Welcome

What is the point of legal education? Is it about more than acquiring knowledge of the law, or learning technical skills? How might law schools better prepare students to become active, engaged citizens in 21st century society?

Questions like these drew the members of the Law School Reform (LSR) committee together. What began as a facebook discussion between a few friends at the Australian National University (ANU) in late 2009 led to a group of over 200 students discussing innovative, practical ways to bring meaning and relevance back into legal education.

A group of these students went on to undertake a comprehensive survey of over 350 ANU law students. The results revealed both deep frustrations with current legal curriculum and a wealth of exciting ideas on how to improve it.

Now the LSR committee wants to spark deeper, collaborative conversations between staff and students about what kind of law schools we want for the future. We are committed to finding ways of more deeply connecting citizenship and social consciousness with education. We believe in the need to ensure that the aspirations and ideals of students are encouraged at law school, and not diluted.

We must think not only about what law schools should be teaching but about how that teaching can be effective.

We hope you will join us in this important conversation.