the ndsls
obiter
Alex Carlos, Natalie Baladi and Aidan Williams with Professor Michael Quinlan
01
Week Two Semester One Tuesday 05 March 2013 the notre dame sydney law society
Notre Dame Sydney Law Society
acknowledgements Obiter Issue One Editor Caroline Michel Cover Story Alexander Carlos Caroline Michel Contributors Eden Christopher Caitlin Gallagher Lisa Summerhayes Aidan Williams Design Alexander Carlos NDSLS Committee 2013 Executive Eden Christopher, President Natalie Baladi, Vice-President Daniel Austin, Secretary Sean D’almada Remedios, Treasurer Directors Jacob Deigan, Careers Julia Lavers, Competitions Aidan Williams, Education Peter Gray, IT Alexander Carlos, Marketing Caroline Michel, Publications Dominique Hermo, Social Events Rachel Bennett, Social Justice Lauren Absalom, Sponsorship Year Representatives Appointment-in-Progress, First Year Shelby van Ooran, Second Year Caitlin Gallagher, Third Year Sean D’almada Remedios, Fourth/Final Year Lisa Summerhayes, Graduate/Mature Age Contact the Editor Contact the Committee www.ndsls.org
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From the
Editor
CAROLINE MICHEL
Welcome to the new Obiter for 2013! I’d firstly like to introduce myself, my name is Caroline Michel and I am the NDSLS Publications Director for 2013. For all our new students, welcome to the Notre Dame Sydney Law School. The Obiter is our fortnightly publication that is provided free to all students. This year I am pleased to say that our newsletter has had a bit of a face-lift! As part of our new marketing scheme we have aimed to make The Obiter more student-friendly with a new design, and increased student-focused content. Each week we will include a cover story that will focus on a main NDSLS or law school event of the fortnight, as well as updates and student contributions.
This year we are welcoming a larger range of student contributions. Not only can you submit an original piece of work (either a small article, essay or anything in between) but we will also be launching
YourSay in which you will have a chance to submit a short opinion/thought about a contemporary legal topic each fortnight. Submissions will then be chosen for inclusion. I’m really excited about YourSay because it gives everyone a chance to submit something to our magazine without having to write an entire article or essay. YourSay will be officially launched in the next edition of The Obiter.
If you would like to submit something to The Obiter you can either email it directly to me at publications@ndsls.org or upload it on our website, www.ndsls.org, under the publications page! So don’t be afraid to get the creative juices flowing. I look forward to hearing from you. That’s all for now!
Caroline Michel Publications Director
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in this issue 6 Cover Story: Meet the Dean
Alexander Carlos
10 Work-Work Balance 12 Welcome
Aidan Williams
Caitlin Gallagher
13 Attention: Mature-Age/Grad Students 15 YourSay: Our Newest Segment
Lisa Summerhayes
Caroline Michel
President’s Note Welcome everyone to The Obiter for the new year. Every day when we wake up we are presented with an opportunity to make the most of the day. You can forget the challenges of yesterday and look forward to what the future can bring. In the same spirit, you can start this semester with a clean slate - it’s a fresh start. You will have new subjects and the opportunity to do things differently, to do things better and build upon what you’ve learnt so far.
The NDSLS has been busy over the holidays bringing you all a new face across our online and print mediums. Together we’ve put together competitions to improve your skills, we’ve made the bookings for social events to keep you entertained and coordinated the resources of potential employers to be brought to you directly in Week 10 for the annual Careers Week.
Everyone can change and improve. There is always something new to learn. So take this year on with vigour; in your studies, at your job and at home or out with friends. I wish you all the best for the year to come and hope to see you around campus.
Eden Christopher President
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Upcoming Events and Notices March 7
Competitions workshop at 12pm
March 8
Competitions online registration closes at 8pm.
March 11
Confirmation of competition competitors
April 5
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(Pioneer House NDS5/403)
The ND Gift
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Be sure to follow us on all our online portals! Just click where you want to go!
Like Us on Facebook Note: Our Facebook Page is called ‘Notre Dame Sydney Law Society - NDSLS’. The URL is www.facebook.com/NotreDameSydneyLawSociety. We do not post on this older page: www.facebook.com/pages/Notre-Dame-Sydney-Law-Society/294264827809
Follow Us on Twitter Subscribe on YouTube Subscribe via RSS and
www.ndsls.org For social media enquiries, contact the Marketing Director, Alex Carlos at marketing@ndsls.org. For website enquiries, contact the IT Director, Peter Gray at administrator@ndsls.org. The Obiter, Issue 1 | 5
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MEET THE DEAN ALEX CARLOS MARKETING DIRECTOR
Introduction by Caroline Michel In early February, our Marketing Director, Alex Carlos, sat down with the new Dean of the School of Law, Professor Michael Quinlan, to find out a bit more about his legal experience and what he hopes to bring to our law school. The following transcript is abridged but you can read or watch the full interview on our website: http://www.ndsls.org/2013/02/18/meet-the-new-dean/.
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AC: Do you want to start off by telling us a little bit about your legal education? MQ: I studied at the University of New South Wales and I studied an Arts/Law degree. Like many people who study an Arts/Law degree, at the time I decided to study that degree I hadn’t actually formulated in my mind what my future was going to be but I was interested in history, English and politics. During my law years I studied hard, did well and I still didn’t have much of a feeling for what I would do in the future, so I didn’t apply for any summer clerkships or anything like that. In my fourth year, we had a subject called Trial Process and for some
reason the lecturer, [Hank di Suvero] who went on to join the Sydney Bar, unlike any other lecturer at the university, took each of the students aside and spoke to them about their future and he told me that I would work in a large commercial law firm and after two years I would go to the Bar. So he was right about the first, not right about the second because I then spent 23 ½ years at the one firm – initially called Allen Allen & Hemsley, then it became Allens Arthur Robinson and it is now called Allens and it’s part of a strategic alliance with the global firm Linklaters called Allens Linklaters.
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AC: What motivated or attracted you to apply for this job? MQ: When I first came to Notre Dame in 2010, it impressed me as a university, the Objects of the University impressed me and I had a sort of feeling that it would be tremendous to, at some time in my life, be the Dean of the Faculty of Law – never actually expecting that it might be a realistic possibility. But then I found out – not because I was looking for a new job at the time – that the position was being advertised, quite late in the process. At the time I had two assignments due for my Masters of Arts in Theological Studies plus I was pretty busy at work, but anyway, I rang the university asking if they’d keep a space available and if I could put in an application which they agreed to. In between doing all of that work, I put my application in and there was quite a long process of interviews and so on before I was actually offered the position. But what motivated me to leave a successful career at a prestigious firm and come here is my desire to do something for the Church, my belief in the Objects of this university and my great desire to see this university succeed. That’s really what motivated me to do that. AC: Do you want to talk about some of the goals you have for Notre Dame and the School of Law in the short-term, mid-term and the long-term? MQ: Obviously it’s early days, I’ve only been here for a week but my goals for the university are really the objects of the university. That is, to have a university that teaches in a Catholic context and which provides practical training for the profession – in this case, the legal profession. I want to see the University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney Campus
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recognised by students and the profession as a leading law school and a first choice for students finishing the HSC and looking to study law. AC: What would your advice be for students coming into to a law degree, whether they’re a first year or a final year student, what would your top tips be? MQ: Study hard and focus on the degree you’re undertaking. A law degree opens many doors but it is a difficult degree, I found it difficult when I studied it and I studied very hard to achieve good results which enabled me to have a successful career in a major firm. Speaking from my own experience, law didn’t stop being hard when I left university, it’s a hard career and that’s part of the attraction of it. There are constant challenges, you’re always dealing with different problems, and always dealing with different people and the law is always changing.
The decisions you make now will all influence what happens to you in the future. For a law student I’d say that it’s important to do the reading and focus on the task people are giving you. Nobody at university, and certainly nobody here, is giving you tasks to be painful or to be difficult but you do need to develop critical thinking, you do need to have excellent comprehension skills, you do need to be able to speak on your feet, you do need to be able to read cases and understand them and you do need to understand legal history and the whole process of the law to be a good lawyer. All of those things mean you do need to do a lot of reading and that’s going to be a feature throughout anyone’s law degree and that’s going to be a feature throughout
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anyone’s career. The results you achieve in your university degree do have a significant impact on your future and the choices you make in your subjects have a significant impact on your future so it’s important for people to do more of what I didn’t do (although things worked out okay for me) which is to focus pretty early on what you’re doing the degree for and what you hope to get out of it and where you plan to use it and what you plan to do with it. The decisions you make now, the amount of study that you do, the subjects that you choose, the amount of work you do in the subjects that you choose will all influence what happens to you in the future. If you’re coming into the degree wanting to be a high-flying lawyer at a high-flying firm then you need to work incredibly hard because to get jobs at those firms is incredible difficult and only the people with the highest results in pretty much every subject, including in their combined degree, will be considered. It’s a major task if that’s what you want to do. At the same time you do need to have a life and interests outside study. But no matter what you want to do, no matter what you want to use the degree for, it’s important to study hard and work hard because everything you learn will be useful to you at some stage. You might not realise it now. For example, I never wanted to do property in my first year at Allens, but it actually ended up being very useful to me.
happy being a father. Historically, I was a musician before I became a lawyer. So this is my third career in a sense. AC: What did you play? MQ: I played guitar and sang. I was pretty heavily involved in music when I was at school and with a couple of guys; we had a band at school. We kept doing that after we left school for a while and then we got serious and started writing songs, formed a band amd got a recording contract. So I after I finished the first three years of my course of my Arts/ Law degree, I took a year off and worked in the public service, primarily to play in the band. So if you Google The Mexican Spitfires you can find how our career went and see some humorous film clips. AC: All right, well thank you very much for the interview and we’ll be looking forward to seeing what you bring to the university. MQ: Thank you very much.
Read or watch the full interview on our website: http://www.ndsls.org/2013/02/18/meet-the-newdean/.
Hard work pays off would be my main message. AC: Do you have a secret talent? MQ: Do I have a secret talent? Maybe you need to ask my children. I have four children so I’m very
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Work-Work Balance Aidan Williams Education Director High levels of paid employment can lead to immediate benefits, but can have negative impacts over long-term employment prospects I (finally) put my hand up to be a Student Mentor to First Years. One of the first questions I was asked was “How have you found working and keeping up with university work?” As a Fifth Year, Arts/Law student, I had an opinion: “Very tricky question... In my first few years, I preferred to work only a very little, say, 16 hours. In some later years, I have worked more, and found that I have actually performed better at uni, because, I suppose, it may help with your time-management skills. But I personally think most students work too much/study too little. I think you can get away with it better in your later years, when you’re a better student. Students fail law subjects! And only secure passes in Arts... This is bad. We are supposed to be full-time students, which suggests it’s optimal if you don’t have to work at all. This is probably something you will have to work out by trial and error, from semester to semester.”
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This is ALSA’s (Australian Law Student’s Association*) current thinking on “work-work balance”: “The modern image of the full time student is not what it once was, with many students preferring to spend as little time as possible on campus. It is not uncommon for many law students to take on 30 hours of paid employment in addition to a full time study load. The Fair Work Ombudsmen is also conducting an investigation into unpaid work experience after a report revealed half of law students report doing unpaid work. While doing some paid employment is generally seen to have a positive impact, the point at which paid employment adversely impacts on students GPA (Grade Point Average) differs on a case by case basis, but usually occurs between 12 and 16 hours of paid employment per week. According to the U.S. Department of Education, students working 1-15 hours weekly have a significantly higher GPA than both students working 16 or more hours and students who don’t work at all.”
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This mostly correlates with my experience. Briefly, ALSA hints at another travesty for some ‘modern students’. Spending as little time as possible on campus, they miss out on much of what university offers (or should offer): fun socials, professional networking, expanding careers ideas, pursuing social justice (think of the 60s!), exploring faith and personal identity… (We like to think that student societies like NDSLS, with your involvement, also play real roles ‘Enriching the student experience’.) But more on this topic another day.
3) Be aware that high levels of paid employment can lead to immediate benefits, but can have negative impacts over long-term employment prospects. Finally, help your mates make informed decisions in this regard too; refer them to this article. * ALSA is the national, peak student body representing law students. They are friends, with a website detailing their many cool initiatives and resources - http://www.alsa.net.au/.
In Summary 1) Be sure to make time in your own lives to do the things that matter. This also sets an example for other students to follow suit. 2) Seek out work opportunities with good pay and flexible hours. If you already have one, tell a friend.
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“Welcome” Welcome and welcome back to Notre Dame everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and is excited to be back at uni, I know I am. =) I have just a quick bit of advice to share with everyone, both new students and those returning from last year, that I actually heard from my high school Principal several years ago. The advice was to do everything you can to the best of your ability so that at the end of the Semester you will look back and won’t wish you had have done this or that. The thoughts of wishing you had have done tasks like weekly readings often surface around exam time which adds to the stress and anxiety.
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Caitlin Gallagher 3rd Year Rep My Principal also said that class time was invaluable and I agree. No matter how good the teacher’s notes or your best friend’s notes are, they do not capture everything that was said or asked in that class. Unless the class is repeated later in the week, that class time is something you cannot get back so make the commitment and go to every lecture and tutorial. You’re certainly not going to wish you hadn’t. So overall I think I can sum up her advice by saying ‘you only get out what you put in’. Good luck everyone!
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ATTENTION:
Mature-Age/Graduate Students Lisa Summerhayes Mature-Age/Graduate Rep Please allow me to introduce myself at this the beginning of our academic year. My name is Lisa Summerhayes, and I have been elected as your Representative for 2013. As mature age and graduate students (MAGS) we weave a unique thread into the tapestry that is Notre Dame. Whether studying the three year grad course or the four year straight law, both degrees bring their own set of challenges. Privacy restrictions preclude me from access to your student contact details. Because of this I urge you to make contact with me so I can develop a database. With this database I will be able to pass on relevant information specific to the mature age and grad sector of the student community.
Additionally I would strongly encourage you to email me with any queries you may have regarding your studies or Notre Dame in general. I am on Campus of a Monday, Tuesday and Thursday this semester and am happy to meet up to discuss any concerns. I would also like to organise some set morning or afternoon tea sessions in order to encourage MAGS to identify with others and pick up some tips to studying at our level. It can be a huge relief to discuss concerns with likeminded students. So please, contact me. I am only too happy to help. Lisa’s Details: M: 0403 388 955 E: graduate@ndsls.org
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Take your seat at the table Registration for Client Interview and Negotiation Competitions is now open until 8pm Friday, 8 March! Download our Official 2013 Competitions Guide Visit www.ndsls.org/competitions today!
Notre Dame Law hoodies are now available for order! 1. Visit Roszanna’s office at the School of Law to try out sample sizes. 2. Click here to visit our website and order online!
It’s that easy! It’s only $50!
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YourSay Our newest segment In the next edition of The Obiter (Week 3) we will be launching our new segment called YourSay. In each edition a legal topic, issue or question will be published and students will be invited to submit a short (max. 100 word) opinion/thought/comment about the issue. Contributions can even be accepted in ‘tweet’ format (with abbreviations, etc.) as long
YourSay is a great way to have your 2 cents worth published without having to write an article or essay. So be sure to check out the next edition of the Obiter to find out how you can submit to YourSay.
as it is understandable and appropriate. The best/ most interesting submissions will be published in the following edition.
language or themes. The NDSLS reserves the right to refuse a submission if it is inappropriate.
Disclaimer: All submissions will be considered for publishing provided they do not contain offensive
How to Contribute Submit an original written piece The Obiter welcomes original student written pieces. If you would like to have something included in our publication, don’t be shy- we are now accepting a range of original works whether they be short articles or long essays. As long as they are focused on a legal or university related issue/topic we would love to publish your work! If you are a budding writer why not send us something?
You can either upload your document to our website www.ndsls.org or email it directly to Caroline, the Publications Director at publications@ndsls.org. It’s that easy. We look forward to hearing from you.
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The NDSLS would like to recognise the significant contributions of our Gold Sponsors. These sponsors have been with us for many years and have made significant contributions to YOUR society during that time. Check out their website and Like them on Facebook to stay informed on how they can help you more.
Copyright and Disclaimer Š The Notre Dame Sydney Law Society. This publication is copyright. Except where permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced or stored by any process, electronic or otherwise, without the express permission of the Notre Dame Sydney Law Society. This is a publication of the Notre Dame Sydney Law Society. Its sponsors, contributors, the University of Notre Dame Australia, its affiliates or its employees do not necessarily endorse any facts or opinions contained within this publication