Bulletin

Issue: September 2004

News

International Masters course boosts La Trobe Global Business Law

Growth of La Trobe University's Global Business Law Program has been rapid. With an increasingly international emphasis on the practice of law, global law courses are becoming popular in the US and around the world, says Professor Gordon Walker, who heads the La Trobe Law program.

'The US-Australia Free Trade Agreement, now ratified by the US legislature, has given further impetus to the program, increasing the importance of our graduates having a global perspective.

'The agreement has resulted in a demand from Australian law firms for lawyers with grounding in US law. Some understanding of the legal system of the country with which we do so much trade is a good thing for Australian lawyers.'

La Trobe Law offers a wide variety of courses and includes among its Faculty, as Adjunct Professor, the former Director General of the World Trade Organisation, ex-Prime Minister of NZ, Mike Moore.

The program also attracts an increasing number of students from overseas, with seven enrolling this year from France, Germany and Switzerland. These students enrol via the LLM for International Students.

La Trobe Law's Global Business Law program has hired law professors from UCLA, Duke University, the University of Kansas and the University of Hawaii. Staff from these universities, and other top law schools in the US, are regular guest lecturers in the program. In July, Professor Stephen McAllister, Dean of the University of Kansas Law School taught a unit entitled 'Introduction to American Law'.

In December, Professor Gabriel Wilner, Dean and Executive Director of the Dean Rusk Centre for Legal Studies at the University of Georgia School of Law, will teach a unit on 'International commercial arbitration', while anti-trust law specialist, former Texas University Law Professor, Paul Bartlett, will lecture on 'US anti-trust law'.

Global Business Law units in 2005 and 2006 will include a range of courses dealing with USA law, including federal tax, negotiation, mergers and acquisitions, securities regulation, antitrust, entertainment, real property law, and asset securitisation as well as international business transactions, and Chinese business law and practice.

Professor Walker says La Trobe's LLM program in Global Business Law is partly aimed at law graduates seeking to upgrade their qualifications part-time to an international standard.

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