Monash Law makes its mark at ALAA Conference 2026
Monash University’s Faculty of Law will play a prominent role at the 2026 Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA) Conference, with a strong cohort of academics contributing to a wide-ranging program that reflects the faculty’s depth, expertise and leadership in legal education.
Hosted by Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne from 1 to 3 July, the conference brings together legal scholars from across Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond. This year’s theme, Educating the Reflective Lawyer: Human Wisdom in an Automated Age, signals a clear shift in focus toward how legal education responds to artificial intelligence, professional judgement and the human dimensions of legal practice.
With contributions spanning teaching innovation, critical reflection, ethics, and the future of legal practice, Monash academics are helping shape the conversations that matter most for the profession.
A strong Monash presence across the program
Monash Law academics will present across a diverse range of sessions that explore how reflective practice is taught, assessed and sustained in a rapidly changing legal landscape.
Several presentations directly engage with the relationship between legal education and emerging technologies. Cate Banks’ session, Present, Not Processed: Trauma-Informed Legal Practice in the Age of AI, considers how lawyers can maintain attentiveness to human experience in environments increasingly mediated by automated systems.
In The New Delegation Problem, Paul Burgess, Sally Andersen, Craig Horton, Mike Phillips and Elen Seymour, working with Ehsan Shareghi from University College London, examine how responsibility and decision-making shift when legal tasks are distributed between humans and machine systems.
Questions of teaching and assessment also feature strongly. Lisa Di Marco and Elen Seymour will explore how reflective judgement can be developed through contract review in an AI-enabled legal practice, while Dora Vanda Velenczei, Paul Burgess and Armin Alimardani present a structured approach to supporting and assessing student collaboration with AI.
Craig Horton and Lauchlan Pevie’s work on using AI to enhance metacognition sits alongside Karen Abidi’s research into group member evaluation technologies designed to support reflective practice in collaborative assessment. Each of these projects reflects a practical commitment to equipping students with the skills to think critically about their own learning and professional development.
Embedding reflection across legal education
A number of Monash contributions focus on embedding reflective practice across different areas of the curriculum.
Naomi Burstyner’s work on preparing law students for effective mediation highlights the importance of self-awareness and critical reflection in dispute resolution settings. Similarly, Pascale Chifflet’s collaborations with colleagues from La Trobe Law School examine how diverse perspectives can be brought into teaching, as well as how challenging histories can be approached in ways that encourage thoughtful engagement.
Melissa Castan’s session on engaging with Indigenous perspectives speaks to the role of reflection in developing culturally informed legal understanding, particularly for students at the beginning of their studies.
Other presentations take a more experimental approach to pedagogy. Singing Law: An Exploratory Teaching Approach Using Yolngu Manikay, led by Lisa Di Marco with colleagues from Monash and the University of Melbourne, expands the boundaries of how law can be taught and experienced. Cristy Clark and Danish Sheikh’s work on embodied legal pedagogy continues this theme, exploring co-design as a method for rethinking how students engage with legal knowledge.
Together, these sessions point to a faculty-wide commitment to embedding reflection not as an abstract concept, but as a lived and practised skill across multiple contexts.
Collaboration and leadership across the sector
Monash Law’s contribution to the conference extends beyond individual presentations to broader collaborative and leadership roles.
The session Teaching and Assessing Reflection in the Age of GenAI brings together academics from Monash, Melbourne and Adelaide, reflecting the importance of cross-institutional dialogue on shared challenges. Similarly, Rethinking the Bridge: PLT Reforms and What Comes Next for Legal Education features Monash academics in key facilitation and panel roles alongside leaders from across the profession and regulatory bodies.
These collaborations highlight Monash Law’s active role in shaping sector-wide discussions about the future of legal education and professional training.
Reflecting on the role of law in an automated age
The program also includes contributions that step back to consider the broader social and institutional implications of automation. Richard Stewart’s presentation, A Critical Part of the Social Infrastructure: Law, Lawyers, and Automation, underscores the continuing importance of legal institutions and professional judgement at a time of rapid technological change.
Across the program as a whole, a common thread emerges. While AI and automation are reshaping aspects of legal work, the need for thoughtful, reflective lawyers remains central.
Building on Monash Law’s reputation for excellence
Monash Law’s strong presence at the 2026 ALAA Conference reflects its ongoing commitment to leading innovation in legal education while remaining grounded in core values of justice, critical inquiry and community engagement.
By contributing across such a wide range of topics, Monash academics are not only responding to current challenges but helping define the direction of future legal education.
As the ALAA Conference convenes in Melbourne, Monash Law will once again be at the centre of the conversation.
Monash Law academics at the 2026 Australasian Law Academics Association (ALAA) Conference:
Present, Not Processed: Trauma-Informed Legal Practice in the Age of AI
Associate Professor Cate Banks
The New Delegation Problem
Associate Professor Paul Burgess, Sally Andersen, Craig Horton, Mike Phillips, Associate Professor Elen Seymour, with Ehsan Shareghi (UCL)
Teaching Reflective Judgment through Contract Review in an AI-Enabled Legal Practice
Lisa Di Marco, Associate Professor Elen Seymour
Beyond the Final Product: A Three-Layer AI Architecture for Scaffolding and Assessing Student-AI Collaboration
Dora Vanda Velenczei, Associate Professor Paul Burgess and Armin Alimardani
The use of group member evaluation technology in collaborative assessment to develop law students’ reflective practice
Using AI to enhance metacognition and reflective practice in legal education
Craig Horton and Lauchlan Pevie
Equipping students for critical reflection on police accountability: Bringing diverse voices to the classroom
Dr Pascale Chifflet with Laura Griffin, La Trobe Law School, and Meribah Rose, La Trobe Law School, La Trobe University
Reflections on teaching difficult histories
Rashaam Chowdhury, La Trobe Law School La Trobe University and Pascale Chifflet
Embedding Reflective Practice in Legal Education: Preparing Law Students for Effective Mediation
Texts and Contexts: meaningful engagement with Indigenous perspectives for the first year law teacher and learners
Vice-Chancellors Distinguished Professor Melissa Castan
Singing Law: An Exploratory Teaching Approach Using Yolngu Manikay
Lisa Di Marco with Anne Sutherland, University of Melbourne; Dr Naomi Burstyner, Paige Darby, and Ronnate Asirwatham
Prefiguring Embodied Legal Pedagogy: Co-Design as Method
Associate Professor Cristy Clark, Dr Danish Sheikh
Teaching and Assessing Reflection in the age of GenAI
Kate Fischer Doherty, Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne, Dr Jacqueline Weinberg, Sally Andersen with Margaret Castles, Matthew Atkinson, Adelaide Law School, Adelaide University
Reflective teaching practices and challenges in criminal law education
Dr Pascale Chifflet, Paige Darby, Clement Ng and Associate Professor Natalia Antolak-Saper
Rethinking the Bridge: PLT Reforms and What Comes Next for Legal Education
Facilitators: Dr Jacqueline Weinberg with Madeleine Dupuche, La Trobe Law School La Trobe University
Panellists: Professor Jeff Giddings with Maria Abertos, Faculty of Law, UTS, Pamela Taylor-Barnett , Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney, Emma White, Centre for Legal Studies (Tas)
Tasmania PLT, Kerri-anne Millard VLSB+C and Natalie Mascernas, Baker & McKenzie
A Critical Part of the Social Infrastructure: Law, Lawyers, and Automation
Dr Richard Stewart, Faculty of Law, Monash University