Obesity and the right to sue: would you like fries with that?

There is little chance that obese customers in Australia would fare any better in a claim against fast food companies than their counterparts in the US.

Sex offenders in a risk society : setting limits on freedom

The commendable intention to protect children from risk must be weighed against loss of personal freedom when imposing extended supervision orders under the Serious Sex Offenders Monitoring Act.

Conflict of interest in Victorian rural and regional legal practice

This research report was based on 163 survey responses and 29 interviews with Victorian rural and regional legal practitioners, as well as 8 human service organisation representatives. Peak law profession organisations including the Legal Services Board, Law Institute of Victoria, the Federation of Community Legal Centres and Victoria Legal Aid were also interviewed for the research. The principal objective of the research was to examine how conflict of interested is manifested in rural and regional settings and how effectively the current conflict of interest rules are applied within those settings. The report includes a number of recommendations for better responding to issues of conflict of interest within a rural and regional context.

When being a boy is everything: understanding Re Alex

The decision of the Family Court of Australia in the matter of Re Alex¹demonstrated yet again that there's nothing .like a bit of under-age sex to raise the armchair experts from their usual near-supine positions. The  opinions of commentators like Bill Muehlenberg,² John Flemming³ and Babette Francis⁴ and even, unfortunately, the July 2004 "According to Merit" article⁵ have been unlikely to advance the profession's understanding of the complex issues faced by people experiencing transsexualism. The factors that should be considered in determining a person's sex for the purpose of the law in Australia are now well-settled, yet controversies over diagnoses, access to treatment and consequent legal status continue almost unabated as Alex's case has so aptly demonstrated.

Gender and ethics

Men and women lawyers value ethics differently, according to a study into law students' values.  About 700 final year law students responded to a questionnaire on hypothetical ethical situations which gave a snapshot understanding of the values of Australian students in their last year of law school.