Overview

This unit introduces students to the relationship between law, technology and design. Legal innovation and technology have become a new focus in the legal industry as technologies of automation slowly transform the nature of legal practice. At the same time, students receive instruction on technology as an object of legal regulation, as well as how technology changes the nature of law itself. This unit offers highly practical lab-based work where students learn the fundamentals of automating legal services and decision support systems, as well as develop skills required for designing new technologies to aid the practice of law.

Requisites

Prerequisites

75 credit points in Law units

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Teaching Period 3
Location
Online
Start and end dates
04-November-2024
09-February-2025
Last self-enrolment date
17-November-2024
Census date
29-November-2024
Last withdraw without fail date
27-December-2024
Results released date
04-March-2025
Teaching Period 2
Location
Online
Start and end dates
07-July-2025
05-October-2025
Last self-enrolment date
20-July-2025
Census date
01-August-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
22-August-2025
Results released date
28-October-2025
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
04-August-2025
02-November-2025
Last self-enrolment date
17-August-2025
Census date
31-August-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
19-September-2025
Results released date
09-December-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Describe and evaluate new technologies that change, challenge and enable the way that lawyers work
  • Represent a legal decision making process as a series of logical steps
  • Explain and build a software system intended to automate a legal decision making task
  • Design and construct a solution to address a challenge or problem in the area of legal practice, and convey the solution requirements to a non-legal audience
  • Work collaboratively as a team to design a legal technology solution

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
On-campus
Class
3.00 12 weeks 36
Online
Lecture
1.00 12 weeks 12
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning
8.50 12 weeks 102
TOTAL150

Swinburne Online

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning
11.50 12 weeks 138
Live Online
Class
1.00 12 weeks 12
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
PortfolioIndividual 50 - 70% 1,2,3,4 
Written AssignmentGroup 30 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5 

Content

  • Legal reasoning and technology
  • Changing technologies of law
  • Designing and building a system for legal automation (practical)
  • Legal expert systems
  • Legal design
  • Law, technology and sovereignty

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.