Practical Legal Skills Fifth Edition

Ross Hyams is a practising solicitor and Law Faculty Director of Work Integrated Learning at Monash University. He worked in private practice as a solicitor in a commercial legal firm from 1987 until 1990. He has taught in the Faculty of Law clinical program since 1990. He was the Coordinator of the Monash-Oakleigh Legal Service from 1990 to 2000 and then, from 2001 to 2005, Director of the Springvale Monash Legal Service. In 2004 he was awarded the Law Institute of Victoria President's Inaugural Community Lawyers' Award in recognition of outstanding contributions made within the legal profession and beyond. Adrian Evans has taught, practised law and consulted in a clinical legal education context for thirty five years at LaTrobe and Monash Universities. He was coordinator of Springvale Legal Service Inc. from 1988-2000, the largest Australian clinical site. He is both an academic and a legal practitioner, with teaching responsibilities in legal systems, legal ethics and clinical case supervision. He has empirically examined and published in relation to law students' and lawyers' values, best practice' ethics for lawyers and law firms, quality' clinical-traditional links in law teaching, client attitudes to lawyers, clinical resourcing, evaluation and assessment, approaches to monitoring and controlling defalcations and the ethical environment in which lawyer's fidelity compensation is addressed locally and internationally, and the virtue ethics implications for legal practice in a struggling and conflicted global legal profession.

1. IntroductionThe role of skills teaching in legal educationContent and methodThe limitations of practical legal trainingEnjoying law schoolSkills and valuesSkills teaching: The distinction between ethical content and processTeacher and mentor valuesGood ethics does not mean being squeamishLearning with this book2. Interviewing: Listening and QuestioningThe structure of an interviewThe three-stage process of interviewingEthical dangers in interviewing 3. Interviewing: AdvisingSummarising the factsGiving adviceTechniques for arriving at decisionsBarriers to communicationProfessional rules and ethical considerations4. Keeping out of TroubleWhat sorts of ethical problems exist?Common ethical problem areasDealing with online security5. Writing and DraftingCommunication in writing: Why is it different?Emails and other electronic communication methodsDocument retentionEssential preliminariesEthical issues in letter writingHow to produce ‘plain English’Words and sentencesStructuring a letterReports, memoranda, and other in-house documentsDrafting legal documents6. Negotiation and MediationNegotiatingMediationCollaborative law7. AdvocacyThe objective of advocacyMainstream Magistrates/Local Court: Guilty pleasFederal Circuit Court of Australia: Application to dispense with serviceSupreme Court: Interlocutory applications