Summer Law School

Diversify your degree, amplify your legal experience or accrue continuing professional development (CPD) points with a fully-accredited online Summer Law School unit.

Students will be treated to a variety of practical and thought-provoking theoretical topics and gain a unique insight into contemporary legal contexts and dimensions.

Delivered by internationally-recognised experts in their field, the 2021 suite of units continues the Summer Law School tradition of offering niche and non-mainstream subjects that tackle the most pressing and controversial legal concepts of our age.

The Summer Law School is ideal for students of all disciplines, lawyers, industry professionals, senior administrators and anyone wishing to expand their knowledge and expertise in the subject areas. Cross-institutional, non-award and international students are particularly welcome to apply.

Legal and other industry professionals may be eligible for continuing professional development (CPD) points. 

Study one, or a range of socially-innovative and intellectually-stimulating subjects this summer.

Applications have now closed for Summer Law School

Winter Law School applications opening soon.

Ready to apply?

If you are enrolled in an undergraduate degree at another university and would like to receive credit:

Download and complete the Cross-Institutional Study Approval Form to submit with your application choice below.

Apply now

If you are seeking continuing professional development (CPD) or would like to study a single unit:

Apply now

If you are a Southern Cross Student:

Enrol now

If you are seeking continuing professional development (CPD), which includes no assessment for a reduced cost, please apply now by clicking on the individual unit links below.

Undergraduates

Non Award/CPD


Previous Summer Law School subjects

The most recent Summer Law School included the following intensive units:

Study Period 1, 2021 (enrolments closed)

Professor Renata Salecl

Professor Renata Salecl

Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law (LAWS2052)

5pm - 8pm (AEST), 8am - 1pm (Slovenia), Wednesday 6 - Friday 8 January 2021, Online

This unit provides students with an overview of the way law and judicial systems affect the individual and how various theories reflect on the process of internalisation of law. Introduces students to psychological and psychoanalytic theories to enable them to assess why some people internalise social prohibitions and other do not. Students will be encouraged to think critically about how psychoanalysis, psychology and psychiatry can help legal practitioners and assess how new studies in the domain of neuroscience contribute to legal reasoning.

Read unit information on Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law.

Presenter: Professor Renata Salecl

Professor Renata Salecl is a Slovene philosopher, sociologist and legal theorist. She is the author of Choice, On Anxiety and The Spoils of Freedom, to name a few. She is a senior researcher at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law at the University of Ljubljana, and holds a professorship at Birkbeck College, University of London, as well as being a visiting professor at the Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine at King’s College, London. She has been a visiting professor at London School of Economics, lecturing on the topic of emotions and law. Every year she lectures at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, on Psychoanalysis and Law. Her books have been translated into 13 languages and she has given a well-known, much-viewed TED talk on anxiety and choice.

Listen to a podcast on her latest book “A Passion for Ignorance: What We Choose Not to Know and Why.”  

Apply now for CPD - Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law unit

Associate Professor Sidia Fiorato

Associate Professor Sidia Fiorato

Performances and Power in Literature and Law (JUST2007)

5pm - 8pm (AEST), 8am - 12noon (Italy) 10 - 13 January 2021, Online

This unit introduces the concept of performance and its articulation in the legal, literary and linguistic spheres, and the realm of the performing arts. Students will be introduced to types of performance from literature and theatre (in its wider conception). Investigates the crossing and blurring of the boundaries with a specific focus on the intersections with legal culture.  

Read unit information on Performances and Power in Literature and Law.

Presenter: Associate Professor Sidia Fiorato, Department of Foreign Language and Literatures, University of Verona, Italy

Sidia Fiorato is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Verona. Her research interests include law and literature with a specific focus on the legal thriller, literature and the performing arts (dance, theatre, musical), the fairy tale, Shakespeare studies, literature and the visual arts. She is a member of ESSE (European Society for the Study of English), AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) and AIDEL (Associazione Italiana Diritto e Letteratura). Among her publications, Il Gioco con l’ombra. Ambiguità e metanarrazioni nella narrativa di Peter Ackroyd (2003), The Relationship Between Literature and Science in John Banville’s Scientific Tetralogy (2007), Performing the Renaissance Body. Essays on Drama, Law and Representation (edited volume with John Drakakis, 2016).

Apply for CPD - Performances and Power in Literature and Law unit

Session 3, 2020 (enrolments closed)

Professor Gary Watt

Professor Gary Watt, School of Law - University of Warwick, United Kingdom

The Art of Advocacy: Mooting and Performance, Rhetoric (JUST2012) - SOLD OUT

5pm - 8pm (AEST), 8am - 11am (GMT), 25 - 28 November 2020, Online

Learn to practice advocacy as an art of rhetorical performance. This unit is not about winning arguments, but about “winning” the judge over through the appealing combination of speech, gesture, dress, props and staging.  

Read unit information on The Art of Advocacy: Mooting and Performance, Rhetoric.

Presenter: Professor Gary Watt, School of Law - University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Since 2009, when he was named UK “Law Teacher of the Year”, Gary's teaching on rhetorical performance has ranged from the Royal Shakespeare Company to international arbitrators. He is co-author of How to Moot: The Student Guide to Mooting (Oxford, 2010) and holds a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship in rhetorical performance.

Join the waitlist for this unit

Mr Jay Finkelstein

Mr Jay Finkelstein

International Business Negotiations (LAW72007)

Class 1: 9am - 1pm (AEST), 7pm - 11pm (USA) 29 November - 2 December 2020, Online

This unit provides students with an introduction to negotiations and transactional legal practice. This unit is structured around a simulated negotiation exercise where students will be actively involved in the international business negotiation process. Students will represent different international companies interested in working together to exploit new technology. The form of collaboration could be a joint venture, a licensing agreement or a long-term supply contract.

Read unit information on International Business Negotiations.

Presenter: Mr Jay Finkelstein

Jay Finkelstein has practised corporate transactional law for over 35 years, focusing on international and domestic negotiated transactions. He has been teaching transactional law for over 15 years and holds adjunct teaching positions at Stanford, Berkeley, Georgetown, and University of Pennsylvania. He is the co-author (with Prof. Daniel Bradlow) of Negotiating Business Transactions: An Extended Simulation Course (2018). He is also the author of numerous articles about experiential learning and teaching transactional law.  Mr. Finkelstein is a graduate of Princeton University (A.B., 1975, magna cum laude) and Harvard Law School (J.D., 1978, magna cum laude). 

Apply for CPD - International Business Negotiations unit

Associate Professor Chiara Battisti

Associate Professor Chiara Battisti, Department of Foreign Language and Literatures, University of Verona, Italy

Justice Framed: Law in films and in graphic novels/comics (LAW72019)

5pm - 8pm (AEST), 9am - 12noon (Italy), 2 - 5 December 2020, Online

Films and graphic novels can actually influence and sometimes even shape the law. Discover the real and deep impact of popular culture on law. This unit introduces students to "law and the visual", "law and popular culture" and to the fundamental concepts of visual literacy. Students are invited to consider the intersection of legal and visual discourses and the idea that cinema (fiction, documentary, and other genres and comics) are practices from which it is possible to learn about law and which can problematise legal discourse. 

Read unit information on Justice Framed: Law in films and in graphic novels/comics.

Presenter: Associate Professor Chiara Battisti, Department of Foreign Language and Literatures, University of Verona, Italy

Chiara Battisti is an Associate Professor of English Literature. Her research interests include literature and the visual arts, (with a particular focus on literature and cinema and literature and graphic novel), literature and science, law and literature/culture, gender studies, literature and performative arts (with a particular focus on literature and fashion studies), migration studies and food studies. Chiara Battisti is a member of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE), of AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica) and of AIDEL (Associazione Italiana Diritto e Letteratura). She is also a member of the editorial board of the journal Pólemos: Journal of Law, Literature and Culture.

Apply now for CPD - The Justice Framed unit

Lady smiling in office

Associate Professor Jennifer Nielsen, Southern Cross University

Clinical Legal Experience (LAW00122)

10am – 5pm (AEST), 18 – 22 January 2021, Online

This exciting new addition to the summer program will run in partnership with Bond University’s Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice. The unit exposes students to practice experiences in a virtual legal office environment to build skills to engage in the conduct of client matters, including legal interviewing, drafting, and negotiation. These skills and experiences will enable students to prepare for and reflect upon their transition from student to the role of legal practitioners.

Read unit information on Clinical Legal Experience.

Presenter: Associate Professor Jennifer Nielsen – Southern Cross University

Jennifer is a long-term member of the Faculty's academic team, and former Dean/Head of School (2009-2011) and Director of Research and Research Training (2011-2013). She is an active researcher and teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Before joining Southern Cross in 1994, she practised as a solicitor in New South Wales and Victoria, and worked in academic positions with both the Monash Orientation Scheme for Aborigines and the Faculty of Law at Monash University.

Apply now for the Clinical Legal Experience unit


Two further law summer intensives will run from 7-10 December 2020 as part of the School of Law and Justice's unique Law and Creative Writing Program. Students from all disciplines, as well as from outside the university, may apply. 


Contact the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts - Southern Cross

Executive Dean of Faculty

T: +61 7 5589 3054

E: fbla.ea@scu.edu.au

Associate Dean (Education)

T: +61 2 6620 3848

E: helen.walsh@scu.edu.au

Associate Dean (Research)

T: +61 7 5589 3036

E: darshana.sedera@scu.edu.au

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