Legal Research and Writing
Unit Warm-Up

Meet Your Unit Assessor Transcript

Interviewer: Helen, research and writing, they sound like fairly generic skills but how is it different?

Helen: Well they are generic skills and most students that come into a law program have very good generic skills in reading and writing and researching. However, when it comes to legal texts there are certain conventions and the difficulty with the language that students need to learn strategies to deal with. When it comes to research, well we need students to use the right databases. Google’s great, maybe as a starting point but we need to make sure that students know about the relevant legal databases and use the right ones for the right task. And that’s two of the reasons I guess we get students to do this unit before they get into their substantive law units.

Interviewer: Is there more to this unit than legal research and writing?

Helen: We cover a lot of the basic skills, the foundational skills that students need across their whole program so; research, writing, reading, problem solving. Just understanding legal abbreviations; it’s a unit that has something for everyone.

Interviewer: For this unit you can study it via distance education or on campus but can you explain how that actually unfolds for a student?

Helen: There’s a variety of learning activities associated with this unit and you don’t have to do them all but you do have to do some. There is a Study Guide that goes through topic by topic and covers the whole content of the unit. You need to read those topics, one for each week and then there’s activities and other reading, outside the Study Guide that you’ll be directed to. Then we have the pre-recorded lectures. Students don’t need to do the pre-recorded lectures they are additional and optional. So if you feel like you’ve read the Study Guide and you still need some more information, you don’t feel like you’ve understood a concept or the way to do something, then you would go off and do the pre-recorded lecture. It will give you further clarification, further examples. Then we come together, whether you’re on campus or off campus and do tutorials. The tutorials will be on campus in a tutorial room and a computer lab, but online we’ll do it in a Collaborate session.

Interviewer: So if you’re on campus then you would do your tutorial in a classroom but if you’re studying via distance education that tutorial is done in Collaborate?

Helen: Yes that’s right. Collaborate. So it’s a live time interactive virtual tutorial so we’ll be sitting at computers and discussing the same thing that goes on in the classroom.

Interviewer: Helen you’ve been the Unit Assessor for Legal Research and Writing for more than a decade now, what do you think are the most important things for students to do to ensure their success in the unit?

Helen: Well it’s very important they get started early and my first tip would be to make sure that they read the Getting Started document that I put up in the Learning Site at the beginning of Session. It covers everything from what assessments are required, how they can engage in the activities, how it’s delivered to communicating with me and how to contact me.

Interviewer: Is there any further advice you’d like to give students?

Helen: In my experience it’s the students that dedicate the appropriate amount of time to this unit that end up being our honours students. The ones that do really well in the other subjects and I guess it’s because they’ve got the skills under their belt; they can read a case, they can construct a persuasive argument, they know how to reference and so they can focus all of their attention to the content of their other units. So that would be my advice and that is to give this unit the amount of time it deserves. You’re really not going to regret that.

Student Perspective Transcript

I absolutely loved this unit. I found it quite challenging because it’s all about learning skills so the ability to research legal materials to be able to write clearly and concisely, to be able to cite things properly. Skills are harder to learn than facts and also there’s this idea, I already know how to do this. I can read, I can write of course but reading and writing in a legal context is entirely different. And so it is like starting from the very beginning again but those skills are essential for everything else. Every other unit that I did I employed those skills and I wish I’d known at the time just how important it was going to be.

Before I started the unit I knew very little about Legal Research and Writing the only thing that was obvious was it wasn’t centred around a particular practice area of law like criminal law or contract law, it seemed to be an umbrella unit that covered lots of things.

One of the really great things about this unit is the support that’s available. I think the law school recognise the difficulties that people have and so the law librarian, the tutors and everybody is there to help and so I would advise students if they are finding it particularly difficult to go and ask for help.

The quicker you can acquire those skills, the quicker you will get the payback so every unit you do afterwards it will take you less time to research for assignments. You’ll write in a clearer more concise way, your citations will all be beautiful. You won’t lose any marks in your assignments for not citing things properly. So don’t get disheartened if it’s tough at the beginning because hanging in there for the long haul and the pay back will be huge.

Industry Insider Transcript

Being able to research the law, find the appropriate law, apply that law to the set of instructions from your client and then communicate your findings and your interpretation of those laws, is one of the fundamentals of being a good solicitor.

My name is Steve Spinks. I’m an associate with Somerville Laundry Lomax solicitors in Lismore we are a generalist law firm in Lismore and we have offices across the North Coast including in Ballina, Lismore and Byron Bay. We practice in all the major areas of the law including family law, criminal law, commercial law, and civil litigation.

Working in the law you can plan the day as well as you’d like but that does not necessarily turn out to be the day that you have. Practicing in criminal law, of course you have days where you have to attend court that you know well in advance, but in some cases the client will find themselves in some trouble and unexpectedly you could find yourself at a bail hearing at 4:30 in the afternoon in front of the local magistrate. So it’s a dynamic profession and you need to be prepared that you can be called out at any time. Also, working in the commercial world there’s a little bit more stability in relation to that. Clients are usually business people or people who are coming in to see you in their spare time to get some specific advice in relation to either their business or their property purchases. I find both areas of law particularly positive to practice in, I’m a big believer in justice and that’s why I practice in criminal law, but I also like the positive aspect of commercial law because it assists people in doing the things they aspire to whether it be purchasing a house or a business.

Being a solicitor is not just about finding the law and knowing the law, but it is also about communicating the law, and that could be communicating law to another practitioner in a variety of mediums, be it telephone, emails, as well as formal letters. Of course you also have to communicate with the judiciary, so a magistrate, a judge, a tribunal member or a deputy member, and of course the most important thing is you need to communicate with your client. And, clients generally do not have any legal training, so you need to be able to communicate sometimes complex legal ideas to people who have no legal training and therefore you need to use specific language so that they understand it.

When I was a student and it was a while ago, I can say I probably viewed Legal Research and Writing as one of those units that you would just do along the way and wait until one of the more interesting subjects came along like crime or torts or something like that. However, it is one of the most important units to learn, not only as a practitioner, but also as a student because it will assist you in finding answers of law efficiently, where to find it and what sources to trust that you are using to base your analysis on.