Race and the Legal Profession (LAWS90256)

For centuries, lawyers have survived in Western democracies as an independent profession because they maintain certain codes of conduct and profess to uphold the rule of law and to serve the public interest in the administration of justice. In this subject, students will be asked to question who that public is in Australia; and draw conclusions about whether racism is institutionalised and endemic to the profession and/or the rule of law and the administration of justice. By interrogating the legal profession and its role, students will be invited to reflect upon the role law and lawyers should play within Australian social, political, and legal discourses about ‘race’ and/or the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and minority ethnic groups.

Students will be invited to discuss methodologies, theories and critical scholarship that give lawyers the tools to interrogate their legal education, legal culture, profession and ethics and to foster independent thinking about the relationship between the law, race and racism. These tools will also be employed to challenge and unpack biases. Guest speakers will also enable students to consider experience as a source of knowledge and authority.

Principal topics will include:

• Acknowledging the unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the role that settler law has played in the colonisation and occupation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander nations.
• Recognising, understanding, distinguishing and unpacking key concepts: race, indigeneity, ethnicity and White privilege.
• Critical Methodologies and responses to race and the law.
• Reflecting on the impact of race and racism in legal professional training in Australian law schools.
• Defining the legal profession, its function, and its ethics in the context of race and racism.
• Anti-racism in the context of the legal profession