According to some of the top Australian students, the current state of legal education is not quite equipping them with the necessary skills. When speaking to Lawyers Weekly, Australian Law Society Association (ALSA) 2020 president Margaret Cai says she does not believe students are prepared for the future of law.

This opinion seems to be a shared one. It only takes a quick search to find comments by legal leaders which give cause to the argument that graduates are not sufficiently prepared for modern-day law.

“Anecdotally, people question whether compulsory core subjects are actually relevant and foster the necessary critical skills for real-life practice,” Ms Cai says.

“One question that is often overlooked in these discussions is what are the motivations for legal education? Why do current and prospective students choose to undertake a legal education? An understanding of this is important in informing whether education is appropriately providing students with what they’re looking for.”

The failure to appropriately prepare future leaders for the next phase of the legal profession is in not recognising the trends and pre-emptively offering training and further studies. Meika Atkins, Lawyers Weekly’s winner for Law Student of the Year at the 2019 Women in Law Awards, says despite growing concerns in relation to technology, and the demand for innovation in the sector, educators are failing to design appropriate practices for students.

“Many legal educators are struggling to effectively design and implements courses and units to prepare students for the future profession,” Ms Atkins notes. “Legal educators need to work collaboratively with technology specialists, data analysts and strategists from a range of industries and work to design curriculum that is shaped around future professions, rather than the one that exists today.”

In part, legal education has failed to allow students the opportunity to expand on their chosen fields. The Law Student of the Year at Lawyers Weekly’s 2019 Australian Law Awards, Michael Jeffries, says legal education is too “domestically orientated”.

“The main concerns that I observed during my studies were a perceived lack of career opportunities for graduates, coupled with workload expectations and the mental health challenge once such a position is obtained,” Mr Jeffries tells Lawyers Weekly.

Above all, the legal education system is struggling to predict issues and trends which will arise in the future. Ironically, it’s what law schools should be pre-emptively managing, which it can do by implementing ways to encourage resourcefulness, Ms Cai says.

“The pre-eminent HR catchphrase within the legal profession at the moment seems to be, ‘We’re not looking for cookie-cutter candidates’. Given that legal education is critical to producing these candidates – from everything from commercial law to policymaking and consulting – a similar sentiment should be driving our legal education,” she says.

“How do we produce well-rounded graduates?”

Where Australia’s legal education needs to catch up in 2020
So, where do Australian law schools begin? According to Ms Cai, there are identifiable trends within the legal sector that exist currently and even more that are expected from 2020 and onwards.

During this next year, law schools and leading bodies will continue to hedge questions over whether legal education has adequately “catered to emerging demands for skills” that students need to effectively practice in their chosen field.

Some of the major challenges identified by the students include technology and failure to manage innovation. On this, Ms Atkins identifies a trend the sector has particularly been struggling with – artificial intelligence. It has been widely adopted in many major firms across Australia, and it is imperative students know how to manage it.

“With the sector’s increasing resilience on AI software solutions, demand for the time-consuming administrative processes – that is primarily reserved for junior lawyers and paralegals – is rapidly diminishing,” Ms Atkins says, noting the trend is “altering the role and desired attributes of law graduates”.

In addition, firms have started the process of deviating from a focus on their theoretical knowledge and legal drafting, choosing instead to emphasise on the importance of their strategic innovation, design thinking and data analytics. With the way courses are set up for students, education is not quite preparing them for this minefield.

“Eventually, this same focus will permeate through the whole profession,” Ms Atkins says, adding this shift significantly impacts the available subjects that legal educators should be offering and the learning outcomes students should be striving to achieve.

Off this, Ms Atkins also identified trends around the growing sophistication of the cybercriminals, increased resilience on automated software and the existing skills gap within legal technology. There are also concerns on the implementation of effective adaption and mitigation strategies posing a major challenge for smaller firms and business, who may not have the existing, required resource capabilities to do so.

“Human error remains the most proven contributor to the success of cybercrime,” says Ms Atkins. “As such, legal educators should give considerable attention to integrating theoretical and practical awareness of cyber security to ensure graduates adequately are equipped to appropriately respond to potential cyber-threats.”

Technology has and will continue to substantially change the legal industry with AI just one of the major trends to come from this. The key argument is the state of education does not adequately prepare students for this future, but Mr Jeffries says he identified automation and online dispute resolution processes as a plus.

“It is great to see that some universities have developed offerings which integrate and provide students with increased exposure in this respect,” Mr Jeffries explains.

“Students can rise to the challenge individually throughout participation. Law students should also be prepared to step up whenever technological innovation opportunities present themselves in their future workplaces; this is often a means by which they can contribute unique value and skills.”

Outside of legal education, technology and innovation present challenges to practical management internally and any external dealings.

Ms Cai says this is illustrated in the difficulties law firms currently have in attracting and retaining talent and clients. There is also a lack of integrity and trust among the community and a failure on global trends.

“Importantly, these issues are not content-specific. When the biggest trends and issue facing the profession are about critical thinking beyond the law, attention must then be directed to the delivery and tangible outcomes of legal education,” she notes.

Ms Atkins mirrored this, adding there is a notable skill gap in the area of technological advancements and innovation, which she said is likely to continue widening. Although most legal educators have integrated some form of innovative focus on their programs, as Mr Jeffries identified, many are still struggling to keep up with the demands.

“The sector is moving faster than ever before and it is the role of legal educators to be at the forefront of this change. Rather than focusing on the current needs of profession educators must focus on pre-emptively preparing students for profession of the future,” he says.

And although it is hard to look past technology and innovation as the current and main trends creating new opportunities for the legal profession, Ms Cai notes there are other trends that should be the focus of legal education throughout 2020. This includes new offerings in the legal landscape, which are encroaching on traditional careers.

Further trends include the emergence of NewLaw firms and the in-house in businesses and organisations to manage legal issues, which are disrupting and shaping the current and challenging way the future of law is beginning to appear.

“These trends mean that legal education needs to be dynamic and readily responsive. While underpinning concepts and principles in black letter law may not have changed, relevance of these principles is in their application to real-life contemporary problems,” he says.

The primary concerns of 2020 law students and graduates
A relatively common concern among law students is in school’s persistence in having the Priestley 11 ingrained in its students, especially centred on whether it reflects the current state of education and if it retains relevance for modern-day law and the future practices of law.

Currently, the crux of legal education in Australia is centred on this concern, according to Ms Cai. It forms the core law subjects as well as learning outcomes to underpin each degree.

“As the parameters of the legal profession are redrawn, it is natural for the state of our legal education, the foundation of which has largely remained the same since the early 1990s, to be challenged,” Ms Cai says of the current protests on the Priestley 11.

“On a broader level, conversations about the Priestley 11 should include the students’ perspective – I am always a bit surprised when discussions about the future of legal education take place in public or in media without input from its target demographic.”

The very state of legal education is a primary concern. That is, the structure and design of semesters, trimesters and segmented study. This is in addition to modes of delivery. Law schools should be mirroring the legal profession’s shift towards flexible practices and practical methods of engagement, like recording lectures and open book exams.

Ms Cai says this should be at the forefront when it comes to preparing for the future.

On top of flexibility practices, Australian law firms are also implementing policies which centre on mental illness and wellbeing. It is only natural that this extends to students, during their studies and when they step into a professional role. Ms Atkins notes there have been educators highlighting “concerning statistics” around mental illness in law.

“Students are increasingly concerned about what is being done to actively tackle the entrenched culture of norms that have given rise to the alarming rates of mental illness. While wellness centres and gym memberships have become the norm in many large firms, anecdotal evidence and recent statistics suggest that there is still much to be done to support mental wellbeing in the profession,” Ms Atkins says.

The diversity of law students means the interests and concerns are “often coloured by the differences”, much like geographic and career aspirations.

Ms Cai says the issues and concerns of representative law student organisations, much like the ALSA, have a particular focus on bullying and sexual harassment, diversity and mental health.

“These are not new problems. The fact that they remain big talking points in 2020 only indicates that much more can be done to address them,” she explains.

Students predominantly want educators and employers to represent and offer lessons on the growing social consciousness of current graduates.

Ms Atkins says students will need to see initiatives that endorse the change in areas including ecological innovation and gender and sexual diversity, in addition to promoting mental health and wellbeing.

“Notably, statistics surrounding mental illness in law students and legal professionals convey an unequivocal need for legal educators and employers to be promoting more sustainable practices with respect to health and wellbeing,” Ms Atkins says.

“Students want to see that tertiary institutions and employers are letting go of stigmas surrounding mental illness and make genuine, sincere attempts to refabricate social and cultural practices that have led to such systemic issues.”

So, what changes do students want to see? Ms Cai says it needs to start with a clear continuity between legal education and employment in the legal profession and there should not be a mismatch between the knowledge and skill set graduates have and the knowledge and skill set prospective employers expect them to have.

“Students and graduates want to see values prioritised. In both policy and practice, a tertiary institution and the wider legal profession must do more to combat issues which relate to bullying and sexual harassment, diverse representation and mental health,” she says.

“We already know these are things which widely affect the legal profession, but there is a difference between ticking boxes and driving meaningful change.”

Ms Atkins echoes a similar sentiment, adding that many students are currently questioning the future of the profession because “existing culture doesn’t fit their interests”. She said it is this mindset, however, that supports inaction in the profession.

“Students do not need to alter or undermine their values,” Ms Atkins notes. “The onus is on the profession to transform their culture to reflect prevailing values to attract and retain the highest quality of talent.”

To instigate change, Ms Atkins suggests students form a “collective voice”, either by engaging with university law societies, the ALSA or through informal advocacy groups.

Students should be providing workable solutions to work on reducing the adoption and use of “ineffective, tokenistic initiatives that don’t actively address the issues”.

How can students create this change?
This collective voice is instrumental in implementing the change students want to see in their education and in their future. Students should be more involved in the planning and decision-making discussions around their own legal education, or there will not be much change and the status of learning will remain static and ineffective.

Ms Cai says this approach is both “logical and uncontroversial”. Although part of onus for legal education is on the tertiary institutions to involve a range of student voices to consult on curriculum change or teaching direction, students should be driving change.

Outside of this, “the legal profession doesn’t exist on its own”. Clients and stakeholders also play a role in the law, from every sector, and lessons exists here.

“Another practical thing students and professionals should do – particularly given the popularity of multidisciplinary studies and careers – is to observe what is working with experiences outside of the law, whether it’s from their second degree, extracurriculars or employment,” Ms Cai says of these external agencies.

“The legal profession and law schools should not be afraid of borrowing from what is working in other disciplines, by reviewing, for example, how they prepare graduates to be diligently literate and responding to demands of technology.”

Ms Atkins agrees that many changes students want to see adopted should begin, first, at the university. If students commence making positive efforts to address issues that they face in the profession while at university, Ms Atkins says “the effects of the efforts will eventually ripple through as the new generation of graduates enter”.

“To further support the attempts for change, rather than building the static, superficial relationships with the legal profession, student law societies should place a great focus on creating collaborative, two-way relationships to communicate the desired changes and concerns within the profession,” Ms Atkins concludes.