Brooklyn Law School: The Lingerie Shoot...

Brooklyn Law School rented out their library to a fashion label, Diesel, for a photo shoot. The law school was under the now quite obviously mistaken understanding that the fashion shoot that was going to take place was for Diesel Jeans. The photo shoot was for Diesel, but for their intimates collection and not their jeans line. In fact there is not a pair of jeans in sight in this shoot.

Now, it is not like the idea of sexual activity and law library tables has never been thought of in the past. But, perhaps it is the first time that Brooklyn Law School has seen some of those fantasies played out in photos. I wonder if law library usage has increased or decreased after the photo shoot?

In any event, the Dean of the Law School is making the right sounds. For example, sending around an email suggesting that he is mortified by the happenings and that the law school had been duped by the fashion label. It seems that the fashion label may have breached its agreement with the law school because the law school is adamant that it only gave its permission for the shoot if the images were going to be in good taste. According to the law school, these images are not in good taste.

I will let you be the judge of good taste on this one. It is really a case of to each their own with respect to taste. Good looking and highly intelligent people are always a turn on (so I am told). So, what better way to sell that idea than a steamy lingerie shoot in a law library. I cannot recall that there was a steamy lingerie shoot in my law library while I was at school there. Although, there was always the odd whisper of some late-night briefing sessions taking place (if you are wondering University of Western Sydney).

Yet, when one thinks about it, this is a clever shoot. Who would have thought that legal briefs would have had such a literal meaning.

I am wondering why the photos and the location have got some people so incensed? It is a lingerie shoot, there was a contract in place, and as far as I can tell, nothing was damaged in the process. I think that even Brooklyn Law School would have a hard time trying to prove that this shoot in any way damaged its reputation or status.

I wonder if the University of Indonesia or Pelita Harapan University would allow such a shoot in their law libraries? University of Indonesia might be a more likely candidate because, if I am not mistaken, a former student did end up as a playboy model for the Indonesian version of Playboy Magazine (Joanna Alexandra).

The photos...

The Indonesian National Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Competition 2008

Well, another year and another National Round of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot competition has passed, at least for Indonesia. This year's Winner (University of Indonesia) and Runner Up (Parahyangan Catholic University) will be heading to Washington D.C. for the International Rounds of the Competition in the early part of April 2008. Good luck to both teams!

The point of this blog entry is to make a few comments about the competition, particularly the quality of the participants and judges, as well as the future.

The quality of the participants improves each year and the standard of the competition as a consequence gets considerably higher and more competitive. For example to progress to the semi-finals in the early years teams could advance with a record of 3 wins against 1 loss in the 4 preliminary rounds. However, as this year's competition shows securing one of the 4 semi-final slots with a 4 wins against 0 losses record is no guarantee of progressing. There were 7 teams in this year's competition with a record of 4 and 0 in the preliminary rounds. This meant there were quite a lot of disappointed teams not progressing to the semi-finals or final.

The rapid improvement in the quality of the participants is important, particularly when one considers there is a need for highly qualified and competent international law advocates in Indonesia. The future looks much brighter with the knowledge that there are students coming through the ranks that will be able to fill that void and fill it well.

However, another interesting point is that the quality of the judges volunteering their weekends to judge the competition is also improving every year. This is critical in not only the development of the competition but also in the development of the quality of the written and oral submissions or pleadings of the competitors. The questioning in this year's competition required competitors to not only have a basic understanding of international law, but challenged them to prove that they possessed a detailed knowledge of not only the facts of the case but had an exceptional command of the prevailing law and its application.

The future of the National Rounds requires more teams to become involved and this will require not only a good deal of marketing from the competition convenors (who are all volunteers) but the vision of the law faculties or schools themselves in seeing and understanding the value of competition for their students. Simply, moot court competitions are an excellent way to develop real-world legal practice skills.

This year's competition saw 20 law schools competing and 7 or so observers (law schools that come to watch and learn what the competition is about without participating in the actual competition proper). This is a small number, albeit an improvement on the numbers of years past. However, when one considers that there are some 227 law schools / faculties throughout Indonesia, then 20 does not seem like a significant number.

Indonesia is a vast archipelagic nation and the tyranny of distance between the outer-lying provinces and Jakarta where the competition is held is dramatic even in this era of low-cost airlines (of which Indonesia has many -- some of questionable safety)...Hence the future for the Indonesian National Round will also need some vision from the convenors of the competition. Perhaps an East and West Region where the champions of each region progress to the international rounds. In this way teams that want to participate but cannot because of travel costs or distance might be able to travel to a regional centre much closer to them in order to participate.

Anyway, there is a need for serious thought and vision in the development of the National Rounds and the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Competition in Indonesia going forward.

The signs look good and hopefully the reality will be even better.

Good luck!

Esquire Indonesia

If anyone is interested, I make an appearance on page 126 of the January 2008 issue of Esquire Indonesia. Unfortunately, the website remains 'under construction', so you might have to just buy the magazine (35,000 Rupiah) or duck into somewhere and bust open the plastic cover for a free read!

It is just me being me, and giving my take on legal education in Indonesia through participation in mooting competitions. Does someone interviewing me for an article in Esquire magazine mean that I am moving up in the world?

I think it is worth a read!

Legal Education and Plagiarism

The idea that Indonesia is a country that does not recognise copyright but rather recognises the right to copy is a play on the two principles. Most Indonesian students would not realize that there is in fact a legal right to copy in limited circumstances and generally this is related to fair use. But more intriguing than the right to copy is the lack of knowledge and understanding that Indonesian university students have on the whole about plagiarism. It is this misguided notion of right to copy that appears to have permeated into and reduced the understanding of students on the serious nature of plagiarism.

To state that plagiarism is simply not giving credit where credit is due is a misrepresentation of the seriousness of the fraud perpetrated. It is academic theft and the punishments must be severe if educational institutions are serious about stomping the practice out! There is a whole website dedicated to issues of plagiarism. Yet, even better is a website that exposes famous people who are allegedly plagiarists. Despite, the disclaimer that the people on the site are 'alleged' plagiarists, the site itself highlights the scourge that is plagiarism and the stupid belief that in this modern day and age of technology and super-sophisticated search engines that people still think they can get away with plagiarism, Stupid!

This piece is not an analysis of the statistical occurrence of plagiarism in Indonesia and it does not claim to be definitive or empirical, but rather it is a personal musing based on the personal experiences of someone who has taught a class or two at a number of Indonesian universities.

Having spent plenty of years in university getting a couple of degrees and having it constantly drummed into my thick skull that when in doubt on must footnote and then to teach a University class in Indonesia where it seems to be a case of when in doubt claim it as your own, has most certainly been an eye-opener! It is not something that has shaken my world but more so it is once again one of those perversely funny and sad moments rolled into one.

These students are the next generation and it is sad that they do not appreciate that academic theft and fraud are real professional killers in the professional suicide sense. But how serious the allegations are treated and the punishment meted out if proved depends on who you are. Plagiarism has become a scourge in even the most pre-eminent of universities including, among others, Harvard University. At Harvard a group of students had banded together and produced a blog, which sadly seems to have stopped being updated.

The point that I am trying to make from my soap box is simple; there must be a clearly defined prohibition against plagiarism for law students where the consequences of breach are also clearly defined. This must be a contract that students' sign to acknowledge that they are aware of the penalties and accept them.

The possibility of the rotten core consuming the whole is real!

Moot Courts & Visions for the Future

One of the things I seem to do regularly is to provide seminars and work shops on international law, legal writing, oral advocacy, and much of this is achieved through running moot court activities...Yet, when it is all said and done I am always amazed at how little interest there is in mooting - from academia and the profession alike!

For me it has always seemed so simple...mooting teaches you practical skills that allow you to hit the ground running straight after graduation and surely this must be a skill that is highly sort after by employers. Unfortunately, this turns out to rarely be the case and the number of visionary academics and professionals in this field appear to be lesser rather than greater in number...

In brief it is obvious that participating in a moot court activity allows you to learn team work and team leadership skills, focused research skills, writing skills, and advocacy skills, all of which are of immediate benefit in a professional situation!

Why moot? The answer is pretty simple if you are a law student...if you are any good at it an you get team that is good at it,then victories in the various local competitions are likely to take you around the world to participate in international competitions. This is another factor in why law firms should be a little less short-sighted in this regard...a successful law moot graduate is likely to have legal and corporate contacts all over the world. So, if you are a law firm looking to expand your international practice then an investment in a law mot graduate may just reap long-term returns far out-weighing any initial recruitment investment that you may have made...

I guess the moral of the story is that only having participated in a moot court competition can you fully appreciate the benefits that can be gained...to this end therefore mooting must become a compulsory undergraduate subject for all law students - no ifs, no buts, and no maybes...

The convergence on international law and mooting in the Indonesian context is a driving force behind moves to make mooting a greater part of the academic curriculum. It is also a motivating force in moves to see that students who participate in moot court competitions such as the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Competition or the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Competition garner recognition in the form of these efforts are credited as part of their legal studies program. In essence they gain subject credits for their participation - a bold move in Indonesia...This fact that Indonesia has limited numbers of international lawyers with wide-ranging practical experience is a more recent realization for Indonesia and this realization is another reason that there has been a renewed interest in providing these types of practical advocacy skills at the university level...

Only time will tell but the future looks hopeful...

Legal Education in Indonesia

The first blog entry of substance represents something that I am passionate about but should not be construed as a common theme for all other blog entries to be made in the future...it is just that you have to start somewhere and with something! I am not a procrastinator but rather a decision maker so the topic is legal education in Indonesia.

There has been some interesting interplay in the Jakarta Post of late about the state of reform of the Indonesian legal education sector or more aptly the lack of serious reform. Yet, all contributors to date, with their own personal agendas or preferences aside, miss some critical big picture perspectives that will ultimately determine the success or otherwise of reform in this field.

The easy part is to identify the shortcomings or failings generally or specifically, such as the lack of a self-sustaining academic environment that encourages the pursuit of academic excellence and innovation by academic staff and students through to the academic staff that 'moonlight' either with teaching at other institutions or consulting in both the public and private sectors.

Yet, what is lacking is a comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated plan of attack. Reform of the legal education sector and the production of highly-skilled and qualified law graduates do not address the other core issues of reform, specifically of the legal institutions where these young and impressionable graduates are going to go. It is one thing to teach morals and legal ethics it is a completely different matter to then place these fresh graduates into an institutional setting which is in many cases irrevocably broken.

The problem is much greater than eradicating court mafia or the ability to purchase justice as is the philosophy that 'fixing' legal education will lead to an automatic eradication of all things bad in the courts, the Department of Law and Human Rights, the Offices of the Attorney General and the Public Prosecutor, and the legal profession overall. This is at best naive and at worst an under-estimation of the extent and scope of the problem.

In spite of the gloom and doom expressed by some, there are others who see hope...the reality is that law reform generally and reform of the legal education sector more explicitly is a work in progress where reforms will take time. The journey for some will always be too slow but there are great satisfactions to be had in small steps. For instance, many claim that the state of legal education is so bad that Indonesia will forever fail to compete in the international legal field. The often citing of the Litigan and Sipadan islands case where Indonesia lost a claim to Malaysia over the sovereignty of those islands.

Yet, when one looks at the success of Indonesian law schools, and particularly the Law Faculty of the University of Indonesia, in international law competitions this argument would seem to lose much of its sustainability. Indonesia has the current 'best oralist' in the world title from the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Competition, is the current champion of the Asia Cup competition, and also the current champion of the International Maritime Law Moot Arbitration competition. This in and of itself implies that the state of legal education in Indonesia is improving and that Indonesian law students are more than capable of competing and winning on the world stage; an achievement to be proud of...

Yes, reform is important across all sectors of Indonesian society. Reform of the legal education sector is also important but this is even more so the case as part of a comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated policy and plan for implementation. Only time will tell how successful Indonesian law schools will be in reforming themselves and their institutions but it is fair to say that the process has begun and there are already some excellent successes to date.