Unmet Needs for Legal Services in Australia: Ten Commandments for Australian Law Schools

After outlining some strengths and failings of the law in Australia in meeting individual and community needs for legal services, the author explains why the recent over-supply of law graduates is unlikely to cure the shortfall in services. He proposes ten 'commandments' for Australian law schools, namely to:1. Assure a more diverse intake;2. Attend to vulnerable students, so that they survive their studies;3. Address particular subjects of poverty law;4. Encourage engagement by future lawyers with civil society;5. Promote involvement with all forms of legal aid;6. Acknowledge the importance of the law on costs;7. Enhance access to law through new technology;8. Establish miscarriage of justice and innocence clinics;9. Undertake reliable empirical research and law reform projects; and10. Consider basic lessons to be derived from foreign legal systems.Legal academics, he concludes, have a special duty to critique their discipline and to provide a sense of engagement among lawyers (starting with law students) with the values of the laws they help to implement. Full text also available via Informit