Dealing with the 'Wicked' Problem of Race and the Law: A Critical Journey for Students (and Academics)

Legal education in Australia is traditionally focused on teaching the ‘Priestley 11’ core areas of legal knowledge and the skills necessary for legal practice. More recently, a range of factors have prompted a shift in legal education towards exploring the ‘broader context’ in which legal issues arise, which may include a range of socio-legal considerations, such as race, culture, gender and Indigenous perspectives. Yet to do so, legal educators need to move beyond doctrinal methods of teaching law, so that they can engage law students in a meaningful way, as well as in a way that can work with and through ‘wicked’ problems.