Australian Law Students' Association

The Australian Law Students' Association
Public, limited by guarantee
Founded 1979
Website www.alsa.net.au

The Australian Law Students' Association (ALSA) is the peak representative body of law students from Australia. The ALSA facilitates communication between the law student societies of most Australian law schools; it acts as a conduit for intervarsity dialogue and intercourse; it represents students to government, universities and the public; it authors numerous educational and careers publications; and it hosts an annual conference and two additional council meetings each year.

ALSA is a not-for-profit association run by law students elected annually for the benefit of law students nationally. ALSA's membership comprises all law students in Australia and their universities' law student societies, with the exception of the Sydney University Law Society.[1] Representation to ALSA is facilitated by these societies, whose delegates sit on the ALSA National Council. The organisation's functions are overseen by an Executive and Committee. The ALSA Executive and Committee (ALSA Main) should not be confused with the ALSA Conference, which is run by a separate body (from the host university) and which is supported by ALSA Main.

Members

All law student societies are members of ALSA, with the exception of the Sydney University Law Society, which withdrew from the association in August 2014.[1]

  • Adelaide University Law Students' Society
  • Australian National University Law Students' Society
  • Bond University Law Students' Association
  • Charles Darwin University Law Students' Society
  • Deakin University Commerce and Law Society
  • Deakin Law Students' Society
  • North Law Society (Edith Cowan University)
  • Flinders Law Students' Association
  • Griffith University (Gold Coast) Law Students' Association
  • Griffith University Law Society (Nathan Campus)
  • James Cook University Law Students' Society
  • La Trobe University Law Students' Association
  • Macquarie University Law Society
  • Melbourne University Law Students' Society
  • Monash Law Students’ Society
  • Murdoch Student Law Society
  • Notre Dame Law Students' Society (Fremantle)
  • Notre Dame Law Students' Society (Sydney)
  • Queensland University of Technology Association of Law Students
  • Royal Melbourne Institution of Technology (RMIT) Law Students' Society
  • Southern Cross University Law Society
  • Tasmania University Law Society
  • Isaacs Law Society (University of Canberra)
  • University of New England Law Students’ Society
  • University of New South Wales Law Society
  • University of Newcastle Law Students’ Association
  • University of Queensland Law Society
  • University of South Australia Law Students' Association
  • University of Technology, Sydney Law Students' Society
  • The Blackstone Society (University of Western Australia)
  • University of Western Sydney Law Students' Association
  • University of Wollongong Law Students' Society
  • Victoria University Law Students' Society

Presidents

Presidents of the Association are elected by the ALSA Council, with each Member university exercising two votes each. The President's term runs from 1 August to 31 July each year. Past Presidents have come from a variety of universities:

Year Elected Name University
1978 Terence Connolly University of Adelaide
1979 unknown unknown
1980 Michael Lishman University of Western Australia
1981 Alistair Wyvill University of Queensland
1982 Cecilia Tarrant University of Auckland
1983 John Richardson University of Sydney
1984 Stewart Diamond Monash University
1985 Elizabeth Vardon Australian National University
1986 Stuart Shepherd University of Western Australia
1987 Fiona McLeod University of Melbourne
1988 Janet McDonald University of Adelaide
1989 Lachlan Carter University of Melbourne
1990 Gareth Sage University of Sydney
1991 Brad Husband University of Melbourne
1992 Brad Husband University of Melbourne
1993 Penny Moore Murdoch University
1994 Simone Burford Macquarie University
1995 Amber Cerny Macquarie University
1996 Emanouel Gaganis Flinders University
1997 Geraldine Chin Australian National University
1998 Jesse Clarke University of Sydney
1999 Georgia King-Siem University of Tasmania
2000 Jason Roufogalis Macquarie University
2001 Joanna Davidson University of New South Wales
2002 Daniel Murnane University of Canberra
2003 Ivan Rubinstein Deakin University
2004 Elizabeth Hundt University of Technology Sydney
2005 Katrina Dunn Murdoch University
2006 Faraz Maghami University of Western Sydney
2007 Paul Gordon Flinders University
2008 Verity Doyle University of Queensland
2009 Jonathan Augustus University of Melbourne
2010 Matthew Floro University of Queensland
2011 Geoffrey Winters University of Sydney
2012 Corinne O'Sullivan Macquarie University
2013 Charlotte Thomas University of Adelaide
2014 Alistair Booth Macquarie University
2015 Paul Melican Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
2016 Dan Trevanion Australian National University
2017 Georgia Mullen University of Tasmania

The University of Melbourne and Macquarie University have supplied the most number of ALSA Presidents - both five times since 1978. Twenty one ALSA Presidents have been male, while sixteen have been female.

ALSA annual conferences

Traditionally an annual conference is held each year by ALSA, with council, general and competing delegates attending from the majority of Australia's law schools. Competitors are also invited from New Zealand's five law schools, and from the National University of Singapore. The conference allows students to compete against fellow member universities in mooting, negotiation, witness examination, paper presentation and client interviewing. Each competition allows the student to apply their legal training, skills and knowledge in a practical sense.

Bidding rights to host the conference are determined on the basis of a two-tiered classification system. ALSA-affiliated Universities are first divided into two groups by geography: Eastern (made up of Universities in Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria) and Other (made up of Universities in South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania). This makes up the first tier, with hosting rights rotating in a three-yearly cycle between Eastern, Eastern and Other.

Within each tier is the second tier, which divides Universities further into geographical classifications as follows:

Eastern Other
Victoria South Australia
NSW-Regional & ACT Northern Territory
Queensland Western Australia
NSW-Sydney Tasmania

Therefore, after the first tier is confirmed for any given year, the right to make a bid will fall on the next regional classification along, e.g. if it is an Eastern year and the last Eastern bid was from Victoria, then the right to bid will fall on NSW-Regional & ACT. If no University in the region which has the bidding rights that year makes a bid to host the conference, the next region along in that group will have the right to make a bid.

NSW-Sydney did not bid for the 2010 conference. The opportunity to bid therefore passed to South Australia as the bidder next in line. South Australia's decision to bid for 2010 means that it will not be eligible to bid for 2011 (for which it was originally scheduled to bid), and the bidding rights for 2011 will pass to Eastern (Victoria).

Year Location Tier 1 Region Tier 2 Regional classification Hosting universities
2005 Perth Other Western Australia Joint hosts: University of Western Australia, Murdoch University and University of Notre Dame Australia
2006 Melbourne Eastern Victoria Joint hosts: University of Melbourne, Deakin University, Monash University and La Trobe University
2007 Canberra Eastern NSW-Regional & ACT Joint hosts: Australian National University and University of Canberra
2008 Hobart Other Tasmania Host: University of Tasmania
2009 Brisbane Eastern Queensland Joint hosts: Griffith University - Nathan and Queensland University of Technology
2010 Adelaide Other South Australia Joint hosts: Flinders University, University of Adelaide, and University of South Australia
2011 Sydney Eastern New South Wales University of New South Wales
2012 Melbourne Eastern Victoria Joint hosts: Monash University, University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, Deakin University, Victoria University, and RMIT University
2013 Perth Other Western Australia Host: University of Western Australia
2014 Brisbane Eastern Queensland Joint hosts: University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology
2015 Sydney Eastern New South Wales Host: University of Sydney, although the University of Sydney severed its affiliation with ALSA, leaving the organisation of the conference to other (mainly UNSW) law students
2016 Hobart Tasmania Host: University of Tasmania
2017 Canberra Eastern ACT Host:

Bids for the opportunity to host the annual conference are heard two years in advance at the ALSA July Conference itself. If no bid is presented (as happened at the 2010 Conference in Adelaide), the bid process continues to the October Council meeting, until a bid is put forth.

ALSA champions

Melbourne University has won the ALSA Championship Moot more than any other university: on 7 occasions. UNSW has won ALSA Witness Examination more than any other university: on 8 occasions. Macquarie has won ALSA Negotiation more than any other university: on 3 occasions. Auckland and Wollongong have each won ALSA Client Interviewing more than any other university: on 3 occasions. UQ has won the ALSA Red Cross IHL Moot more than any other university: on 4 occasions. UWA and Murdoch have both won ALSA Paper Presentation more than any other university: on 3 occasions.[2]

Conference history

The Australian Law Reform Commission's Kirby Cup was a competition that ran until 2009.[3]

Year Winner Runners Up
2006[4] Brett Le Plastrier; Michael Lyons (UQ) Julia Carland, Jonathan Pagan (Sydney); Timothy Stutt (Monash), Laughlin Nicholls (Melbourne)
2007[5] Tom Smyth, Christian Strauch (ANU) Peter Clay, Vanja Tekic (Murdoch); Susan Cirillo, Radhika Withana (Sydney)
2008 Barbara Townsend, Karlo Tychsen (Newcastle) Jennifer O’Farrell, Jane Worrall (Tasmania); Nicholas Blaker, Sergey Kinchin (James Cook)
2009 Ella Kucharova, Rebecca Zaman (UNSW) (Sydney); (ANU)

A Competitions Subcommittee was set up in late 2010 to reform the ALSA Competitions rules. The results of this process were announced in June 2011, including:

  • the addition of a fourth preliminary round,
  • streamlining all rules for consistency,
  • updating the score sheets,
  • providing a mechanism for competitors to request their score sheets after the Conference,
  • using the standard deviation of margins instead of the aggregate of margins as the secondary determinant to rank competitors,
  • prescribing questions for judges to ask clients in Client Interviewing,
  • altering the composition of the Appeals Review Board in the Appeals By-Law.

Other proposals, including the introduction of a power-pairing or Swiss system, were deferred to the medium and long term.

References

  1. 1 2 "Notice to Members: SULS withdraws from the Australian Law Students' Association". Sydney University Law Society. 3 August 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  2. ↑ The results of the competitions (listed below) are largely taken from the engravings on the Champions' Cups and Shields which are updated each year.
  3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20080905135205/http://www.alrc.gov.au/events/events/kirbycup/index.html
  4. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20060619180719/http://www.alrc.gov.au/events/events/kirbycup/index.html
  5. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070829141544/http://www.alrc.gov.au/events/events/kirbycup/index.html
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