LAW 3501 - Dispute Resolution and Ethics

This course will cover procedures applicable to the resolution of civil disputes, including conciliation, mediation, arbitration and judgment, together with the ethical obligations that lawyers bring to these procedures. Through problem solving and practical role plays students will be critically introduced to the nature of civil process in South Australian and Federal courts and the respective roles and responsibilities of parties (including their legal representatives), mediators, arbitrators and judges in commencing, continuing and conducting these processes. Particular topics of court adjudication under an adversary system will include: the cost of litigation; initiation and service of process and jurisdiction: joinder of parties and claims; the definition of issues through pleadings and admissions; obtaining evidence through disclosure, inspection and interrogatories and the limits imposed by privileges and immunities; interlocutory injunctions; pre-trial conferences; mediation; judgment without trial including settlement; the nature of judgment; rights of appeal; and the enforcement of judgments. Duties owed by lawyers to the law, the court, clients, other lawyers and the community will be considered in theory and in practice, both particularly in relation to dispute resolution and more generally, as well as the concept of professional misconduct and wider questions of a lawyer's personal ethics and conflicting duties and values.