Sanson, Michelle --- "Foreword" [2009] LegEdRev 1; (2009) 19(1) Legal Education Review iii

Foreword

This issue contains nine articles within the General Issue, Volume 19(1) and four articles within the Special Topic Issue — Incorporating Indigenous Perspectives in the Law Curriculum, Volume 19(2).

In our General Issue, Massimiliano Tani and Prue Vines examine a matter of critical importance — the link between law student attitudes to education and the alarming rate of depression in law school and the legal profession. Mooting is an excellent mechanism for teaching advocacy skills. However mooting has the potential to dilute the importance of ethics by teaching students to take whichever position is likely to win. Bobette Wolski examines the potential for mooting as a vehicle for teaching ethics and values. Normann Witzleb reveals a teaching innovation in Web 2.0, which involves moving beyond using the internet for receipt of information to having interactive development of content by users. Here, students create law-related entries for the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. There are now increasing numbers of postgraduate law students, and Rita Shackel and Arlie Loughnan reflect on the higher degree research student’s experience. Clair Hughes provides a useful matrix setting out various task dimensions that can be modified to suit the assessment of students at different levels of legal skills development. Gaye Lansdell cautions against the use of wholly online practical legal training programs, suggesting that at least some face to face contact time is necessary for learning outcomes to be achieved. Kelley Burton and Judith McNamara, while acknowledging the value of reflection as a way to deepen student learning, tackle the difficult challenge of assessing the process. Tim Berard identifies the many contributions that social science can offer legal education. Fiona Martin, Kate Collier and Shirley Carlon apply highly successful student mentoring techniques to distance students studying taxation.

In our Special Topic Issue, we have four articles that examine how Indigenous content and perspectives can be incorporated into the law curriculum. Margaret Stephenson, Bradford Morse, Lindsay Robertson, Melissa Castan, David Yarrow and Ruth Thompson reveal an international approach to teaching comparative law using video conferencing. Carwyn Jones, writing from a New Zealand perspective, identifies three quite distinct processes for the incorporation of Indigenous matters — Indigenous legal issues, Indigenous perspectives, and Indigenous law. Alexander Reilly focuses on embedding Indigenous perspectives in administrative law, and Nicole Graham focuses on embedding Indigenous perspectives and law in real property. These articles derived from the Conference on Teaching Indigenous Law, at Sydney University in 2008. We are grateful to Thalia Anthony, the conference convenor, for taking the initiative to further dissemination of materials on incorporating Indigenous content and perspectives into the law curriculum.

This issue of the Legal Education Review has involved the efforts of many people, mainly academics, who have volunteered their time and expertise with little thought of reward or recognition. Special thanks needs to go to the Faculty of Law at University of Technology, Sydney and Professors Rosalind Mason, David Barker and Michael Adams for support provided through the ALTA office.

Thanks are due to the members of the 2009 Editorial Committee for their work in putting this issue together — Terry Hutchinson, Allan Chay, Lee Godden, Nick James, Wendy Larcombe, Jacquelin Mackinnon, Lisa Westcott and Sonya Willis. Thanks also to our Administrator, our new proofers, our ever-patient and efficient typesetter, and special thanks to Terry Hutchinson and David Barker for their support and guidance.

All articles in the Legal Education Review are double blind refereed. Our referees spend many hours of their own time reading and providing insightful feedback on the papers. Their efforts are always respected and genuinely appreciated. We also appreciate the support and advice of our Editorial Advisory Board.

Submissions of articles for inclusion in the 2010 edition (Vol 20) are due by 30 April 2010. The Review follows the Australian Guide to Legal Citation, Melbourne University Law Review Association (2^nd ed, 2002). Please refer to the LER website for details: www.ler.edu.au.

Dr Michelle Sanson

Editor-in-Chief