This is how Fennelly J began his judgment for the Supreme Court in Central Applications Office v Minister for Community Rural and Galeltacht Affairs [2010] IESC 32 (13 May 2010). The Court granted a declaration that respondent Minister did not have the power under the Official Languages Act, 2003 (also here) to designate the applicant as a public body subject to obligations imposed by the Act concerning the conduct of its affairs in both official languages. The CAO today publishes its second round of offers of third level places for the forthcoming academic year, and in the inauspicious technical landscape of a Supreme Court appeal, Fennelly J provided an excellent primer on the operations of the Central Applications Office (the CAO; logo, above left):

is a company limited by guarantee and is a non-profit body. It was formed in 1976 and is based in Galway. … The State has no responsibility for its operation. The members of the CAO are the third-level institutions which it serves. Prior to the establishment of the CAO in 1976, there was no centralised system for processing applications from students seeking admission to third level. … The universities … decided to form a single body to process applications. The CAO now has 44 participant Higher Education Institutions …

The process by which the CAO matches applications (from students) and offers (from institutions) is as follows. Each student makes a single application to the CAO early in the year. The student specifies, in order of preference, the preferred colleges and courses of study. Each institution decides on the number of places it will offer in each category and informs the CAO. The CAO relates the student’s application with [that student's] Leaving Certificate results. It then makes an offer to the student on a form described as “offer notice” which specifies the course being offered and the institution offering it. It invites the student to return a part of the form specifying acceptance. …

This is a far more elegant explanation than the one I essayed in an earlier post, in which I went on to explain that grades of the last-admitted candidate to a course can be regarded as the cut-off for qualification for entry to that course, and that these grades can be expressed as a function of points in a range from 0 to 600. In that earlier post, I set out the points levels for entry into various law courses on the basis of the CAO’s first round of offers.

Each year, not all of the CAO’s offers are accepted, with the result that some courses have vacancies. The third level institutions notify the CAO of the vacancies, and it issues a further round of offers. Where the points of the last-admitted candidate on this round are lower than those of the last-admitted candidate in the first round, the CAO also publishes the revised points cut-off. This year, the second round of offers of places was made today, and the points requirements for some law courses were revised accordingly. (Of course, some of these offers will not be accepted, and the third level institutions and the CAO will continue to make further offers as necessary to fill their courses).

In the table below, I set out the final points requirements for law degrees in the various third level institutions. The first number, in bold font, is the final points requirement. Where the points were revised in round 2, the points for round 1 are then set out in regular font, prefaced by “R1:”. Finally, for the sake of completeness, where the course was offered last year, the final points for 2009 are set out in italics in parentheses.

Athlone IT
AL057 Business and Law 250 (n/a)
AL058 Accounting and Law 255 R1:310 (n/a)

Carlow IT
CW708 Law 320 (300)
CW938 Business with Law 300 (290)

University College Cork
CK301 Law 485 (485)
CK302 Law and French 490 (510)
CK303 Law and German 475 (505)
CK304 Law and Irish 515 (525*)
CK305 Law (Clinical) 505 (515*)
CK306 Law (International) 535 R1:540 (540)

Dublin Business School
DB514 Business and Law 260 (245)
DB568 Law 205 R1:260 (230)

Dublin City University
DC230 Economics Politics and Law 400 R1:405 (415)
DC232 Law and Society (BCL) 440 R1:445 (445)

Griffith College Dublin and Griffith College Cork
GC203 Law (Cork) 310 (210)
GC403 Law (Dublin) 300 (185)
GC404 Business and Law (Dublin) 265 (225)

Trinity College Dublin
TR004 Law 515* (520*)
TR017 Law and Business 550 R1:555* (555)
TR018 Law and French 555* R1:570 (550)
TR019 Law and German 510* (470)
TR020 Law and Political Science 560* (555)

University College Dublin
DN009 Law (BCL) 480 R1:480* (470)
DN021 Business and Law 480 R1:485 (480)
DN028 BCL Maîtrise 500 R1:530 (550)
DN029 Law with French Law (BCL) 545 (505)
DN060 Law with History 510 ()
DN065 Law with Politics 505 R1:510 (500)
DN066 Law with Philosophy 515 (505)
DN067 Law with Economics 500 R1:510 (500)

NUI Galway
GY101 Arts 350* R1:355* (355) (depending on subject choice and progression rules, this can lead to a BA in Legal Science)
GY250 Corporate Law 385 R1:390 (395)
GY251 Civil Law 445 (440)

Limerick IT
LC231 Law and Taxation 300 (350)

University of Limerick
LM020 Law and Accounting 445 (455)
LM029 Law Plus 440 (455)

NUI Maynooth
MH101 Arts 375 (375) (Law within Arts: Law can be studied with other Arts subjects in first year, and students fulfilling the necessary criteria can transfer to one of the law degrees)
MH115 Law (BCL) and Arts 450 (465)
MH406 Law and Business 450 (450)

Waterford Institute of Technology
WD079 Business Management with Law 300 (290)
WD140 Legal Studies 305 (315)


Other law courses are also administered through the CAO; and, in the table below, I set out their final points requirements. Again, the first number, in bold font, is the final points requirement; a number in regular font – if any – is the round 1 cut-off; and the final points for last year – if any – are set out in italics in a parenthesis.

IT Carlow
CW706 Legal Studies 285 (n/a)
CW926 Business with Law 260 R1:280 (210)

Dublin Business School
DB580 Legal Studies AQA (AQA)
DB581 Legal and Business Studies 160 (AQA)
DB582 Legal Studies AQA (AQA)
DB583 Legal and Business Studies 135 (AQA)

Letterkenny IT
LY207 Law 145 (95)

Waterford IT
WD013 Legal Studies 270 (300)


These lists follow the order provided by the CAO. The asterisk * means that not all on this points score were offered places, whilst AQA means all qualified applicants were offered places.

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My previous post on the advent of the Irish Law Journal led to some quite interesting discussion about the nature of citation styles and how crowded the market for legal journals in Ireland is.

By way of supplement, I see that 15 Lambton Quay records the final publication of New Zealand’s uniform style guide. I blogged about it at the proposal stage here. Up until now, Law schools, law firms, publishers and courts have been using their own idiosyncratic and confusing styles when referring to legal material. Now, New Zealand’s six law schools, three main legal publishers, major law reviews, and a number of courts, including the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal, have adopted the guide this year. From the 15 Lambton Quay website [with added links]:

The Guide was launched by Justice John McGrath. A uniform guide has been a long time coming! .. The new guide is the result of the combined efforts of many across the profession. Justice Chambers of the Court of Appeal spearheaded the project … The guide was only made possible through generous funding from the New Zealand Law Foundation. …

A web-based version of the guide has been made available on the New Zealand law Foundation’s website. In my earlier post, by reference to the New Zealand rugby team, I proposed, not quite tongue in cheek, that since the dominant US style is the Bluebook, perhaps we should call the New Zealand style guide the All Black Book. This is even more likely now that it has been published with an All Black cover, above left.

As for the the Bluebook, its 19th edition has recently been published, along with the 7th edition of the McGill Guide, and the 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style. In my view, there now are far too many style guides world-wide, and some consolidation would be very beneficial.

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Many things about Ireland bemuse visitors to our shores. Two of the most difficult to explain are our electoral system and the programme by which third level places are allocated. I’ll leave the former to other election anoraks for the time being, but the latter is much in the news this week, so I’ll try to give a simple account of how it works.

The Central Applications Office (logo, above left) processes all applications to first year undergraduate courses in the country’s various third level institutions. In early summer, students at the end of their secondary (high) school careers sit a state examination, and the results are published in early August. During the course of that final year, most of the students will have filled in a list of their preferred third level courses and returned it to the CAO. In mid-August, the CAO assign university places to students based on their exam results.

Allocation of places is simply a function of demand and supply. A third level institution will inform the CAO of the number of places in a given course, and the CAO’s computer will allot places on the course to the highest qualified applicants who had applied for that course. The grades of the last-admitted candidate can be regarded as the cut-off for qualification for entry to that course.

In the final state exam, each letter grade is assigned a level of points (eg, an A1 is worth 100 points, a C3 is worth 60 points, etc). The CAO takes each candidate’s best 6 grades to calculate the points total of each candidate (eg, a candidate who got six A1s is will have 600 points, a candidate who got six C3s will have 360 points, etc). Hence, the grades of the last-admitted candidate on a course can be represented in terms of these points, and the entry requirement for any given third-level course in any given year can be represented in terms of points.

Scaled up across every applicant for every third-level course, it is clear that the CAO system is a significant undertaking. This year, the first round of offers of places in third level institutions was made yesterday, and the cut-off points levels for their various law degree offerings were as follows:

Athlone IT
AL057 Business and Law 250
AL058 Accounting and Law 310

Carlow IT
CW708 Law 320
CW938 Business with Law 300

University College Cork
CK301 Law 485
CK302 Law and French 490
CK303 Law and German 475
CK304 Law and Irish 515
CK305 Law (Clinical) 505
CK306 Law (International) 540

Dublin Business School
DB514 Business and Law 260
DB568 Law 260

Dublin City University
DC230 Economics Politics and Law 405
DC232 Law and Society (BCL) 445

Griffith College Dublin and Griffith College Cork
GC203 Law (Cork) 310
GC403 Law (Dublin) 300
GC404 Business and Law (Dublin) 265

Trinity College Dublin
TR004 Law 515*
TR017 Law and Business 555*
TR018 Law and French 570
TR019 Law and German 510*
TR020 Law and Political Science 560*

University College Dublin
DN009 Law (BCL) 480*
DN021 Business and Law 485
DN028 BCL Maîtrise 530
DN029 Law with French Law (BCL) 545
DN060 Law with History 510
DN065 Law with Politics 510
DN066 Law with Philosophy 515
DN067 Law with Economics 510

NUI Galway
GY101 Arts 355* (depending on subject choice and progression rules, this can lead to a BA in Legal Science)
GY250 Corporate Law 390
GY251 Civil Law 445

Limerick IT
LC231 Law and Taxation 300

University of Limerick
LM020 Law and Accounting 445
LM029 Law Plus 440

NUI Maynooth
MH101 Arts 375 (Law within Arts: Law can be studied with other Arts subjects in first year, and students fulfilling the necessary criteria can transfer to one of the law degrees)
MH115 Law (BCL) and Arts 450
MH406 Law and Business 450

Waterford Institute of Technology
WD079 Business Management with Law 300
WD140 Legal Studies 305

Other law courses administered through the CAO include:

IT Carlow
CW706 Legal Studies 285
CW926 Business with Law 280

Dublin Business School
DB580 Legal Studies AQA
DB581 Legal and Business Studies 160
DB582 Legal Studies AQA
DB583 Legal and Business Studies 135

Letterkenny IT
LY207 Law 145

Waterford IT
WD013 Legal Studies 270

This list follows the order provided by the CAO. The asterisk * means that not all on this points score were offered places, whilst AQA means all qualified applicants were offered places.

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The Fourth Legal Education Symposium will be hosted by the School of Law, University of Limerick on Friday, 14 May 2010. Kindly sponsored by Limerick solicitors’ firm Holmes O’Malley Sexton, it promises to be a fascinating event.

The themes for the plenary sessions are the Purpose of a Law Degree and Promoting Legal Research; and confirmed speakers include Professor Sally Wheeler of Queens University Belfast (outgoing Chair of the Socio-Legal Studies Association) and Professor Fiona Cownie of Keele University (outgoing Chair of the Society of Legal Scholars).

In addition to the plenary sessions, papers are invited for workshops on the following eight topics:

• Interdisciplinary law degrees;
• Clinical legal education;
• E-learning;
• Integration of teaching and research;
• The law teacher as mentor;
• Law for non-law students;
• Engaging students with the curriculum;
• Undergraduate legal writing.

The organiser is Sinead Eaton, and she invites 300-500 word abstracts of possible presentations before Friday 2nd April.

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For a low grade to be a breach of contract, there must first be a contract, and courts are slow to find the existence of such a contract, in part because they are reluctant to get involved in grading disputes. Thus, for example, in Keefe v New York Law School (17 November 2009) (hat tips: ContractsProf Blog | Adjunct Law Prof Blog) York J held that general statements of policy in a school’s bulletins, circulars, catalogues, handbooks and website are not sufficient to create a contract between a student and law school; rather, only specific promises that are material to the student’s relationship with the school can establish the existence of a contract. (Compare and contrast the decision of Murphy J in Tansey v College of Occupational Therapists Ltd [1986] IEHC 2, [1995] 2 ILRM 601 (27 August 1986)). York J provided an important policy justification for this approach:

As a general rule, judicial review of grading disputes would inappropriately involve the courts in the very core of academic and educational decision making. Moreover, to so involve the courts in assessing the propriety of particular grades would promote litigation by countless unsuccessful students and thus undermine the credibility of the academic determinations of educational institutions. We conclude, therefore, that, in the absence of demonstrated bad faith, arbitrariness, capriciousness, irrationality or a constitutional or statutory violation, a student’s challenge to a particular grade or other academic determination relating to a genuine substantive evaluation of the student’s academic capabilities is beyond the scope of judicial review. …

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The title of this post comes from the headline in an interesting and provocative article by Larry Donnelly of NUI Galway (pictured left) in Monday’s Irish Times. His core argument is that the preparation of students for law practice should play a greater role in legal education in Ireland:

Historically, law study at third-level institutions in Ireland and in other common law jurisdictions was theory-based and took place exclusively in lecture halls. Law, however, is both an academic and a vocational discipline. Accordingly, law schools in every other common law jurisdiction have embraced the role of practice in legal education, but Irish law schools still lag far behind.

I entirely agree. Clinical and experiential learning centers on providing students with hands-on opportunities to understand how the law works in the real world. Along with the legal skills traditionally taught by law schools (legal research, legal analysis, and sometimes the ability to engage with policy and theoretical literature), the modern law degree should also seek to inculcate written and oral communication skills, interview skills, team-work, legal drafting, negotiation, advocacy, case management and practice management. 2007 saw the foundation of two very exciting Law Schools committed to this appraoch. The School of Law in the University of York began life with a bang, offering a completely progressive, clinical and experiential undergraduate curriculum, with problem-based learning modules centred on what they call the student law firm. The curriculum at School of Law at the University of California, Irvine self-consciously focuses on preparation for practice in the 21st century. Other successful start-ups, such as Bond in Australia and Northumbria in the UK, have built their programmes around legal skills as well as legal doctrine. Indeed, many established law schools the world over are in the process of adding important clinical elements to their curricula: the market leader in the US is the new third year program in the School of Law in the University of Washington and Lee in Virginia (even staid Harvard has made some moves in this direction). Moreover, the importance of this kind of development has already been appreciated in Ireland: NUI Galway has a Director of Clinical Legal Education, UCC established a degree in clinical legal education in 2004, whilst UCD has just announced a similar degree. Unsurprisingly, therefore, at the recent Legal Education Symposium, the most exciting plenary was on the topic of Law Schools and Clinical Legal Education, whilst the session on Experiential Learning was well attended and provoked lively debate. Read the rest of this entry »

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And so to the University of Keele, for the centenary conference of the Society of Legal Scholars in the United Kingdom and Ireland (SLS). The SLS is a leading learned society for those who teach law in a university or similar institution or who are otherwise engaged in legal scholarship, and many of the events at this year’s conference are centred around the celebration of its centenary. Over four days this week, there are several plenary sessions and nearly 30 subject sessions with several papers each, so I won’t be live-blogging the whole thing, but I hope over the next few posts to give a flavour of some of the papers and presentations I attend. It’s usually a great conference, and I hope that it’s not hubris to hope that the SLS is around for the next 100 years as well.

Update (10 September 2009): the centenary was a theme in many of the set-piece presentations at the conference. Two in particular stand out. First, on Tuesday 8 September, Prof David Sugarman reflected on key moments in legal scholarship and education in the UK in the last 100 years – what struck me was just how much like 1950s UK law schools Irish law schools currently are. Second, on Wednesday 9 September, Prof Ray Cocks and Prof Fiona Cownie (this year’s President of the Society) spoke in a largely light-hearted way about the highs and lows of the Society’s history. They drew upon their book A Great and Noble Occupation! The History of the Society of Legal Scholars (Hart, 2009) which was launched at the conference. Founded in 1909, the Society was lucky to survive two world wars, the low esteem in which university law schools were held both in the academy and by the professions, and self-inflicted wounds in the refusal to admit women until the late 1940s or law teachers outside universities until much later in the century. Nevertheless, it survived, and in the last third of the twentieth century, it began to prosper – it is now a learned society promoting research scholarship, a central point for policy debate within the legal academic community, and the means by which that community can engage with the professions and wider society.

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The Australian Research Council has recently completed its consultation process to develop ranking tables for journals. Controversy led to the Humanities and Creative Arts list being unavailable for a time after publication, but it seems to be available now. The ranking is in four divisions: A*, A, B and C (and there is a nice explanation here). However unfortunate such a development may be, given the way in which university life is developing internationally, it is inevitable that such tables will be developed and will have an impact.

The law journals have been extracted from the humanities list by the ever-industrious Simon Fodden on Slaw. Read the rest of this entry »

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