Kirby Seminar Series

17 April
12 noon – 1pm
W38 EBL Lecture Theatre 5 (LT5), School of Law

"Selling the Dream: Law School Branding in a Marketised Context"

Professor Margaret Thornton, Professor of Law and ANU Public Policy Fellow, Australian National University

The proliferation of law schools and the application of the free market to higher education, including the introduction of a user-pays system has compelled law schools to compete with one another to attract and keep students. This framework positions students as consumers who choose the most attractive educational 'product'. Law schools ignore the desires of student / consumers at their peril.

This paper considers the way choice is construed with the aid of 'branding' and its ramifications for legal education. In presenting themselves as the means of realising a bright future centering on an aesthetic of pleasure, law schools play down the broader civic role of law. Does marketisation mean that the education of critical thinkers who can contribute to public debate has become a thing of the past?

20 March, W38 EBL Lecture Theatre 5 (LT5), School of Law

"The impact of Australia’s succession laws on Aboriginal people: the paradoxical protection of customary law by the common law will"

Professor Prue Vines, Director of First Year Studies, Co-Director Private Law Research & Policy Group at the University of New South Wales

Australia’s succession laws in their various forms – wills, intestacy and family provision – are a poor fit for Aboriginal people including the burgeoning middle class. This seminar reports on research done in Aboriginal communities to determine the needs and wishes of Aboriginal people in relation to succession on death. It is clear that all the mainstream law provisions are problematic. Although some changes have been made to intestacy law in response to these findings, paradoxically it seems as if the will is ultimately the best way to meet the expressed needs and desires of the Aboriginal people consulted. The research, carried out with the NSW Trustee & Guardian to develop culturally appropriate instruction forms and wills for Aboriginal people and to make them available generally, has now been completed and it now remains to see if the rate of will-making can be increased and how it impacts on the problems identified. You are warmly invited to attend.

20 February

"Investing in Nature’s Trust: Environmental Governance of the Financial Economy"

Professor Benjamin J. Richardson, Canada Research Chair in Environmental Law and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia

Environmentalists have traditionally paid little regard to the financial economy, on the assumption that investors and financiers are passive actors, remote from the operational decisions, and without knowledge or means of influence over the environmental performance of companies or other economic entities. This seminar explains why finance capitalism should matter to anyone concerned about sustainability. It examines these issues through an assessment of the rationales and methods of socially responsible investing (SRI) — the one movement to take somewhat seriously this agenda. The seminar outlines a governance model that can harness and expand the influence of SRI in order to promote sustainability in the financial sector. The notion of “nature’s trust” is advanced to capture the fiduciary responsibility that financial actors should have towards the environment.