LAW5642 The global lawyer

This unit focuses on building professional capacity to engage in international, supranational, and transnational legal practice. It seeks to make students aware of the opportunities as the role of traditional lawyering is broadened, as well as the ethical concerns and responsibilities of being a global, digital lawyer. It introduces the fundamentals of global legal systems and develops the skills to embark upon legal practice across different cultures and systems, including interacting ethically with clients and lawyers from diverse jurisdictions. International management and firm operation will be dealt with as students are challenged with the problem of how to maintain local identity while providing international service.

The unit also equips students to harness digital technologies in the globalisation of legal practice, and to deal with the challenges they pose to the traditional understanding of key legal concepts and to the lawyer's professional identity. Issues such as the changing use of digital technology, modern understandings of privacy and control over information, copyright and ownership of data, and issues of data retention, data security, legal informatics and legal professional ethics will be considered.