Insurance Law Reform by Degrees: Late Payment and Insurable Interest

Over the last 11 years, the Law Commission and the Scottish Law Commission have worked on a joint project to modernise the law of insurance contracts. Due to the size of the project, the Law Commissions proceeded in phases and separated out specific issues for legislative reform. Their proposals have already resulted in the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012 and the Insurance Act 2015 which brought about significant changes for consumer and non‐consumer insureds and insurers alike. This paper examines two further areas of reform: the introduction of an implied term about payment of insurance claims by insurers within a reasonable time and a statutory restatement of the doctrine of insurable interest. It considers the old and new substantive law and provides an insight into the reform process.     

Law’s not hard; it’s just hard to get into: a study of alternative entry students to law school

Widening access to higher education is a challenge currently under discussion in Australia and the United Kingdom. The increasing number of alternative entry programs offered by universities has made tertiary study, including law study, more accessible. One concern with widening access to legal education is the ability of students entering law school through means other than very high academic scores to undertake a law degree successfully. Students who enter law school are generally referred to as “high achievers”, having qualified through an admission policy based on competitive rankings. The implementation of equitable access programs in some Australian universities has resulted in a number of places being made available to final year high school students who meet the eligibility criteria. Lowering the entry requirements to some courses provides opportunities for students whose circumstances have affected their ability to attain competitive ranking scores. The Principals’ Recommendation Scheme (PRS) is one of these programs. The University of Technology Sydney in New South Wales, Australia commenced the PRS in 2012. UTS:Law was one of the first Faculties to develop a strategy to support these students. The Faculty is committed to resourcing all students in their study and, as a result, is engaged in the ongoing evaluation of the academic and co-curricular programs provided to students. This paper explains the implementation of the PRS and the relevant support infrastructure available to students. It also considers the research into student retention and academic success and makes a preliminary assessment that, to date, the PRS students are succeeding in the transition from secondary education to law school, and that the existing infrastructure is accommodating the needs of these students. The PRS is an alternative entry scheme that provides a model for consideration by other law schools, committed to widening access to legal education.     

Expert Evidence in the English Civil Courts, 1550–1800

This article identifies the changing nature of expert evidence in the English civil courts between 1550 and 1800. The changes are of two types: the first represents developments in the roles that experts adopted in making their contribution to the fact-finding process; the second represents changes in the substance of expert evidence, particularly with the increasing complexity of the specialist inferences involved. A proper understanding of these changes requires that we distinguish the different procedural contexts within which expert evidence was being used during this period and in particular the different court systems in operation.     

Contracting for Indigenous Health Care: Towards Mutual Accountability

In Australia and other industrialised countries, governments contract with the non‐government sector for the provision of primary health care to indigenous peoples. Australian governments have developed policies and funding programs to support this health sector, but the current arrangements are unduly complex and fragmented. The results of our study show that the complex contractual environment for Aboriginal Community‐Controlled Health Services (ACCHSs) and their funders is an unintended but inevitable result of a quasi‐classical approach to contracts applied by multiple funders. The analysis in this article highlights potential policy and program changes that could improve the effectiveness of funding and accountability arrangements, based on the use of an alliance contracting model, better performance indicators and greater clarity in the relative roles of national and jurisdictional governments.