Australian Law Students' Association

The Australian Law Students' Association

Type	Public, limited by guarantee
Founded	1979
Website	www.alsa.net.au

The Australian Law Students' Association (ALSA) is the peak representative body of law students from Australia. The ALSA facilitates communication between the law student societies of most Australian law schools; it acts as a conduit for intervarsity dialogue and intercourse; it represents students to government, universities and the public; it authors numerous educational and careers publications; and it hosts an annual conference and two additional council meetings each year.

ALSA is a not-for-profit association run by law students elected annually for the benefit of law students nationally. ALSA's membership comprises all law students in Australia and their universities' law student societies, with the exception of the Sydney University Law Society.^[1] Representation to ALSA is facilitated by these societies, whose delegates sit on the ALSA National Council. The organisation's functions are overseen by an Executive and Committee. The ALSA Executive and Committee (ALSA Main) should not be confused with the ALSA Conference, which is run by a separate body (from the host university) and which is supported by ALSA Main.

Members

All law student societies are members of ALSA, with the exception of the Sydney University Law Society, which withdrew from the association in August 2014.^[1]

• Adelaide University Law Students' Society
• Australian National University Law Students' Society
• Bond University Law Students' Association
• Charles Darwin University Law Students' Society
• Deakin University Commerce and Law Society
• Deakin Law Students' Society
• North Law Society (Edith Cowan University)
• Flinders Law Students' Association
• Griffith University (Gold Coast) Law Students' Association
• Griffith University Law Society (Nathan Campus)
• James Cook University Law Students' Society
• La Trobe University Law Students' Association
• Macquarie University Law Society
• Melbourne University Law Students' Society
• Monash Law Students’ Society
• Murdoch University#Murdoch Student Law Society|Murdoch Student Law Society
• University of Notre Dame Australia|Notre Dame Law Students' Society (Fremantle)
• University of Notre Dame Australia|Notre Dame Law Students' Society (Sydney)
• Queensland University of Technology Association of Law Students
• Royal Melbourne Institution of Technology (RMIT) Law Students' Society
• Southern Cross University Law Society
• Tasmania University Law Society
• Isaacs Law Society (University of Canberra)
• University of New England Law Students’ Society
• University of New South Wales Law Society
• University of Newcastle Law Students’ Association
• University of Queensland Law Society
• University of South Australia Law Students' Association
• University of Technology, Sydney Law Students' Society
• The Blackstone Society (University of Western Australia)
• University of Western Sydney Law Students' Association
• University of Wollongong Law Students' Society
• Victoria University Law Students' Society

Presidents

Presidents of the Association are elected by the ALSA Council, with each Member university exercising two votes each. The President's term runs from 1 August to 31 July each year. Past Presidents have come from a variety of universities:

The University of Melbourne and Macquarie University have supplied the most number of ALSA Presidents - both five times since 1978. Twenty one ALSA Presidents have been male, while sixteen have been female.

ALSA Annual Conferences

Traditionally an annual conference is held each year by ALSA, with council, general and competing delegates attending from the majority of Australia's law schools. Competitors are also invited from New Zealand's five law schools, and from the National University of Singapore. The conference allows students to compete against fellow member universities in mooting, negotiation, witness examination, paper presentation and client interviewing. Each competition allows the student to apply their legal training, skills and knowledge in a practical sense.

Bidding rights to host the conference are determined on the basis of a two-tiered classification system. ALSA-affiliated Universities are first divided into two groups by geography: Eastern (made up of Universities in Queensland, NSW, ACT and Victoria) and Other (made up of Universities in South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Tasmania). This makes up the first tier, with hosting rights rotating in a three-yearly cycle between Eastern, Eastern and Other.

Within each tier is the second tier, which divides Universities further into geographical classifications as follows:

Therefore, after the first tier is confirmed for any given year, the right to make a bid will fall on the next regional classification along, e.g. if it is an Eastern year and the last Eastern bid was from Victoria, then the right to bid will fall on NSW-Regional & ACT. If no University in the region which has the bidding rights that year makes a bid to host the conference, the next region along in that group will have the right to make a bid.

NSW-Sydney did not bid for the 2010 conference. The opportunity to bid therefore passed to South Australia as the bidder next in line. South Australia's decision to bid for 2010 means that it will not be eligible to bid for 2011 (for which it was originally scheduled to bid), and the bidding rights for 2011 will pass to Eastern (Victoria).

Bids for the opportunity to host the annual conference are heard two years in advance at the ALSA July Conference itself. If no bid is presented (as happened at the 2010 Conference in Adelaide), the bid process continues to the October Council meeting, until a bid is put forth.

ALSA Champions

Melbourne University has won the ALSA Championship Moot more than any other university: on 7 occasions. UNSW has won ALSA Witness Examination more than any other university: on 8 occasions. Macquarie has won ALSA Negotiation more than any other university: on 3 occasions. Auckland has won ALSA Client Interviewing more than any other university: on 3 occasions. UQ has won the ALSA Red Cross IHL Moot more than any other university: on 4 occasions. UWA and Murdoch have both won ALSA Paper Presentation more than any other university: on 3 occasions.

2007 Conference

The 2007 ALSA conference was held in Canberra from 2–8 July 2007, jointly hosted by Australian National University and the University of Canberra and sponsored by Mallesons Stephen Jaques. The Corrs Chambers Westgarth opening night gala ball was held in the Great Hall of the Australian Parliament and the closing night dinner at the National Museum of Australia. The mid-week sponsors' cocktail function was held at the Australian War Memorial. All functions catering was contracted out to the Park Hyatt Canberra.

In the Grand Finals:

ALSA Mooting: Before a four-judge panel in the Supreme Court of the ACT, Macquarie University was unanimously declared the winner against University of New South Wales

Witness examination: National University of Singapore's Vanathi Subramaniam beat the University of Auckland's Scott Leith before Justice Drumgold in the Federal Court of the ACT.

Negotiation: Macquarie University beat Monash University in the Federal Court of the ACT.

Client interviewing: Notre Dame University (WA) defeated the University of New South Wales in a 2-1 decision by the three-judge panel.

IHL Mooting: Monash University was unanimously declared the winner by a three-judge panel in the ACT Supreme Court, beating University of Adelaide.

Paper Presentation: Making it three trophies to take back to Ryde, this was won by Macquarie University.

Kirby Cup: The Cup was taken out by Australian National University (ACT) who defeated Murdoch University (WA) and the University of Sydney (NSW)

2008 Conference

The 2008 ALSA conference was held in Hobart from 7–13 July 2008, hosted by the University of Tasmania. The opening night gala ball was held at the Sandy Bay Wrest Point complex, also the designated accommodation provider for delegates. For the first time, in addition to the traditional themed party nights and the mid-week sponsor's cocktail function, Hobart 2008 introduced Breakfast With the Governor, where delegates were offered the opportunity to dine with Tasmanian Governor Peter Underwood, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Tasmania.

ALSA Moot: The University of Western Sydney was declared the winner of the competition before Sir Anthony Mason (former Justice of the High Court of Australia).

Witness Examination: Marcus Agnew from the University of New South Wales defeated Jimmy Bai from the Australian National University before Justice Blow (Supreme Court of Tasmania) Tim Ellis SC (Tasmanian DPP), and Brian Morgan (barrister).

IHL Moot: The winner was the University of Adelaide, defeating Macquarie University in a replay of the 2007 Grand Final.

2009 Conference

The 2009 ALSA conference was held in Brisbane from 12–19 July 2009, jointly hosted by Queensland University of Technology and Griffith University (Nathan). For the first time, the conference schedule introduced a Rest Day in between the preliminary and knockout rounds of competitions, with the break not being announced until the evening of the Rest Day. This allowed all delegates to have a day off in between the preliminary and knockout phases of the competition.

ALSA Moot: The winner was University of Adelaide - Hannah Canham, Georgia Goldsworthy and Rachael White. Before a panel of judges including High Court of Australia Justice Susan Kiefel. Hannah Canham University of Adelaide was judged the best speaker of the competition.

IHL Moot: The winner was University of Sydney - Alice Zheng and Matthew Kalyk.

Witness Examination: The winner was Victoria University of Wellington - Yogesh Patel.

Client Interviewing: The winner was University of Canterbury - Guy Carter and Julia Whitehead

Negotiation: The winner was Sydney University - David Robertson and Reuben Ray; the runner-up was University of Otago - Roshni Kaur and Mitch Singh

Paper Presentation: The winner was Murdoch University - Jessica Rusden

Kirby Cup: The winner was University of New South Wales - Ella Kucharova and Rebecca Zaman

2010 Conference

The 2010 ALSA conference was held in Adelaide from 12–19 July 2010, jointly hosted by University of Adelaide, Flinders University and University of South Australia. The conference saw over 500 law students attend the Opening Gala Dinner, Cocktail Night, Themed Night, and Closing Gala Dinner. The national Law Competitions grand finals were held on Sunday 18 July in the Federal Court of Australia, Adelaide.

Mallesons Stephen Jaques ALSA Moot: The winner was Macquarie University - Ayowande McCunn, Mona Mbogua and Mary Huang. David Jordan of Adelaide University was awarded Best Speaker in the preliminary rounds.

Red Cross International IHL Moot: The winner was The Australian National University - Kendra Fouracre and David Bomball. Georgia Boyce from The University of Melbourne was awarded Best Speaker for the preliminary rounds of the competition.

Witness Examination: The winner was The University of Melbourne - Julian Law.

Client Interviewing: The winner was Macquarie University - Nicholas Ferrari and Reece Corbett-Wilkins.

Allens Arthur Robinson Negotiation Championship: The winner was University of Auckland - Alison Dunn and Christopher Jenkins.

Paper Presentation: The winner was Murdoch University - David Herbert.

2011 Conference

The 2011 ALSA Conference was held in Sydney from 8–15 July 2011, hosted by the University of New South Wales. The two premier sponsors of the Conference were the University of New South Wales and Clayton Utz.^[16]

A Competitions Subcommittee was set up in late 2010 to reform the ALSA Competitions rules. The results of this process were announced in June 2011, including:

• the addition of a fourth preliminary round,
• streamlining all rules for consistency,
• updating the score sheets,
• providing a mechanism for competitors to request their score sheets after the Conference,
• using the standard deviation of margins instead of the aggregate of margins as the secondary determinant to rank competitors,
• prescribing questions for judges to ask clients in Client Interviewing,
• altering the composition of the Appeals Review Board in the Appeals By-Law.

Other proposals, including the introduction of a power-pairing or Swiss system, were deferred to the medium and long term.

ALSA Moot: The winner was Otago University - Alice Osman and Louis Chambers. (Name) of (University) was awarded Best Speaker for the preliminary rounds of the competition.

Red Cross International IHL Moot: The winner was the University of Melbourne. Domenico Cucinotta of the University of Sydney was awarded Best Speaker for the preliminary rounds of the competition.

Witness Examination: The winner was Auckland University - Peter Syddall.

Client Interviewing: The winner was Otago University - Rob Clarke and Alex Boock.

Negotiation Championship: The winner was Macquarie University - Reece Corbett-Wilkins and Nicholas Ferrari.

Paper Presentation: The winner was Flinders University - Jemma Arman.

2012 Conference

The 2012 ALSA Conference was held in Melbourne.

2013 Conference

The 2013 ALSA Conference was held in Perth, hosted by the University of Western Australia.

References

External links

• Australian Law Students' Association
• ALSA Conference Website