After much debate it the fictional house of law school reps (see Facebook) some amendments have been made to the Law Student and Jurist Bill 2011. This is your opportunity to provide valuable feedback on an Act that will regulate the conduct of the law students in your law school. Hopefully we’ll get it through the house this time!
Also, how many types of statutory interpretation tools can you spot?
Law Student and Jurist Bill 2012
Contents
Long title
Short title
Commencement
Who the Act applies to
Definitions
Douchebaggery
Restrictions based on years
Duty not to give legal advice
Library Use
Penalties
1. Long title
An Act to regulate the needlessly competitive and douchebag behaviours of law students and recent law graduates.
2. Short Title
This Act may be cited as the Law Student Act 2012.
3. Commencement
Sections 1-3 commence on 23 March 2012, the remaining provisions commence sometime after mid semester after assessment has been handed in by proclamation.
4. This Act applies to the following:
1. All students enrolled in a law degree, bachelor or higher education involving the law.
2. This Act applies during university holidays, public holidays and after completion of the enrolment mentioned in section 4(1) until graduation two years after being admitted to practice.
3. After receiving formal notification from an institution about successful enrolment into a course mentioned in 4(1) the person is considered a student for the purposes of this Act.
a) A feeling of pompousness at this time is not warranted, a breach of this Act during this time will result in double the prescribed penalties.
5. Definitions
Douchebaggery: the act or acts that result in a breach of section 5 of this Act. Section 5 of this Act does not limit the behaviours that fall under such a definition. Law students are crafty and will find loop holes.
Graduate: any jurist who has graduated from a law degree and has been admitted to legal practice within the past 2 years.
Gunner: an individual who, unlike the Peacock, actually understands the law but dominates every tutorial or lecture in the attempt to have a ‘mind meld’ with the tutor or lecturer.
Institution: Includes University and other intuitions qualified to add ‘LLB’ or ‘JD’ to an individual’s name after the completion of the course.
Peacock: an attempt to show others how brilliant, smart, intelligent a student is, or other acts of such a nature done with the intent of raising themselves up in the eyes of other students.
Student: for the purpose of the Act references to a ‘student’ is restricted to law students.
6. Duty to keep the douchebaggery to a minimum
1. A student has the duty to not to –
a) Peacock their superior GPA in the presence other law students;
b) Not talk in lectures;
i. A student does not breach section 6(1)(b) if answering a question from an academic member of staff.
ii. However if the answer in section 6(1)(b)(i) is long winded and done with an element of peacocking, section 6 will apply.
c) Talk about their clerkship;
i. Within 10 minutes of meeting someone for the first time;
ii. For longer than three minutes;
iii. At all in the presence of someone they know has not secured a clerkship, unless asked. Doing so is rude and insensitive, harsher penalties may apply.
d) Turn every conversation into a competition about who is the better law student.
2. Douchebaggery is punishable by being told to ‘wise up’ or the other party to the conversation being able to simply walk away mid-sentence without any social repercussions.
3. A breach of this section may also attract penalties set out in section 8 of this Act.
4. A breach of section 6(1)(d) will attract double the punishment in the circumstances set out in section 7.
7. Additional restrictions are placed on students based upon their year of study.
1. First years are to refrain from telling their peers that a parent or other family members own a law firm, is a lawyer, or make any attempt to use family ties as a form of ‘one-up man ship’
2. Second years are prohibited from peacocking their superior GPA or assessment results unless asked or otherwise invited to do so.
3. Third year students may not attempt to beat another student’s achievement within 10 minutes of such achievement being disclosed.
4. Fourth years and graduates are allowed, 20 minutes into conversation, to discuss in a non-douchebag like manner the clerkships, judges associates and other career opportunities they are embarking on. After discussing these matters for 5 minutes, the conversation is to revert back to polite discussion of the weather.
a) A breach of this section will result in the offender being given 7 clear days’ notice to apologise for such douche-like behaviour.
Note: an example of section 7(3) is one student mentioning their vacation trip to Burma on a legal aid working holiday and a second student then attempting to ‘beat’ the achievement by telling them they went to Africa and worked with the international team of lawyers prosecuting war crimes.
8. Student must not give legal advice
1. Students must not offer, supply or inform others of any legal rights, responsibilities, obligations or liabilities. Students are not legal practitioners.
2. If the student is engaged in supervised training or clerkship section 8(1) does not apply:
a) If the student is under supervision, the advice is restricted to times the student is under the supervision. Just because the student is working in a firm that specialises in patent law does not mean they can give advice to engineering students about their new electronic dog feeder in between classes.
b) Some breaches under this section may also be a breach under section 6(1)(c) of this Act.
9. Library use
Students are to observe library rules strictly. If no rules are imposed by the institution, students are to observe the following:
1. No talking. Whispering is talking
2. Phones are to be turned off. If your phone vibrates loud enough to hear as well as feel it is not turned off. This will amount to a breach of section 7.
3. Facebook is not be used on computers proved by the institution. To be clear, do not use Facebook in the library.
a) The use of Facebook to ‘like’ articles is an exception to this section.
10. Penalties
Depending on the severity of the breach a student may be required to do any or a combination of the following.:
1. Write out 100 pages of a contract law text book by hand, word perfect.
2. Sit in an arts law lecture for one hour.
3. For the repeat offenders a penalty of three hours in an advanced mathematics lectures may be prescribed.
4. Hand write the chapter(s) on ‘offer and acceptance’ in the largest contracts text book in the library.
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