Issue 16 – October 2016

Melbourne Law School will next year celebrate its 160th anniversary, an occasion on which we can reflect on our proud history of legal education and research, as well as recognising the many achievements and successes of our alumni, students and staff.

For many lawyers, the thought of being able to influence Australian law and policy is the reason they went to law school. Few, however, have made such a marked impact on Australian jurisprudence and policy-making as the Honourable Marcia Neave AO.

Engineering, science, biotech, chemistry, digital technology – these are the first loves of those whose expertise protects inventions and innovations, smoothing the path to commercialisation for everything from a polymer coating for paint to pharmaceutical compounds or a circuit for the newest mobile phone handset.

Next year MLS will celebrate 160 years of teaching law. Join us in 2017 as we reflect on our history and celebrate this milestone anniversary with a range of events and public lectures.

Elizabeth Kennedy, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, strives to bridge the gap between patients, medical institutions, medical practitioners and the law.

“The future of legal service,” writes law and technology expert Richard Susskind inTomorrow’s Lawyer, “will be neither Grisham nor Rumpole. Instead, it will be a world of virtual courts, Internet-based global legal businesses, online document production, commoditized service, legal process outsourcing, and web-based simulated practice.”

A growing crop of MLS graduates are launching start-ups, building successful businesses and social enterprises, redefining the limits of where an MLS qualification can lead.

Nyadol Nyuon first came to Australia over 10 years ago. Only 18 years old, she knew very little of the country and when she arrived in Melbourne the city was like nothing shed ever seen.

It is not possible in a few words to do justice to Alan Goldberg’s outstanding life – a life he left after nearly 76 years.

MLS recently welcomed two leading experts in political Islam and international law, Professor of Practice Naz Modirzadeh (Director, Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict) and Professor Andrew March (Political Science, Yale).

The recent 7-Eleven wage scandal didnt come as too much of a surprise to MLS Associate Professor Joo-Cheong Tham. Since 2013 he has been leading a research project into insecure work and employer non-compliance with labour regulation in Australia.

How has MLS become a globally-recognised hub for construction law? From my perspective, the key is that everything we do is guided by the needs of the construction law community.

New South Wales Solicitor-General and MLS alumnus Michael Sexton (LLB(Hons) 1969) has chronicled some of Australia’s most important moments in political and legal history.

After a decade working as a commercial lawyer, MLS alumna Prue Gilbert (BA, LLB, 2000) struck out on her own as a consultant specialising in corporate diversity.

An initiative by the MLS Law Research Service (LRS) is strengthening ties with cyclone-devastated Fiji.

MLS is proud to celebrate the remarkable achievements of Professor Dianne Otto, who will retire from the Law School at the end of 2016.

The Melbourne JD is now recognised for admissions purposes in India. The Bar Council of India has granted accreditation to the LLB and JD programs of all Australian law schools, including the Melbourne JD, for a period of five years beginning in 2016.