Student News - 

Year 11 Legal Studies

Zooming with the Judge

On Friday 13th November the Year 11 Legal Studies students had a ZOOM presentation with former Magistrate and County Court Judge, Her Honour Jane Patrick.

Dialling in and “meeting” Jane was quite the “now normal” 2020 experience! Jane shared stories about how she came to be a Magistrate and then Judge, how she travelled around the court circuit hearing cases in Echuca, Bendigo, Melbourne and the like, how “no two days were ever quite the same” and how she managed to deal with hearing lots of quite confronting criminal cases.

Our Legal Studies students then had the opportunity to have an information Q&A with Jane for approximately 20 minutes where questions ranged from “What was the most challenging case of your career?”, “Why did you switch from being a Magistrate to a County Court Judge?” to “Which law and order show on television is the most realistic?” (Spoiler alert- none, though Jane did divulge she was a fan of the old British TV show “Rumpole of the Bailey”… unsurprisingly none of the class knew of that show!!!).

The Victorian Law Foundation created the opportunity for Judges to ZOOM in with Legal Studies classes this year due to the fact the court education program didn’t get to happen this year; so on behalf of our Year 11 Legal Studies class and myself, I would like to formally thank them for giving our class this opportunity, as many Legal Studies classes across the state sadly missed out.

As 2020 draws to a close, it is hoped the increased easing of restrictions will mean our 2021 Legal Studies excursion program will be able to run so the students can visit the courts, but our ZOOM chat with the Judge this past week was still a very worthwhile and interesting experience for our 2020 Year 11 students. 

Jess Oliver- Year 11 Legal Studies Teacher