melsc said:
The hard part 4 me is a have a lot of vaired interests like languages, IT...etc...I dont mind business as well
hmm UWS is following what I think is a good trend. It is removing courses which combine sciences with law that are not related. (People will hate me for this, but if law students or prospective law sudents want a job in the future, read on)
The problem we have in today's law industry and many judges like Kirby J have noted it too, is that respect for legal practitioners is little. Lawyers are associated with those in the USA. "Lawyer" isn't even a real term in Australian Law, if you like its more americanised, and generally means someone who has studied law and graduated, that's roughly what the LPAB give meaning to it as.
So what implications has bad publicity have on us law students or hopefuls?
Firstly we as a community are scared of litigation. We think it's a plague coming down to haunt the innocent individual who is being sued by a person who only wants money. Many of these people who fear litigation often are the ones who have never opened up a Law Report and read WHY a judge has awarded damages. Law and in particular, torts law has become too political. We often say we'd rather the elected parliament decide on what is a tortious wrong, but what parliament wants is the rhetoric as seen by Bob Carr when he passed the Civil Liability Act which has had some shocking effects on Torts. The CLA ammends the Legal Profession Act so lawyers now who bring a case that is not strong can be disbarred - how is that for conveying your client's rights?
With this, it means there are less jobs for lawyers, people are not excercising their right to sue. There are negativities associated with it, however torts is about merely shifting loss to the person who is responsible. Less jobs also mean lawyers have more time for administrative duties, hence less need for paralegals or clerks. The traditional means from law studies to the bar are becomming smaller thanks to less litigation.
This brings us onto the new trends. I tend to dislike degrees which can qualify people into more than one profession
in some ways (i stress that). If you graduate with an accounting/law degree and become an accountant and not a lawyer, then you have an advantage over other accounting graduates. Plus your employer can double-up on you. If a legal problem occurs, a lawyer will not be consulted as the accountant can already do this. It's an advantage and cost-effective, but it means where lawyers once had a role, this is diminishing. Again I note there are exceptions to this. But given the exceptions through the CLA and our hatred of suing, it means a negligent accountant may not be sued if it can be found that the Act gives some room for them in this regard. It gets very unfair.