LAW7403 - Ethics and Professional Responsibility

In this Unit you will

• look at the requirements for admission to practice
• examine the basic regulatory framework for the legal profession
• explore ethical issues and dilemmas which may confront legal practitioners
• look at some of the current issues affecting the profession.

The topics covered in this Unit are foundation topics and provide useful examples and practical application opportunities of the basic principles of Ethics and Professional Responsibility underlying legal practice today.

Time Investment

You will need to commit approximately 40 hours to working on this Unit. This includes attending class and the time that you will need to spend

• online - reading, completing activities, visiting websites and participating in the Unit discussion forum
• offline - researching in your organisation, completing activities and thinking.

Learning Outcomes

This Unit is designed to consolidate your understanding of the relationship between the regulatory structure, personal values and professional ethics. While prior knowledge of the substantive law will be commonplace, this Unit is intended to progressively develop your awareness of the requirements of professional conduct.

At the successful completion of this Unit you should be able to

• explain how the professional regulatory framework functions
• relate rules of conduct and ethics to your own legal professional practice
• identify your ethical responsibilities in new professional situations
• recognize conflicts in ethical responsibilities, understand and relate your own values to those differing responsibilities and resolve these conflicts in an ethically consistent manner. 

Modules

The unit is divided into 3 modules. View an overview of these modules.

1. The Profession
2. Professional Ethics
3. Disputes, Complaints and Disciplinary Processes

Attendance

You must attend all face to face sessions to pass this Unit. If you have any difficulties in attending please contact Rahman as soon as possible.

Assessment

Refer to the Assessment Schedule.

If you have any academic questions with respect to this assessment, please email Rahman Saleh ( rahman.saleh@law.monash.edu.au ). If your question is administrative in nature please contact either Wendy Panaccio, Manager Post Graduate Programs ( Wendy.Panaccio@law.monash.edu.au) or Gaye Landsell, Course Convener ( gaye.lansdell@law.monash.edu.au ).

Please note that assessments handed in late are subject to a penalty of 10% per day from both the skill (where appropriate) and the content. Please consult the Course Handbook provided in hardcopy at the commencement of the online course about assessment regulations. Please note that individual teachers or sessional staff are not authorised to provide extensions or accept special consideration applications - you must speak to the Course Convener.

Resources

Online Resources

If you find any resources that you think might be helpful for this Unit can you please email your teacher with the details.

Plagiarism

The University applies strict policies on plagiarism. If a piece of assessable work contains significant plagiarised material it may be graded at zero. Furthermore, conscious or intentional copying can be regarded as cheating and dealt with under the University’s Disciplinary Procedures. It is also an offence for a student to permit their work to be copied by another student for submission.

It is critically important that graduates do not plagiarise. The program emphasises professional ethics and plagiarism by a solicitor has been treated as grounds for suspension from practice.

You must therefore take particular care that all the work you submit for assessment is genuinely your own work (apart from legitimate legal sources such as precedents). You are encouraged to discuss the requirements of an assessable task with your colleagues but the final product submitted must be your own.

You should bear in mind that your instructor is reading a relatively small number of pieces of work and improper similarities between the work of two or more graduates are strikingly obvious.

You should also bear in mind that it is improper to allow your work to be copied and both the copier and the copy-ee may receive a zero grade for the work.