About the presenter: Dr Liz Curran Associate Professor, School of Legal Practice

1. About the presenter: Dr Liz Curran Associate Professor, School of Legal Practice ANU College of Law (including ANU Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice) Senior Fellow, Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) Associate Director, ANU International Centre for the Profession, Education & Regulation in Law (Melbourne based) Liz.Curran@anu.edu.au & Senior Fellow, Nottingham Law School (2017-2022)

2. Background- Where am I coming from? I no longer teach in clinical setting but in the final course before students become admitted – many students have never had client contact • My Teaching Philosophy includes: • Raising student awareness of how the law works in the ‘real world’ and how it impacts upon people, society and the role they might play as future legal practitioners working to ensuring the integrity of the legal system and its administration. • Supporting students to develop skills to act ethically. • Modelling good practice, clarity of goals, frequent opportunities for practice, continuous formative feedback and coaching, exploration of synergies and connection between theory and legal practice, supported student autonomy and responsibility. References: Gentile, M, Giving Voice to Values -How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What’s Right (Yale University Press, 2010), Holmes, V, Curran, L & Ferguson, A (2015) 'Enhancing wellbeing and one's capacity to deal effectively with ethical dilemmas in legal practice', National Wellness for Law Forum, Australian National University, Canberra. https://researchers.anu.edu.au/publications/105893 ; Curran L, Dickson J, Noone MA (2005) ‘Pushing the Boundaries or Preserving the Status Quo? Designing clinical programs to teach law students a deep understanding of ethical practice’, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education, December (8), 104-122; Darling-Hammond L & Baratz- Snowden J (2005) (Eds) A Good Teacher in Everyday Classroom, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass; Evans A, Cody A, Copeland A, Giddings J, Noone M , Rice S, ‘Best Practices in Clinical Legal Education’, Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching, September 2012, 4. (http://www.cald.asn.au/assets/lists/Resources/Best_Practices_Australian_Clinical_Legal_Education_Sept_2012.pdf)

3. Aims of this session • To look at why we do what we do • To check whether what we do with our students is advancing effective and good quality practice and learning • To touch on some empirical findings about effective practice to informa and shap what and how we teach • To unpack and reflect on different and existing teaching practice and pedagogy • To share ideas

4. Effective Legal Practice research Curran Empirical Research on experiences of lawyers: Some comments on the lawyers from health and allied heath professionals dealing with private/legal aid lawyers included: • ‘NOT listening, not making time for clients concerns to be heard and addressed in a professional matter. I know lawyers are very busy on the day of court but clients are people with feelings and often they really are not heard by the legal system.’ Interview 2015 • ‘Impatient manner when client finds options difficult to process quickly. Hanging up on a vulnerable client where there was a conflict instead of providing a referral. Sending a legal letter with complex information with no attempt to ensure that the client could understand it.’ Interview 2016 ‘Disrespectful of my skills and knowledge just because I do not have a law degree.’ Interview 2015 (For quantitative data see Curran, Liz, Final Evaluation Report for the Legal Services Board Victoria - 'Why Didn't You Ask?' - Evaluation of the Family Violence Project of the Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre (April 16, 2015). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2631378 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2631378 and Curran, Liz, A Research and Evaluation Report for the Bendigo Health–Justice Partnership: A Partnership between Loddon Campaspe Community Legal Centre and Bendigo Community Health Services (October 31, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3076407 . Also see Sandefur R (2014-15) ‘Bridging the Gap: Rethinking Outreach for greater Access to Justice, 37 UALR L. Rev. 721 at 726 and Curran L ‘Lawyer Secondary Consultations: improving access to justice and human rights: reaching clients otherwise excluded through professional support in a multi-disciplinary practice’ 8(1)

5. Effective Legal Practice research • Activity: Turn to the person next to you, chat for a few minutes about: Your reaction to this feedback on people’s experience of lawyers?

6. Curran Empirical Research on experiences of lawyers By comparison, Hume Riverina Study (Curran and Taylor-Barnett, 2018 , Final Report launched 8 November 2018 see link: http://www.hrcls.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/DESIGNED_Full-final-Report_October_20181102.pdf ) an ‘integrated justice partnership’ between a community legal centre, a school for ‘at risk’ youth, homelessness youth service and an aboriginal community controlled health service in regional NSW/Vic. Quote from interview with non-legal professional, February 2018: Parents’ experience – intergenerational fear of the legal system and lack of positive outcomes. It has been really hard for them to see that Lawyer is here for them. I have had to really shift their thinking to believe that Lawyer is there for them. You just keep saying it over and over and over again the same way until they believe you. Lawyer is a calm gentle person, personality has a huge role here. Your personality weights a lot in a place like this and they have bullshit meters on them. They can read your mood like anybody’s business. Clients with trauma are very good at being on the alert for any untoward things. If you get anyone who is in any way adversarial, it is verbal and non-verbal messages. All those things contribute to the trust.

7. Responses of conference participants? • Activity: Turn to the person next to you, chat for a few minutes about: Your reaction to this feedback on people’s experience of lawyers?

8. Experiential Learning from Effective Legal Practice research to enable student learning in social justice settings: What has an impact and integrating it into Clinical and Professional Legal Training In what ways do we as law teachers, use scenario based learning and role play, rooted/shaped in real client experience to: • Underline the empirical research on the complexity client experience, of the legal system and services to the most disadvantaged? • Inform, expose and better prepare students for practice and future roles as legal professionals? What are initial responses from session participants/ Brainstorm (contemporaneous collection of ideas in the Power Point)

9. When would we use this? • As clinicians even though we will expose students to real life clients we may need to use simulation to prepare them beforehand • Or as PLT or in non-live clinics we may use simulations • Note: many of you probably already use scenarios that are real in your current teaching, so the idea may not be new so in the session we will exploring why we do it and deliberately unpack and break down by sharing with others why we do what we do to examine its purpose and whether there is value in it for effective evidence based teaching practice. This also goes to transparency.

10. My treatise for today is that in clinical and PLT offerings we are ideally situated to teach in ways to enable: • Use of role play rooted in real life experience that can add a human dimension to skills based learning including what I call the ‘hard skills’ namely: interpersonal, collaborative and cultural awareness which can be difficult for our law students to attain. • If we integrate this into our teaching more then we can help create future lawyers who are responsive to client need • If we integrate clients that resonate with real life clients (basing them on our practitioner experience) into our teaching more, then we can also open up opportunities for our students to not limit themselves to being legal technicians but to be better able to understand the client contexts that sometimes call for broader notions of lawyering including community development and policy reform alongside case and advice work. • E.g. work with clients in public housing in the legal clinic in West Heidelberg (See ‘Enabling Marginalised Voices to Be Heard: The Challenge to Law Reform Bodies’, New Directions for Law in Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform, edited by Ron Levy, Molly O’Brien, Simon Rice, Pauline Ridge and Margaret Thornton, published 2017 by ANU Press, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, Chapter 48, 517 - 527. dx.doi.org/10.22459/NDLA.09.2017.48 http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2641/pdf/prelims.pdf)

11. Activity from real life case work –Assessment rubric (disclosed to students) • Some factors explicitly assessed are: • Did the Student make the “client” feel comfortable and ask the “right” questions to demonstrate good interview skills? • Did the Student use suitable formatting in the written advice? Does the written advice have a logical flow of the issues? • Did the Student demonstrate an understanding of the client’s problems and then analyse and articulate them into legal issues? • Did the Student provide clear, concise and easy-to-understand advice relevant to the “material facts” within the suggested page limit? • Did the Student demonstrate their understanding of the client’s needs?

12. Activity Based in real case (de-identified) Interview Scenario • Scenario • Your client: Erica Fellini (female) or Enrico Fellini (male) based on a real client • Your client Erica/Enrico is 20 years old who completed her/his year 7 of high school in 2016. Since completing high school, Erica/Enrico has works on low pay as a part-time administrative officer at a lost dog shelter and washes dishes most evenings. Erica/Erico is a bit slow and suffers from anxiety. Although she presents physically as if there is no issue, it is apparent to most people on speaking to her, even briefly, that she is slow and easily led. Erica /Enrico gets easily flustered, can be compulsive in some of her behaviours and panics. As a result her social worker suggested she buy a cheap mobile phone and ring her when she is panicking or making decisions. Erica/Enrico talks to her friend Sally as she did not know a lot about phones and wanted to get one at a good price as she knew they are expensive. Then the scenario presents the substantive law issues for the student to analyse and advise on.

13. Interview Scenario - Continued • In a nutshell Erica/Erico goes into a Telecommunications store and buys a mobile phone Prior to the purchase she discloses to the salesman what she needs it for namely to ring her case worker when she gets stressed. • The salesman sells her phone that does everything – TV, games, Facebook but it does not actually work as a phone. He also provides a plan with costly data to use games and gambling sites and puts her on a complex and expensive plan well beyond her earning capacity. He does this after she has disclosed her expenses to him explaining she has little income from social security. He places her on a mobile (cell) Phone plan that she clearly does not understand. She says to the salesman over and over again that she does not understand what he is saying about the plan and the salesman reassures her it will be life changing once she has the phone and plan and that she need not worry and to trust him. • In Consumer Law the phone is not ‘fit for purpose’ i.e. suitable to the purpose disclosed at the time of purchase it breaches a range of Consumer Law provisions which the actual student will need to identify in her advice and written materials scenario but not for the purposes of this conference exercise.

14. Interview Scenario - Continued • Activity for Students • One of you is a client (Liz will give further instructions) • One an observer of the interview-interaction • One of you is the lawyer conducting the interview with Erica/ Enrico

15. Student’ debrief: Client view point? Feeling? Trust? Understanding?Lawyer viewpoint? Feelings? Strategies?Observer viewpoint? Reflective Practice: What did you do well and why? What did you do not so well and why? What would you do differently? Were there any surprises or challenged

16. Report back From groups- interactive power point Feedback from this scenario is that this is challenging. Students often comment when they do their de-brief after the client interview that they never realized lawyers would have to interview clients like this. ‘The truth is stranger than fiction’ ‘How can companies do this to vulnerable people’

17. Discussion:other ways we can make learning relevant and real using real life casework/client contexts? How can we in our experiential and clinical programs integrate into students awakening as to the importance of quality and justice in service delivery? What are ways we can instil the importance of developing these hard skills of interpersonal skills and problem-solving skills, so necessary to client care, in our experiential educational programs after years at law school where they have been taught they need to ‘think like a lawyer’, ‘the law is neutral’ or their learning from statute and case law can limit their ability to see context and nuance? Discussion

18. Final Thoughts and reflections from today’s session