Overview
Effective, professional communication is central to legal practice. Lawyers must be able to think critically, communicate effectively with clients, opponents and the courts and also draft legal documents with precision. This unit develops these essential legal skills by providing an authentic, practice-based learning experience. In this unit you will undertake a variety of tasks that newly qualified lawyers are likely to undertake, such as drafting pleadings, affidavits, contracts, and letters of advice. You will also refine your oral communication skills by exploring strategies for effective client interviewing and persuasive advocacy.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Pre-requisite of 24 credit points of law units including LAWS11057, LAWS11066 & LAWS11069.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).
Offerings For Term 1 - 2027
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
All University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
You may wish to view these policies:
- Grades and Results Policy
- Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework)
- Review of Grade Procedure
- Student Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure
- Academic Progression Policy and Procedure
- Student Refund and Credit Balance Policy and Procedure
- Complaints Policy and Procedure
- Information and Communications Technology Acceptable Use Policy and Procedure
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of University policies are available on the CQUniversity Policy site.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Feedback from Student feedback, tutor reflection
Some students who had not nominated a partner found it difficult to coordinate a suitable time to conduct the client interview with their allocated partner and this meant some students did not complete the client interview until shortly before the deadline, leaving little time to conduct research and prepare the letter of advice
Consider imposing two deadlines in the assessment, the first for the client interview video upload followed by a second deadline for the letter of advice to ensure those who conduct the client interview close to the deadline still have sufficient time to draft the letter of advice.
Feedback from Staff reflection
A curriculum review has identified the incorporation of a client interview into another second year unit, which provides an opportunity for one of the two units to focus on another oral communication task instead.
Work with colleagues and the Learning & Teaching Coordinator to identify if the oral component of the assessment should be rotated with/changed to another type of oral communication assessment, such as an oral viva or advocacy exercise etc.