners face considerable difficulties accessing good quality continuing professional development (‘CPD’) and informal networking/support opportunities.6 Current and emerging internet-based technologies open up opportunities for legal organisations to better meet the educational needs of both rural communities and legal practitioners. Though limitations still exist at multiple levels, relatively low-cost, media-rich, synchronous and tailored education programs can now be delivered effectively in many rural and remote areas. However, complex layers of decisions are required to critically assess, harness and optimise technologies to best suit the needs of users, and to utilise teaching and learning techniques that best match the technologies and participant needs. Getting these elements — needs, technology and learning technique — right, nevertheless offers extraordinary opportunities. Sound decisions and good practices should enable state-wide and specialist law and justice-related services interested in improving their engagement with RRR communities to dramatically improve the reach and quality of outcomes, not only for distant participants but the spectrum of stakeholders.

Situated learning in legal firms: a case study

Utilising the frame of communities of practice, this case study of a mid-tier legal firm revealed a tendency for newcomers to reproduce the knowledge of their supervisors. However, new knowledge was introduced frequently without disturbing power structures resulting in highly traditional organisations that also dealt easily with change and novelty.

Legal liability, government intervention, and auditor behavior : evidence from structural reform of audit firms in China

This paper investigates how legal liability influences audit quality and audit fees, particularly in the presence of government intervention. Since 2010, all Chinese audit firms were required to transform from a structure of limited liability company (LLC) to limited liability partnership (LLP), which removes the cap on the liability exposure of negligent auditors. By adopting this natural experiment, we document the following findings: first, after audit firms reorganize as LLPs, auditors are more likely to (1) issue modified audit opinions and going-concern opinions, (2) constrain clients’ earnings management, and (3) charge a premium in audit fees, which suggest that exerting unlimited legal liability on negligent auditors improves both audit quality and audit fees. Second, the effect of the LLP adoption is more pronounced when auditors are from local audit firms, and clients are controlled by local governments. Further analyses suggest that the stock prices of clients positively react to the reform event, which indicates that LLP adoption improves the overall value of audits. In summary, our empirical findings are consistent with the argument that legal liability is able to effectively shape auditor behavior in emerging markets where the other institutional mechanisms are relatively weaker and government intervention is heavy.

Biological, ecological, conservation and legal information for all species and subspecies of Australian bird

We introduce a dataset of biological, ecological, conservation and legal information for every species and subspecies of Australian bird, 2056 taxa or populations in total. Version 1 contains 230 fields grouped under the following headings: Taxonomy & nomenclature, Phylogeny, Australian population status, Conservation status, Legal status, Distribution, Morphology, Habitat, Food, Behaviour, Breeding, Mobility and Climate metrics. It is envisaged that the dataset will be updated periodically with new data for existing fields and the addition of new fields. The dataset has already had, and will continue to have applications in Australian and international ornithology, especially those that require standard information for a large number of taxa.

The international legal status of the Vatican/Holy See complex

This article offers a re-examination of the international legal status of what is here termed the Vatican/Holy See complex (VHS), focusing on claims to statehood. The problematic ‘effect’ of Vatican City, of the Holy See, of the papacy and of associated entities is interrogated at the level of international law, entering as little as possible into administrative or theological distinctions. The various grounds cited as supporting status amounting to statehood are argued to be inadequate. The continuing exchange of representatives with states by the VHS is missionary and hierarchical in character and is reflective neither of the reciprocity of peers nor of customary obligation going to law. Agreements entered into by the papacy with the Kingdom of Italy (the Lateran Pacts) in 1929, relating to the status of the geographical territory known as Vatican City, cannot be determinative of international status. Nor can membership of international agreements and organizations confer a status amounting to statehood. Events and practices since 1929 have not substantially altered international status as of 1870. The Roman Catholic Church is but one of many faith-based international movements, and since the eclipse of the papal state nearly one-and-a-half centuries ago, the status in international law of its temporal headquarters in Rome should not be privileged.

International legal norms on the right to sexual orientation and gender identity: Australian reforms contextualised

At a time when the international momentum for sexual orientation and gender identity rights is strong it is important that scholars and activists remain vigilant to ensure that the discourses framing sexuality rights do not intentionally, or inadvertently, deepen incursions on the rights of individuals of sexual and bodily diversity. This chapter offers a critical examination of selected Australian case law and legal reform for the putative progress t offers sexual minorities. Identifying the entrenched binary determinism at the heart of the law, this chapter echoes the call of queer criminology, concluding that challenging invisibility is but part of the project. Queer scholars need also remain vigilant about the law’s constitutive power, and its role in producing sexual minorities as objects of pathology, perversion and criminality.