Overview
Legal Advocacy and Court Skills concerns the skills and knowledge needed for making persuasive legal arguments before a court of law. The unit covers preparing for court, navigating court files and court forms, legal ethics, and courtroom etiquette, making oral submissions and advocating a theory of the case when doing appearance work in a court. The unit assessments include two moots to simulate virtual courtroom hearings.
Details
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites
Pre-requisites: 48cp of Laws Units including LAWS11057 and LAWS13010.
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 3 - 2026
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).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Class Timetable
Assessment Overview
Assessment Grading
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of 'pass' in order to pass the unit. If any 'pass/fail' tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully ('pass' grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the 'assessment task' section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%). Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades.
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.
- Work individually and in teams to present persuasive written submissions and oral arguments in a professional and ethical manner
- Work individually and in teams to research and critically analyse primary sources to formulate and support oral and written arguments for mock court hearings
The learning outcomes for this unit are not governed by the Legal Practioner's Admissions Board as it is not a Priestley 11 knowledge area.
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |
|
1.
Assessment 1
(40% of unit)
Part 1 -
Written Assessment
Part 2 -
Practical Assessment
|
||
|
2.
Assessment 2
(60% of unit)
Part 1 -
Written Assessment
Part 2 -
Practical Assessment
|
||
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | |
| 1 - Communication | ||
| 2 - Problem Solving | ||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | ||
| 4 - Information Literacy | ||
| 5 - Team Work | ||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | ||
| 7 - Cross Cultural Competence | ||
| 8 - Ethical practice | ||
| 9 - Social Innovation | ||
| 10 - First Nations Knowledges | ||
| 11 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures | ||