On 31 October, Professor John Williams and Associate Professor Dale Stephens travelled to Canberra to sign a contract to provide postgraduate legal education to the Commonwealth. After a lengthy tender process, the University of Adelaide, in conjunction with the Australian National University (ANU) (‘the Consortium’), was selected to provide postgraduate legal education services to the military legal officers of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The contract commences on 1 January 2014 and calls for the consortium to deliver postgraduate education to military officers of the ADF in four core legal fields, namely Military Discipline Law, Military Administrative Law, Military Operations Law and Military Legal Practice. The ADF is subject to all general Commonwealth law and any applicable State law, but is also subject to specialised legal regimes relating to administrative law, discipline/criminal law and operations law. These particular legal frameworks require specialised training to ensure that ADF lawyers have the requisite skill sets to provide effective legal services to the ADF/Commonwealth.
The consortium was chosen because both Universities have established reputations for the delivery of quality legal education and have sufficient academic staff with expertise in the areas of need to have satisfied the Commonwealth’s requirements. Across Australia, there are over 120 permanent legal officers in the ADF and close to 400 in the Reserve.
The students could potentially undertake the core legal training in admin/discipline/operations law at either Adelaide or Canberra, although at this stage it is likely that the bulk of the core training will be conducted at ANU. Permanent legal officers will also be required to undertake additional regular Masters level elective subjects at either University of Adelaide or ANU and it is likely that we will see a number attend University of Adelaide through this means.
At the contract signing, Defence was formally represented by Head Defence Legal, Mr Mark Cunliffe PSM and the Director General Australian Defence Force Legal Services, Air Commodore Paul Cronan AM. ANU was represented by DVC (A) Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington and Dean of ANU College of Law, Prof Stephen Bottomley. The University of Adelaide was represented by Professor John Williams and Associate Professor Dale Stephens CSM.
