LAWS1300 / LAWS8002 CRIMINAL JUSTICE

DR DALEY J. BIRKETT

What is studied in LAWS1300/LAWS8002?

Students in LAWS1300/LAWS8002 study the (substantive) criminal law — or, what makes an accused guilty or not guilty of a crime in NSW. We therefore examine the general principles of criminal responsibility, the elements of various crimes, including murder, manslaughter, assault, and property offences, and available defences. Students also consider the historical, social, political, and philosophical factors that have shaped the development of this area of the law—and are encouraged to question whether the law is rational, fair, and/or just.

If you were a student, how would you study for this unit and why?

There is a lot of content in this unit, with lectures and tutorials both commencing in Week 1 (and running into Week 13). I would therefore encourage students to hit the ground running. Completing the assigned readings and preparing the tutorial activities would be an excellent starting point. Not only will this assist students to keep up, but it will also render them well-placed to contribute to the discussion in tutorials, a requirement for class participation.

How can first year students prepare for assessment tasks in LAWS1300/LAWS8002?

Aside from participating in tutorial activities — there is a 20% class participation mark — most of the assessment tasks for this unit are written. I would encourage Criminal Justice students to review the resources made available to them on iLearn, which include exemplar answers to previous questions, to read the instructions (and the question) carefully, and to submit a response

Students are far more likely to achieve a passing grade for this unit — and, indeed, other units — if they complete all assessment tasks. If students experience difficulties when tasks are due for submission, they can consider applying for Special Consideration.

What are some mistakes you wish students in your units knew not to make?

Students are asked to provide responses to hypothetical problems— both in tutorials and in written assessment tasks. A common mistake that I’ve encountered in previous offerings of this unit is when students neglect to follow a logical structure in answering these questions, leading to their omitting to discuss significant aspects of the question asked. In short, when responding to a problem question, the clearer the structure, the easier the marker’s task!

What is one aspect of this unit that you like teaching?

I like how the Criminal Law is well-suited to using pop culture as a teaching tool. Most, if not all, students are familiar with various concepts encountered in the unit from having watched crimefocused TV shows or movies. Using such references to teach sensitive and/or complex content facilitates learning and often creates a lighter atmosphere in the classroom.

What is one piece of advice you would provide to all law students?

Time management is crucial, particularly when simultaneously working on assessment tasks for multiple units. If students are struggling to stay on top of this (or any) unit, your convenor has regular consultation hours—and we’re more than happy to help!

General Tips

Diarise 

• Diarising your assessments for your units for the semester will not only help you remember the dates for each of the assessments but also allow you create a schedule, ensuring the assessment is completed at a reasonable time. This can be done by creating small deadlines for the assessment to make time management feasible.

• You may want to create a table of the assessment due dates and stick it where you always see it.

• For example, this is genetic template you could use (Please note, this dates are not reflective of actual units offered by Macquarie, I have simply added dates for the purposes of showing how you could diarise).

Allow yourself to create a “bad” response

• Law students tend to be perfectionists, ambitious to make a good first draft. However, it is important to remember that this will not always be the case, and that is completely okay.

• Having a “bad” assessment draft gives you the opportunity to work with something. You will be able to read and edit your response thoroughly, identifying weaknesses in it, improvements to be made and what you do not need to focus on.

• Remember, practice makes perfect, how can you perfect your response if there was nothing or something minimal to work with in the

Never underestimate the time to edit and review 

• Set aside a good amount of time to edit your work so that you can fix the mistakes in your paper and improve the content. You do not want to be losing marks for small mistakes like referencing or grammar!

• You may want to give yourself a few days before the deadline to read over your response. The benefit of this is that you are able to pick up on more mistakes you need to fix than you would if you were to read your response once or twice. Give yourself time between each ‘editing session’ so you can read your response ‘with fresh eyes’.

Treat your notes in the long-term. Treat your notes as if you were preparing for an exam.

• Making notes not only reflects your level of understanding in a subject, but also pinpoints exactly where you weaknesses are.

• Make sure you are constantly updating your notes. You may want to look over your previous notes for the previous topics once a week to see if there is anything you can condense, add or remove based on your tutorials. This refinement will be much more helpful to you and you will thank your future self later.

Attend workshops if you can!

Attending Australian Guide Australian Guide to Legal Citation 4th Edition (AGLC4)1, or LexisNexis Workshops that the Education Portfolio runs, or the writing resources that are available through the University, will allow you to learn much more about the common mistakes you should be avoiding and some insightful tips on how to improve your legal research skills and writing skills.

1. Psst... Did you know... citations are important?

Create a case table! 

• Having a case table for your law units is a great idea as you can visually see the case facts, outcomes and principles as well. Having a case table allows you to also see all the cases laid out and gives you the opportunity to personalise however you want it, which in turn, might help you understand the content better! You may want to structure your case table like this:

Write in Plain English ABC

• When you are writing your case law notes, make sure you write in a way that is easy for you to understand. You will be referring to these notes throughout the unit and your future self will appreciate the extra time it takes for you to simplify your notes!

Structure it in a way that works for you! 

• Remember that the way you study is different to how other people study and that is completely fine!

• There are many different ways on how students structure their notes. Structuring notes may not be a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, but remember to structure your notes in a way that is most effective to you.

• Mikaela, Publications Director’s Tip: This may sound unusual, but whenever I had to write a case summary, I always associated an emoji with it, especially if it was an important case the unit would be constantly referencing, to remember the case better. For example, Donaghue v Stevenson, on my notes was written as �� Donaghue v Stevenson, and everytime I saw that snail emoji, I would remember that this case was about how Donaghue fell ill because there was a decomposed snail in the bottle, and that the ginger beer manufacturer, Mr. Stevenson owed a duty of care to her as a consumer.

Pretend that the notes you are creating, are notes that you are making for someone else. 

• You not only need to make sure you are taking notes of the relevant topic, but you are writing in a way where if someone who has never done the subject, would understand. The worst thing you can do for yourself is make notes with no structure, headings or direction and when your future self opens it, you think 'oh no', realising you have to do that extra research.

• Remember, it is better if your notes are in plain English and you are confident that your future self will understand what you wrote.

Subheading, subheading, subheading! 

• Structuring and using subheadings is a BLESSING for your future self. Fall into the habit of structuring your notes. You can do this by colour coding headings, subheadings and sub-subheadings as it visually lays out what information falls under what topic.

• For example, you might use different highlighters to pinpoint different pieces of information e.g. pink could be case law, green could be the principle of the case law, yellow could be important information.

Understand concepts to the point you can explain them in three sentences to someone else! 

A good way to actively recall what you have learned is to pretend that you are teaching that same unit to someone else. Try speaking out loud and explaining the concept. When you stumble or realise that you are confusing yourself, review the content and repeat the process. This will build confidence in your understanding of the concept!

Tutorial Notes

Using a different colour anytime you make notes based on what your tutor has said. Having different colours that contrast between how you have answered the questions versus how the tutor would have answered this allows you to reflect on your gaps of understanding. It also does allow you to identify some of the tutor’s insight as well!

Participate! 

• To make better Tutorial Notes and enhance your understanding, participate in the class discussion. I completely understand how daunting this is for students, especially with the fear and anxiety if what you may say is wrong.

• Mikaela, Publications Director’s Tip: Let me tell you this, I have remembered and retained much more information when I have participated (and may have gotten some information incorrect) rather than just listening. It sticks with you much more.

• Participation is not just about making sure you always say the right thing or the ‘smartest’ thing — it's about aiding your understanding and making sure you are using your tutorial time to your advantage.

Lecture Notes

Treat your lectures as a topic skeleton. In essence, your lectures are the rough notes that will help you gain a foundational understanding of the week’s topic. You want to focus on identifying whether you understand it or not and refer back to your readings if you need clarification.

If you can go in, go in!

• In the chance where you travel to university the same day you have lectures, I would strongly recommend you go ahead (provided there is a live lecture).

• In my experience, whenever I have attended a lecture, I found myself listening more rather than typing everything the lecturer has to say as I found that helped me better remember the information. It also does cut down the time when you have to do it later.

• You can even ask questions on the content that is in front of you! Lecturers love it when you engage with them and ask if what they are saying is the same page on how you understand it.

Lecture Tips:

• There are many different ways on how you could structure your lecture notes — remember to focus on what works best for you. Here are some examples of how you could structure your lecture notes (please note that this is not an exhaustive list!):

Option 1: Have the slides in front of you and write notes on the side or on the bottom

Remember to keep these notes short and sweet! You want to make sure that you understand the content first, listen first and if the lecturer provides additional information, write that down!

Option 2: Writing your notes on a new document

• You can write your notes afresh

• Make sure you can structure them well! Remember you will be constantly referring to these so structure them in a way that is most effective for your study!

• Remember to use colours and highlight so you can pinpoint information better! Use as much signposting as you can!

Throughout your time in Law School, you will often hear the words ' I’m stressed.' Whether this is about work, study or even extracurriculars you engage in, stress and anxiety is experienced by many individuals. Here are some contributions in this section that outlines tips and reflects on personal experiences on how each of them have found an approach to deal with stress and anxiety.

You may find yourself experiencing symptoms of stress and anxiety during your studies, and know from the get-go that you are not alone. There are resources available to support you in forging a path forward.

Law students, like solicitors and barristers, exhibit high levels of distress and disproportionately higher experiences of depression than members of the general population. Encouragingly, there is now a wealth of literature that helps us promote better responses in our profession. example, there’s ‘Being Well In The Law: A Guide for Lawyers’ from the Law Society of NSW, NSW Young Lawyers and ANU, and the extremely comprehensive ‘Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: A Global Study’ courtesy of the International Bar Association. The Law Society of NSW even maintains an online page on Mental Health and Wellbeing My tip is to telegraph forward and plug into these spaces to prepare yourself for your career.

Of course, you don’t have to be a law student to experience stress and anxiety, so there are a range of more general supports for students while at university. University Support Services are available including aps, accessibility assistance, counselling, and other health services. Your Unit Guides will also have the standard links to the University’s Special Consideration process. I find a lot of anxiety for first years culminates around not knowing the university basics (e.g. finding classrooms, navigating iLearn, how to find assessment feedback, using Multisearch for research, etc). The best way to beat this is to familiarise yourself with university systems and processes. Before you ‘rage-quit’ on the University’s online platforms, my advice is to scroll to the bottom to see if there are help guides or FAQs. If all else fails, there’s AskMQ