Monash University Faculty of Law, or Monash Law School, is the law school of Monash University. Founded in 1963, it is based in Melbourne, Victoria and has campuses in Malaysia and Italy. It is consistently ranked as one of the top law schools in Australia and globally, and entry to its Bachelor of Laws (LLB) programme is highly competitive.
The Faculty of Law offers the Bachelor of Laws (LLB), with which students may combine other degrees as part of a double degree, the Juris Doctor (JD), Master of Laws (LLM) and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). It currently has approximately 3,914 undergraduate and postgraduate students and over 100 professors, lecturers and teaching associates.
The Faculty of Law's alumni include the former Treasurer of Australia Josh Frydenberg, the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria Anne Ferguson, judges of the Federal Court of Australia, Supreme Court of Victoria and Supreme Court of New South Wales, the leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt, the current Attorney-General of Victoria Jill Hennessy, members of the Australian Parliament, legal scholars, state politicians, prominent businesspersons, artists and media personalities.
The Monash University Law Review is the Faculty of Law's flagship academic journal. It is managed by students and supervised by faculty advisors.
History
Foundation
In the 1950s, it had become clear that Melbourne's only law school at the time, Melbourne Law School, would soon be unable to meet the rising demand for legal education. Although Monash University was founded to focus primarily on science and technology, it would inevitably establish a law school. The need was not considered pressing enough to make a law school a foundation faculty of the new university; however, when Melbourne Law School imposed quotas on law school candidates due to a lack of resources, a new law school was immediately needed to cater for the extra students. The Victorian Council of Legal Education, the Chief Justice of Victoria and the Victorian Government pushed for the overnight establishment of a law school at Monash University, but this was resisted by the University's Vice-Chancellor, Sir Louis Matheson, who wanted a high quality, well-planned, original faculty of law. In the end, it was over a relatively short period of time – 5 months from October 1963 to March 1964 – that a first-year law school curriculum was established and two teaching staff were appointed. However, when students first arrived in 1964, they did so with the knowledge that the curriculum for their later years was still being written. A law library was established with impressive speed, after substantial book donations from two former justices of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Appropriately for a law school, the Faculty's establishment was delayed by a dispute over the interpretation of the Monash University Act, concerning when and how the University Council could set up new faculties. Following debate between Monash University, the Crown Solicitor and the Parliamentary Draftsmen, the Act was eventually amended.
Early years
David Derham was the Faculty of Law's first dean, beginning his term on 29 February 1964 after resigning his post as Professor of Jurisprudence at Melbourne Law School the day before. Derham immediately sought to depart radically from the way that law had been taught previously in Australia. His appointment was announced on a Monday, and he was reportedly outlining detailed proposals for first-year subjects by the following Friday. He drastically reworked the curriculum and teaching style which his faculty had taught at Melbourne Law School. Monash University introduced small-group teaching, interactive lectures and a curriculum which emphasised legal skills in addition to a knowledge of the law itself. Classes were taught not only by academics but also by practising members of the legal profession. According to Derham, the reason behind this approach was that the law is "not fixed and static. It moves and grows." This stood in contrast to the conventional style of teaching in other Australian law schools, in which part-time staff members would deliver lectures to a hall of students with little or no student-teacher interaction. A similar transformation later took place at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. In later years, Derham also managed to establish strong international links with law schools in North America and Europe, which continue today.