Category Archives: Law

Accelerated learning comes to Court

September 18, 2008 – 6:00 pm

The mother of a very gifted child is suing the Queensland Government for failing to enrol her 9 year old daughter in Year 8 at a Queensland public school. There is no minimum age for enrollment in high school, but the Queensland Government cited fears over the girl’s social development as a reason for refusing [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Children, Education, Motherhood, Personal, Society | Comments (4)

Lawyer blues

September 18, 2008 – 1:25 pm

I’ve written extensively on this topic before (here, here, here, here and here). It’s one of my bugbears - why are lawyers so prone to depression? Is it something about the kind of person who is attracted to studying law, or is it something which is created by the way in which the law functions? Or [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Depression, Personal | Comments (6)

Student evaluations again

September 17, 2008 – 12:29 pm

I’ve written before on student evaluations, with a bit of a giggle about some of the answers I get.
As I have said, my worry has always been that the kinds of questions asked are too vague, and the responses don’t really reflect, well…anything:
There is also a “multiple choice” part of the questionnaire that students must [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Education | Comments (21)

Just not cricket

September 12, 2008 – 10:10 am

It seems former Australian Test cricketer Craig McDermott is in a spot of bother because of his involvement with failed property investment company Bridgecorp Finance. McDermott was loaned $19.6M by Bridgecorp to aid his Gold Coast property development business. He stated that one of his assets was his $7.5M Gold Coast mansion, along with various shares, [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Cricket, Equity, Sport | Comments (3)

Rowling wins copyright case

September 10, 2008 – 10:20 am

J.K. Rowling has succeeded at first instance in her copyright infringement case against RDR publishers and Stephen Vander Ark for their proposed Harry Potter Lexicon. I have mentioned this case earlier. Obviously the trial judge managed to get his head around the plotlines which he initially described as “gibberish”, as the judgment shows quite a [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Books, Intellectual property, Popular culture | Comments (12)

Political correctness has no sense of humour

September 7, 2008 – 12:05 pm

One of the things which disturbed me about the Beijing Olympics was the lack of humour in any of the proceedings. Once a society no longer has a capacity to laugh at itself, I think it’s an indicator that there is something seriously wrong.
An offhand joke by British Muslim woman Halima Aziz led to her [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in England, Racism, Religion, Society, Terrorism | Comments (23)

The day I decided criminal law was not for me…

September 4, 2008 – 6:41 am

When one is young and naive, criminal law seems really exciting. But ultimately, I ended up going down the private law path. This is what happened the day I decided criminal law was not for me.
It all started when I had to stand in for a court clerk who was off sick on a day when [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Fark!, Personal | Comments (22)

“Why did I get this mark?”

September 2, 2008 – 1:14 pm

One of the problems I found with my law degree is that I was never quite sure why I received the marks I did. So I am very sympathetic to students when they consult me for exam feedback. I go through the exam with the student and point out where they lost marks, and what could [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Academia, Education | Comments (26)

Has the time come for the common law to be scrapped?

September 2, 2008 – 10:36 am

A friend sent me an article from the Centre for Policy and Development entitled “Why Can’t Kevin Rudd Make Proper Legal Policy?” The title is a little misleading, as the piece doesn’t really deal with KRudd or specific instances of failure to make legal policy.
The central thesis of the article is that, although law schools [...]

By Legal Eagle | Also posted in Personal liberty, Public Policy, Society | Comments (25)

Divorce may be a Good Thing (quel horreur!)

August 28, 2008 – 8:09 am

Obviously, that headline can be taken any one of a number of ways, and if you’re recently divorced, it may even inspire you to find the homo economicus who wrote it (me) and burn my house down. So - with that in mind - I’ll just ask you to hear me out, and see where [...]

By skepticlawyer | Also posted in Economics, Feminism | Comments (21)