7 September 2009
Green Grads #14
Immature constitutional law students take notice, if you were ever looking for an excuse squeeze something dirty into one of your exam answers – you will not get a better chance than this. The High Court has ruled that the Australian Military Court exists outside of the Australian Constitution and thus its decisions are invalid. This on its own isn’t really that interesting. Except, the Military Court was considering a ‘teabagging incident’ when its judicial powers were challenged (read about it here and here).
Knock yourselves out.
Deacons have an excellent summary of a recent Intellectual Property case involving Guyllian boxes of chocolates. Very briefly, Guylian’s distinctive chocolates, in the shape of seahorses and shells and all kinds of wonderful mariney-things, are not unique enough to be registered as trade marks. I’ve never done IP so I don’t really know the finickey bits, but it seems significant and Deacons have come up with a very helpful, easy to read summary.
Simon Rice from ANU Law School has written an awesome letter to the editor over at The New Lawyer. The letter was in response to one of TNL’s recent pieces, Why Law Schools are Failing Attorneys and the Legal Industry written by Stephen Fairly.
The letter is spot on, in that Mr Fairly’s original article was written for the US legal industry and over here in Australia we run things a little bit different. The fact that our law students can be straight out of high school means that they will need a well rounded education as opposed to a direct focus on the ‘business of law’.
However, after reading them both I can’t help but think of Matt Homan’s 15 Thoughts for Law Students: A Mini Manifesto. Australian law schools are a different creature, but at the same time I think if a law school was to take a slightly more practical, ‘business of law’ approach it might find that it is well received by students.
Peter Black from QUT Law School has linked this great list of blog posts that potential law students should take a look at. I’ve not read through all 100 but the ones I have had a look at have been great. Most of it seems based on the U.S. system (as usual) but there is still a lot of stuff there that would be of value to people considering Australian law school as well as to current Australian students.
Related posts:
- Green Grads Grab #9
- Green Grads Grab #13
- Green Grads Grab #11
- 2009 Green Grads Review
- Green Grads Grab #6
