Welcome to the UNSW Law Faculty. The Law Faculty is committed to teaching and research excellence in collaboration with partners in the professions, business, government and the community and in the context of a commitment to social justice. We are also dedicated to attaining the highest levels of student satisfaction in their legal and taxation education.

A Distinctive Faculty
The UNSW Law Faculty has a number of important distinguishing features. The Faculty believes that intellectual and social development is best achieved when student views are recognised, appreciated and shared.

The Law School, from its inception, began a new tradition of legal education in Australia: interactive teaching and learning in small groups. This mode has since become a model for other law faculties. We believe that teaching in small groups of around 40 students stimulates the educational process. The result is a more robust and sharpened learning environment which helps students to develop superior powers of legal analysis.

Our Australian School of Taxation, Atax, offers a unique distance education program in taxation that is consistent with small group teaching. Our specialised legal and community centres provide hands-on small group interaction and internships in which students can learn about human rights, indigenous legal rights, constitutional and comparative law, cyberspace and youth law. Our library staff further complement small group teaching with their own strong backgrounds in research and service. Last, but not least, our law student representatives actively engage in Law Faculty governance on key committees and in day-to-day administration of Faculty affairs.

An Educational and Professional Environment
Legal education at UNSW reflects two parallel traditions. It combines the tradition of a university education with the professional education of lawyers and those engaged in the taxation profession. While these two traditions are sometimes viewed as disparate, the UNSW Law Faculty treats them as complementary, indeed as mutually reinforcing. We stress the virtue of exploring and applying ideas both as a matter of intellectual inquiry and in applying legal principles to diverse social contexts.

We also hold that a legal education is intended to expose students to concerns about social justice and responsibility in its diverse manifestations. We recognise such social justice variously, such as by requiring students to participate in the work of the Kingsford Legal Centre (the Faculty’s community legal centre).

We believe, too, that law is relevant to, and should be accessible to all sections of society. While providing for traditional users of law in government and business, we also provide for those traditionally excluded from law. This entails a broader than usual perspective, for example combining the study of human rights and corporate law. Legal education is a tapestry of difference, not of monolithic uniformity.

We invite you to join us at the UNSW Law Faculty. We challenge you to question tried and tested ideas. We encourage you to study through discourse and to learn by example. Legal education at UNSW is concerned, not only with higher values, but also with applying them in a socially responsible and imaginative manner.

Professor David Dixon PhD
Senior Associate Dean
Faculty of Law

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