Presentations

We have given numerous presentations to different audiences about the need for legal education to become more “climate conscious”. The recording of some of our presentations are below.

Opening address by Justice Brian Preston, Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales at the “Climate Change and Legal Education: the Why, the How, and the Priestley” workshop held at Sydney Law School, 7-8 November 2024.

On Wednesday 30 October the Australian Law Librarians’ Association (ALLA) and the Australasian Open Educational Practice Special Interest Group hosted a webinar on “Creating Open ‘Living Textbooks’ for a Climate Conscious Legal Education”

Speakers:

  • Julia Dehm (OER co-editor), Senior Lecturer and ARC DECRA Fellow, School of Law, La Trobe University
  • Steven Chang, Coordinator of Open Education & Scholarship, La Trobe University
  • Heidi Butters-Stabb, Senior Learning Librarian (Law), La Trobe University

Webinar description: ‘

As the world grapples with the escalating challenges of climate change, the legal profession finds itself at a crossroads. There is an urgent need to appropriately support and resource legal professionals to navigate the ways climate change is transforming the legal landscape to ensure they have the relevant expertise and competencies to deliver legal services and promote climate justice to a wide range of clients in a climate transformed world.

This seminar will explore how legal practitioners, legal academics, law librarians, and open education specialists have collaborated to create a ‘living’ open educational resource (OER) to advance these objectives. Our panel will discuss how we created Becoming a Climate Conscious Lawyer: Climate Change and the Australian Legal System (La Trobe eBureau, 2024) and how these ‘Third Space’ cross-disciplinary collaborations can tackle large problems at scale in an environment of rapid legal changes and urgent advocacy for change.

Join hosts Charles and Annie in this captivating episode of Just Cause as they engage in conversation with Professor Nicole Graham, a property law and environmental law academic at Sydney Law School. Together, they delve into the intersection of social justice and legal education in addressing the pressing issue of climate change.

This episode starts with Nicole sharing her academic journey and highlighting the pivotal role of education in the pursuit of social justice. The discussion then turns to her article, ‘Learning Sacrifice: Legal Education in the Anthropocene.’ Nicole reveals the inherent conflict between Western legal concepts that prioritize individual rights and the urgent need to address the collective challenges posed by climate change. She argues that legal education must transcend its atomistic view of the world and embrace holistic, interdisciplinary perspectives. As the episode draws to a close, Nicole imparts career advice to students, urging them to expand their horizons beyond mere grades and cultivate diverse interests. This thought-provoking episode inspires listeners to reimagine legal education’s role in building a just future.

Nicole Graham: Legal Education and Climate Change By Just Cause: Exploring Social Justice and the Law is licensed under a  Creative Commons License.

Presentation given by Dr Julia Dehm to the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research on 12 June 2024.

We recorded a “lightening talk” on “Open Education Resources for Climate Conscious Lawyers” that was included in the program for the Open Education Conference held on 8-10 October 2024.