Asian Law Bulletin
The Asian Legal Systems course is a 4th year law elective with 100 -180 students enrolling each semester. During weekly classes, students are introduced to and challenged to form their own views on the legal institutions, laws, rules and decisions of those institutions, social and historical traditions and values & attitudes, including political and economic standpoints, of various regions in Asia.
The Gap
WHY? What was I trying to address with the Asian Law Bulletin?
First, it was impossible to cover every aspect of interest and relevance in Asia. The students had diverse backgrounds, interests and expertise. Second, by 4th year, law students were experienced in formal essays and exam writing but what about communicating in a non-formal legalistic way to a wider audience? How well equipped were they to
communicate a complex legal idea or foreign concept in ‘ordinary’ accessible language?
Third, could they write to inform, excite, and sustain the interest of a non-academic law reader? Fourth, whilst they could listen and hopefully learn from me and from other academic authors, what about learning from each other? Could their diverse experiences and insights (especially in Asia) be a rich resource to tap into? Fifth, I’d seen law students debating and in Law Revue, and knew they could be creative, innovative and dynamic but our assessment tasks did not allow for, or ever reward this.
It seemed all five could be addressed by an ‘in-house’ published class Journal in which each student wrote a news report, a feature article, an opinion piece, or a book, film or art review relating to a legal issue in one of the Asian nations covered in the course. (800-1,000 words: 25%).
Starting with Print
So began the Asian Law Bulletin in 2007, with a class of 90 students. There were three editions printed in hard copy for each student. It was a resource used in our tutorials.
Bulletin One on East Asia (China, its regions and Taiwan)
Bulletin Two on North East Asia (North and South Korea and Japan)
Bulletin Three on South East Asia (Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia)
For the first time at UQ law, they read the work of everyone in the class and used it to inform discussion in the weekly tutorials. And for the first time, their challenge was not to write as an academic essay (with footnotes) for a law professor but were to find an exciting issue and communicate it accessible language to interest, inform and engage a lay reader. Helping them do this was a guest advisory lecturer (John Cokely) from the school of journalism. He also guided me on criteria and grading. Students had exemplars including newspaper columns of UQ law professors, Graeme Orr and James Allan.
Outcome: Students rose to the challenge. There were a few exceptions, such as one or two who could not ‘not footnote’, or whose article was verbose or dense with legal terms, or the students who opted for the familiarity of a case note. Most mastered it and moreover relished the experience. I started to note too when writing references, that many included it in their CV’s! They were either proud of this different output, or to demonstrate to an employer they had gained broader communications skills.
Student feedback: The opinion piece task was a refreshing change from the stock standard essay assignments we usually write. Students at TCB are rarely encouraged to articulate their opinions in anything other than wanky academic jargon - it was great fun to express ideas in a manner and medium more closely aligned to the way issues are discussed and debated in broader society.
Examples of Student Work include:
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OPINION: The Maid Trade – Hong Kong’s Dirty Laundry; The Myth of the Imposed Constitution; Next Wife please….
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FEATURE ARTICLES: Lingering Phantoms: Legalism in China; Mirror Mirror on the Wall: which is the fairest of them all?; Porn but not as we know it
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NEWS REPORTS: China Enacts New Food Safety Law, Triggered by a wave of Scandals; Increasing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula; Singapore Implements Internet Content Filter
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CASE NOTES: Secretary for Justice v Commission of Inquiry on Allegations re the Hong Kong Institute of Education [2009] KHCU 375
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INTERVIEWS: Bridging the Gap: an Australian Solicitor on South Korean clients; In conversation with James Donoghue (partner at Blake Dawson’s in Jakarta)
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BOOK REVIEWS: Wild Swan: Changes in Chinese Law; The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court martial and 40 year imprisonment in North Korea; The Best I can do
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FILM REVIEWS: Panorama of Local Chinese Justice – Courthouse on Horseback; Children of the Secret State; Brokedown Palace
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ART REVIEWS: The China Project: an oppressive law perspective
Moving to Online
2011: Asian Law Bulletin Goes Online
By 2011 and number of students in the course had almost doubled - 175 students. Doing a print version was too onerous a commitment and costly. I sought the help of a UQ Learning designer, Valerie Springett, who assisted me to use the same concept but for the Bulletin to be upload on Blackboard. I also limited it to an Opinion Piece as I found this had been the best vehicle for bring through a distinctive voice supported by their research.
A journalistic (not academic) style of writing was required and the collaboration with the School of Journalism continued.
I add to the task to include a comment section where each student had to respond on-line to another’s published opinion at 200 words max and required a separate bibliography to be submitted (brought the assessment weight to 35%)
2013: Asian Law Bulletin adds a video option
In addition to the written opinion article collated into three online editions and second option of a video was included: Postcards from Asia. The postcard was a 2-minute video analysing a contemporary or intriguing legal issue or development in Asia along the lines of Weekly Law Report’s Video Wrap.
2017: A New Challenge
With 200 students enrolled in the course, the size of the Bulletin was becoming difficult to manage. For this reason, I brought in the option of an in-tutorial of 3-minute oral accompanied with an e- poster. I felt it met similar aims of the Bulletin but was an oral alternative.
2019: Asian Law Bulletin furloughed
During this year, all students did an e-poster with accompanying short oral [elevator-pitch style] presentation in tutorials [40%]. See Under 3-MT.
Introducing an E- Newspaper
In 2022, I introduced a new form of assessment- an interactive E-Newspaper. Students were tasked to work in groups to produce an E-Newspaper on a specific region of their choosing. In working with the template provided, they were challenged to present their research in varying formats, including video, photo and journalistic writing. They were awarded marks on how well the group collaborates and works together. An example of the finished live E-Newspaper for South Korea and the covers of each of the 12 editions of the Asian Law Bulletin are included below:
Reflections of members of the South Korean Group on the ALB and on Groupwork:
Student creativity
Cartoons, designed, hand-drawn and painted by Sophie as a commentary on Malaysian legal failures for Environmental Protections.
Also a podcast:
Student feedback
Focus groups were conducted by Alynna Wong after the course finished. She had assisted the students with the platform, technical aspects and design. From these:
Positive aspects cited by students:
“The weekly ALBs were a useful way to show a diverse range of socio-political-legal issues in bite-sized, readable form. Understanding a country’s socio-political landscape provides crucial insight into its legal system and the ALBs were helpful introductions to supplement Ann’s lectures.”
“I enjoyed the freedom to choose my own topic - something that I am passionate about - and the opportunity to draw on my Arts degree knowledge (extended major in Japanese) in an assessment for a Laws course. I especially appreciated the opportunity to engage in an alternative form of assessment - it was challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable. I am grateful I was rewarded for my non-standard approach (a Q&A with the personified koseki system) which I considered to be a bit risky."
“I applaud that this was a group project, with a significant amount of the grade for group cohesiveness. Law students at UQ seem to despise group work (I myself don’t claim to love it), and that’s evidence that they need to do more of it. All of us will end up working in teams at some point in our careers. To learn and improve collaboration skills now will only help for future endeavours. My own group experienced challenges, and I’m sure I’ll come to value even that part of the experience”.
"I found the instructions and examples in the introductory edition useful and easy to follow. I don’t believe any additional instruction was necessary. Many thanks to you, Alynna, for your technical guidance and industry knowledge."
"I liked that it was more open ended, and you could do a video if you wanted but you’re not constrained by what the rest of the group is doing."
"Interdisciplinary Development allowed many talents and skills that were unearthed …to draw on experiences in other fields. Ie. drawing, video production, delivering legal information in an easily understandable way."
What needed to improve:
"I believe the due date for each edition should have been the Friday afternoon, giving students the opportunity to read and digest the upcoming week’s ALB and come to class better prepared to discuss it."
"The ECP needed to better clarify the word count (600 v 800) given the different mediums, videos, articles, podcasts and cartoons used."
