Criticalthinkingismentionedexplicitlyasaskillrequirement inAQFlevel7(bachelor)andAQFlevel9(masters)degrees.Law degrees at the undergraduate and postgraduate level must reach the requisiteAQFstandards.Itisinstructivetocomparethestandard requiredforaJD(AQFLevel9)withthatrequiredforanLLB(AQF level 7).At Level 7, graduates of a bachelor degree will have:
• cognitive and creative skills to exercise critical thinking and judgement in identifying and solving problems with intellectual independence.
At Level 9, graduates will have:
• cognitive skills to demonstrate mastery of theoretical knowledge and to reflect critically on theory and professional practice or scholarship
• cognitive,technicalandcreativeskillstoinvestigate,analyseand synthesisecomplexinformation,problems,conceptsandtheories andtoapplyestablishedtheoriestodifferentbodiesofknowledge or practice
• cognitive,technicalandcreativeskillstogenerateandevaluate complex ideas and concepts at an abstract level.
65 Avrom Sherr and David Sugarman, ‘Theory in Legal Education’ (2000) 7
ThisstatementwasrecommendedtobeadoptedbyLawSchoolsasanunderlying philosophy by theALRC, above n 60, in 2000 ([2.89]).
68 Law School Reform, above n 2. TheTLOsthathavebeenadoptedtomeettheAQFrequirements, set out in Part II, demonstrate that the thinking skills described at bothLevel7andLevel9arehigh-orderthinkingskills.Theyare notskillsthatstudentscansimply‘pickup’throughlearningand analysinglegaldoctrineandapplyingittolegalquestions.Thisisthe challenge that critiques of modern legal education inAustralia, such asMargaretThornton’s,presenttolegaleducators,andthatTEQSA and theAQF descriptors require us to meet.
Withthisbackgroundinmind,wesetouttoarticulatethepurpose of legal education. It is our contention that many of these goals and approachestolegaleducationarerealisedthroughafocusoncritical thinking (as defined in Part I) in pedagogical practice.
We believe a legal education should equip students with a foundationoflegalknowledgethatdistinguishesthemfromstudents educatedinotheracademicdisciplines.Thismeanslawdegreeswill requireadetailedknowledgeofthelegalinstitutionsofthestate,the originsofthecommonlawandAustralianlegalsystems,thepolitical processesthatgeneratelaws,thesystemsofdisputeresolution,anda knowledgeofkeyareasoflegaldoctrineandtheirapplication. This initial goalfocusesthenonteaching studentsthe‘content grammar’ of law as a new discourse.69 In law, John Zerilli has referred to the necessity of teaching ‘faculty’: Practisinglawyersmustcomprehendlegalprinciplesandprocesses.The curriculum rightly would include a survey of the substantive corpus of law, for example, the law of obligations, public law and crime as well as the adjectival law, such as the law of evidence and procedure. It would alsocoverlegalmethod,rulesofprecedentandformallegalreasoning. A lawyerisnotalawyeruntilheorshehasthesearrowsinhisorher quiver.Thelawyermaypossessnothingbesidesandstillbealawyer. Butwithoutthese,evenpossessingotheradmirablequalities,heorshe is no lawyer.70 Whileitsfocusisonsubstantivelegaldoctrine,wedonotaccept that this necessarily requires the adoption of a passive, teaching-as- transmissionstyle.Withintheteachingofthelegalrules,weenvisage an important role for immanent critique of doctrine, including throughlogicalcritiqueandcriticalengagementwithorthodoxlegal method.
However, we also believe that the prescriptive content of a law degree,currentlyarticulatedinthePriestleylistofsubjects,neednot constrainthescholarlymissionofalegaleducation.Asweexplained inPartII,bysettingthebroadparametersoftherequiredknowledge baseinalawdegree,thePriestleyrequirementssomewhatrelieve