University of Otago Logo Image of Clocktower Building
Home Home
News News
Staff Research
Staff NZ Justice Forum
Staff People
Survey Faculty of Law
GoogleSearch

University of Otago Legal Issues Centre - Te Pokapū Take Ture - News

Updated: 30 November, 2011

 

Legal Issues Centre Scholarships for Bridgette Toy-Cronin and Warren Forster

Bridgette Toy-Cronin, an Otago Law School PhD student has been awarded an inaugural New Zealand Law Foundation Doctoral Scholarship. Bridgette will carry out an empirical and theoretical examination of the place of litigants in person in New Zealand's civil courts, including the Family Court. The analysis will include examination of the number and profile of litigants in person in the courts currently, and explore questions such as the future role of litigants in person and the future direction of our civil courts. She is supervised by Professor Kim Economides, Director of the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre. Both are currently co-authoring a short article reviewing the implications for New Zealand of a recent report on litigants in person just published by the Civil Justice Council.  A Harvard law graduate, Bridgette has worked in legal practice in New Zealand and Australia, as well as providing legal advice to a women’s rights team in Cambodia and to the office of the prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal in Rwanda.

Warren Forster, a research assistant in the University of Legal Issues Centre, has been awarded a scholarship under the Division of Humanities Summer Scholarship Scheme, to work with Professor Kim Economides on a research project that involves developing a post-sale no-fault point-of-sale consumer dispute resolution scheme. This would involve consumer disputes being resolved through a statutory scheme without fault being determined through a judicial process. Forster has already worked with Economides on this topic and produced an essay Towards an Effective No-Fault Dispute Resolution Process for Consumers which then became the basis for the first seminar in the Legal Issues Centre’s Thinking Outside the Lunch Box seminar series. Seminar participants voted in favour of further development of the idea. The project will involve further refinement of their ideas in light of criticisms received with a view to co-authoring an academic article (working title: “Can New Zealand’s ACC become a model for Consumers’ ADR?”). It is envisaged that this project will provide a platform for doctoral research on ‘by-passing’ legal systems, and pave the way for the development of a much larger-scale project examining the underlying theory of civil litigation, both to be based at Otago.

 

Australian and New Zealand Legal Ethics Colloquium: Is Adversarialism Dead? New Foundations for Legal Process and Lawyers' Ethics

The Legal Issues Centre at the University of Otago Faculty of Law is proud to be hosting the Australian and New Zealand Legal Ethics Colloquium, 9 - 10 February 2012. The colloquium theme is "Is Adversarialism Dead? New Foundations for Legal Process and Lawyers' Ethics". Further information is available at the colloquium web site.

 

Thinking Outside the Box About Legal Issues Lunchtime Seminar 19 September

The latest seminar in this series will take place on 19 September 2011. Anna Grear (Bristol Law School UWE) will present on "Should 'law's persons' be re-imagined?". Read the background paper, download a copy of the poster (Adobe PDF files). Further information on the seminar series is available here.

 

Thinking Outside the Box About Legal Issues Lunchtime Seminar 16 August

The latest seminar in this series will take place on 16 August 2011. Reid Mortensen (Professor, School of Law, University of Southern Queensland and Visiting Scholar, Otago Legal Issues Centre) will present on "Consumer Choice in Trans-Tasman Forum Shopping: Should the Customer Always be Right?". Read the background paper, download a copy of the poster (Adobe PDF files). Further information on the seminar series is available here.

 

Thinking Outside the Box About Legal Issues Lunchtime Seminar 26 July

The latest seminar in this series will take place on 26 July 2011. Milton Sperring (Barrister, Dunedin) will present on "Is Criminal Legal Aid Policy and Strategy undermining Access to Justice?". Read the background paper, download a copy of the poster (Adobe PDF files). Further information on the seminar series is available here.

 

Justice Forum: Setting the Agenda

Kim Economides' latest article in New Zealand Lawyer Magazine is now online: 'Justice Forum: setting the agenda'.

 

Thinking Outside the Box About Legal Issues Lunchtime Seminars

The latest seminar in this series will take place on 10 March 2011. W. Brent Cotter, Q.C. (Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Saskatchewan and Visiting Scholar, Otago Legal Issues Centre) will present on "Judicial Orders of Legal Fees for Litigants: Selective Access to Justice?". Read the background paper, download a copy of the poster (Adobe PDF files). Further information on the seminar series is available here.

 

Justice Forum

The University of Otago Legal Issues Centre, in association with Michael Woodhouse MP, will be convening an inaugural meeting of the Justice Forum on 15 April to be held between 11 am and 2 pm at the Grand Hall, Parliament House, Wellington. For more information and online registration please visit the forum site.

 

Inaugural Professorial Lecture

September 22, 2010: Measuring Law’s Impact: The Future of Socio-Legal Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand
Professor Kim Economides, Director, University of Otago Legal Issues Centre.

A podcast of Professor Economides's Inaugural Professorial Lecture is now available on iTunes U: IPL: Measuring Law's Impact - The Future of Socio-Legal Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand (169.63 MB).

 

Current Postgraduate Opportunities

Centre Funded PhD projects

Applications are invited for two 3-year PhD scholarships, located within the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre (UOLIC), exploring the practical operation of civil legal processes in New Zealand.  It is expected that findings emerging from these research projects will have wider applicability.

Both UOLIC and CRCF take a research orientation to their work, with a practice and policy purpose to their output.
The 'By-passing' Lawyers and Courts on the Road to Justice scholarship has an emolument of $20,000 plus tuition fees at the domestic student level and costs incurred in the production of two hard-bound theses.

The amount of funds for the Psychological and Physical Costs of Litigation scholarship is still being confirmed.

Externally funded PhD projects

Applications are also invited for externally funded projects on topics to be defined by the applicant that fall within the broad area of access to justice and the terms of reference of the Centre. Potential applicants may find it helpful to complete the attached statement of research objectives prior to discussing their proposal with Centre staff.

Applicants must have an LLB or other relevant degree from New Zealand with Honours, or a Master’s degree, or a comparable level of achievement at a law school outside of New Zealand with substantially equivalent standards as Otago.  Scholarships are available to both Domestic and International students.

The application process differs depending on whether the applicant is a Domestic or an International student.

Domestic students are required to complete: i) the PhD Direct Application form and ii) the Law Faculty’s Supplementary application form.

International students are required to complete: i) the Application Form for International Students; and ii) the Law Faculty’s Supplementary application form.

Irrespective of whether you are a Domestic or an International student, details of the application process, requirements and copies of the respective application forms are available at the Faculty of Law Postgraduate Application page.

See also regulations and Notes for The University Of Otago Postgraduate Scholarships, Awards and Divisional Awards

Older news stories and links are achived here. Keep track of our news on our facebook page.
Spacer
Disclaimer  |  Feedback
Spacer