Legal Reasoning and Technological Change

• • Introduction
  • Overarching Case Study
  • Library Resources and Skills (Cases)
  • Analysing Judgments
  • Providing Legal Advice – Common Law (Beginners)
  • What is Legal
  • Reasoning? Part 1 – Judicial Reasoning
  • Ratio Decidendi
  • Providing Legal Advice – Common Law (Moderate)
  • What is Legal Reasoning? Part 2 – Context and Actors
  • Library Resources and Skills (Legislation)
  • Study Skills & Revision Exercises
  • Ambiguity and Constructive Choice
  • Providing Legal Advice - Statutes (Beginners)
  • Purpose, Context and the Acts Interpretation Act
  • Extrinsic Material
  • Providing Legal Advice (Statutes) - Moderate
  • Fundamental Rights and International Instruments
  • Sticky Issues in Statutory Interpretation
  • What is Legal
  • Reasoning? Part 3 - Judges, Parliamentarians and the Future
  • Revision

No eligibility requirements

Additional requirements

No additional requirements

Strong legal reasoning skills are critical to student learning and performance while at law school and eventually to the quality of your legal practice. More broadly, many employers beyond the legal profession consider the ability to solve problems by identifying issues, developing arguments and expressing reasoning processes and decisions in a clear and cogent manner to be a highly desirable attribute. 

The subject is designed with one ultimate aim in mind: to equip students with the analytical legal reasoning skills and knowledge needed to perform well across the remainder of their legal studies. Having successfully completed this subject, you should feel confident in your ability to find, read, analyse and make strategic arguments with case law and legislation. You should also understand how technology is providing lawyers (including judges) with new ways to carry out legal analysis and make decisions pursuant to law and how these changes challenge traditional conceptions and approaches to law and legal reasoning. These changes raise new and fascinating legal and ethical challenges which are explained throughout this subject, with references to recent case studies. The Legal Reasoning subject reflects the diversity of the institutions and laws within Australia's legal system, adopting design principles and learning from Australia, England and America and the case studies used are drawn from a range of common law countries.

• Quizzes (10%)
• Take Home Examination (40%)
• Assignment (50%)

Current study term: 10 Jul 22 to 16 Oct 22

Next study term: 19 Feb 23 to 28 May 23