BLAW10001: Principles of Business Law

2 Multiple choice tests (10% each, 40 questions, 1 hour) and 1 Multiple choice exam (80%, 60 questions, 1.5 hours)

Give your overall opinion of the subject, lecturers, assessment etc. and a recommendation, plus anything else which you feel is relevant.

I thoroughly enjoyed this subject. The content was interesting, practicable and useful. The overall workload was extremely light, consisting of watching the lectures, and reading the textbook. The multiple choice assessment was definitely a bonus, but, due to the high exam weighting, each question is worth a lot.

The lecturer, Tanya, and the tutor, Will, were both fantastic and always happy to answer student questions. Tanya was extremely clear, and really conveyed her passion for the law through her lectures.
Overall, there is almost nothing to fault about this subject and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an easy, enjoyable, and interesting breadth subject!

Yes

Tanya Josev (and Arlen Duke for the workshop videos)

1 Sample paper for each assessment task, and weekly (optional) quizzes

5/5

First Principles of Business Laws by Michael Lambiris and Laura Griffin, (Essential, has all the cases and content in it) - was available from the UniMelb library for free this semester

1 weekly lecture, split into multiple recordings (~2 hrs/week), optional discussion board, recorded workshop videos before each assessment task

2020 Semester 1

94 H1

- 100% theory. All questiona have 4 answers and can be easily answered, especially with good notes. Some questions were based on legislation. I finished with about 20 minutes remaining

- 20% theory, 80% casee. This was hard. Read all the cases you have learnt so far before starting. Have all the cases easily accessible (in word document). Majority of questions are longer, giving y9u a short scenario and will ask "which case will the defendant (or plaintiff) rely on?" And 4 cases are listed. If you dont know them, you will struggle with time. I had a word document of all cases summed up in 2 lines of facts, 1 of the judgement/outcome. Searching for cases made it easier and quicker. The time constraint makes this hard and sometimes wording can be tricky. Some questions were based on legislation. I JUST managed to finish in time

Mixture of questions based on legislation, theory and cases.
I found the legislation questions the harded because you really have to focus on the wording. The answers look identical but are vastly different, the first 5 were legislation so i skipped them and finished it later.
Questions were similar in style to the quizzes, some were cases, some theory etc.
You get to bring in a double sided typed or handwritten "cheat sheet". 4 size font is actually very easy to read. I managed to squeez my cases on one side and my notes on the other side. You may refer to it a decent bit (to make sure youre thinking of the correct case) but the notes side was pretty much left untouched. There were a few tricky questions to distinguish h1s, but if you can make solid notes you'll be fine.
You also are able to mark the question booklet in reading time. Threres no point in reading, just answer straight away (you couldnt shade answers in thr answer booklet though so please be careful and dont rush shading the 10 or so answers you have cause i made a mistake and realised i straight up skipped the first answer and shaded q2 as q1, q3 as q2 so on so that wasted a bit of time trying to fix it.

yes

Tanya Josev (Lecturer) and Will Phillips ("tutor")

Brilliantly taught, Tanya is extremely knowledgable and explains everything very well. Great lecturer.
She goes through content for, usually, the first hour and also links it back to cases in the textbook (which you should buy)
After the break, youll go through a "tutorial". You have a very short fake case and she will ask questions about it linked with the content you just learnt. There was a decent bit of participation (2 or 3 people wanting to answer, and theyre always different)

85% overall, not an overly difficult subject - incredibly interesting though

no, youre given 1 practice exam with solutions, not a past exam

3.5/5
I hated not having tutorials, youre left in the dark not knowing what you know cause youre given no questions. Other than that a 5/5 subject

First few weeks give you background info, the very basics of the origin of law, how law is made etc
Focus of the subject is contract law, you spend 4 weeks on this (how its made, whats in a contract, breaches, remedies)
Then you get into Tort Law - specficially negligence

Recommended: Lambiris and Griffin, First Principles of Business Law, 2017/10th edition (‘FPBL’)
Must buy - you are required to learn cases which are only available in the text book, there can be as many as 20 in a week or as few as 5
You might be able to get a second hand copy (just dont rely too heavily on the textbook, just use the cases)

This is what i hated about this subject. There are none. To be fair, since all assessment is multiple choice, i see how theres no need for them. I personally like to have questions to complete and get feedback and see how well i am understanding the content rather than waiting for the assessment to see if im doing well or understand nothing.
That being said, you have access to Will, the PBL Tutor. You can send him questions about anything but he wont respond to questions like "hows a contract made?" - you have to ask "specific" questions like "whats thw dofference between x and y". He will give you incredibly detailed answers and is very usefull. He also wants you to explain what you understand/think.

One 2 Hour Lecture

2019 Semester 1

2x quizzes throughout the semester (10% each) and a final examination (80%)

Principles of Business Law (PBL) is an excellent introduction to law at a tertiary level. It certainly confirmed my desire to study the JD in future years. The holistic structure of the course is very logical, with topics such as the Australian parliamentary system, legislation and case law preceding the more technical realm of contract law. While some of the ideas underpinning contract law were complex, Arlen made these more than clear with his articulate and thorough explanations. Indeed, Arlen’s hypothetical cases (presented in the second half of the lectures), sought to consolidate the sometimes disparate material from the first part of the lecture.

A commonly perceived drawback of this subject is the absence of tutorials. I, however, did not believe this to be an issue. Through a diligent use of the e-tutorials and the PBL tutor (whom one could either visit during consultation hours or via email), all relevant queries could be addressed.

The final exam was more difficult than the quizzes. Arlen tended to focus on some areas much more heavily than others, which resulted in major areas of the course becoming lost or entirely absent. In turn, a comprehensive understanding of every lecture must be attained by students. An interesting trend that occurred in both the quizzes and exams was Arlen’s propensity to incorporate examples that he had provided in lectures. So, if you are astute in lectures, some answers may come more easily in the exam.

Unfortunately, a printing error occurred in this exam, resulting in 9 questions being omitted. This was a poor mistake, which precluded students who had studied the course from being able to distinguish themselves. Apart from this glitch, the exam was of a reasonable standard.

Yes

Arlen Duke

No. A practice test is provided, however.

Like the second one, this quiz contains 40 multiple choice questions. Given that students will have only covered 4 cases by this stage (relating to case law), Arlen looks to the finer nuances of the textbook to test knowledge. It is therefore critical that the lecture slides are not the only material being consulted.

PBL’s approach to results was disappointing. While students receive their marks on the LMS, they cannot access their quiz again and review their mistakes. Only a small dot point relating to very general knowledge is provided (ie. review court hierarchies). To me, this defeats the whole purpose of the quizzes, and learning in general.

By this quiz, around 60 case studies will have been studied. And so, I would classify this assessment as being much harder than the first. While the quiz is open book, it is extremely easy to run out of time if you do not have a clear understanding of each case’s material facts and ratio decidendi. Many of the questions involved Arlen relating several cases to a hypothetical problem. Students needed to interpret the essential ‘hooks’ of the hypothetical, and reconcile them with the corresponding case. Other questions involved a series of statements, which students had to validate or reject.

4.5 of 5

First Principles of Business Law (textbook and enclosed e-tutorials) - latest edition. While Arlen summarised key content from the textbook on the lecture slides, the textbook is still necessary. It clarifies and expands on crucial concepts covered. Further, the enclosed e-tutorials contain quizzes and interactive activities, which complement the quizzes nicely (in terms of style and structure).

One 2-hour lecture per week

Semester 1 2018

H1

Two hour-long multiple-choice tests (10% each) in weeks 4 and 9,
1.5 hour exam (80%) during the examination period.

Lectures
The lecture theatre is pretty full because of how many people are taking this subject so get there a bit earlier if you want to get a good seat. A 2 hour lecture might sound daunting as most of the lectures for other subjects only last for 1 hour. Luckily Tanya gave us a 5 min break in between. Make sure you pay attention during lectures and write down important stuff the lecturer said as the lectures are not recorded.

E-tutorials
They do not contribute towards your final mark. However, I would encourage you to do them as they will help with your understanding. Try to do them every week and not leave them until it is close to MSTs or the final exam especially if you bought a secondhand book and need to do them in the law libraries because many people will be doing the same.

Workshops
There are 3 workshops during the semester, 1 each the week before each MST and 1 in week 12. Theses workshops are optional and I only went to the first one. They give you the opportunity to ask questions about the practice tests and exams during the workshops. Make sure you go to them if you have any confusion about the practice tests and exams because during consultation hours the consultation tutor is different and he will not be answering those questions.

MST
The 2 MSTs are slightly harder than the practice versions. However, it is still possible to get high marks because it is open book and you can do it online at home. Try to make some summary notes about each lecture and make brief summaries about cases for the MSTs to save you time from flipping through the thick book.

Exam
Prepare a good cheatsheet including the cases and important theories. There is a few really hard questions where more than 1 options might look right at first glance but overall the exam is still not difficult to do well in.

I would recommend this subject if you are trying to find an easy breadth and aiming for an easy H1.

Sadly no

Tanya Josev

No past exam but we were given 1 practice exam.

5 Out of 5

First Principles of Business Law (textbook and enclosed e-tutorials) - latest edition.

1x 2hour lecture per week, 1 weekly e-tutorial, 3x1hour feedback workshops for the whole semester

2016 Semester 2

97

3 x 15% Skills Tasks; 1 x 55% Exam (ALL MCQS)

There's already been another review on this so I'll try keep repetition to a minimum. I highly recommend this subject - probably my favourite subject this year. Tanya is a fantastic lecturer and is really engaging and really brings to life what could be incredibly dull and boring concepts. When revising I recommend having both the textbook and lecture slides in front of you and notice how they've structured the topics and then writing up your own notes. For memorising the case studies (which isn't too difficult since you only need to be able to recognise and recall the rough facts), just make really terrible mnemonics, the sillier the better - trust me it works.
They've changed the way they do the assessments starting in 2014 (from what I've gathered from the handbook) with fewer skills tasks and even more weighting on the final exam.

No

Tanya Josev

No

5 Out of 5

You definitely must have the textbook. It's going to be your bible through this subject, and you'll need it to access the etutes (or you can be cheap, like me, and buy it second hand and do the etutes for free in the law library and download the program during swotvac - you have 10 days to use it before you have to put in the code that comes with a new textbook)

1 x 2 hour lecture

2013 Semester 2

H1

3x 15% Skills Tasks, 55% Exam. All MC Q

The subject is fairly interesting if you have any slight interest in laws etc. The way the class structure works (with no formal face-to-face tutorial) means you will need to be organised and find time to do the E-Tutorials in your own time. The E-Tutorials are quite helpful, and some questions even reappeared in a different form on the exam. I have a few friends who got by the skills tasks without completing the E-Tutorials, but I personally found them very helpful.

Tanya is a very engaging lecturer and this helped keep the 2 hour lectures interesting. The lectures consist of 2 halves - first half is new content and theory, and the second half involves applying it towards a fictitious scenario.

The exam is very similar to the three skills tasks - all MC Q, and a combination of theory, cases, and scenario/scenarios with accompanying questions. There are a lot of cases to be familiar with for the second and third skills tasks, and the exam (~80 cases). It is not necessary to memorise every detail of the case, only the main details and the ruling etc. I found that it took me a while to rote learn the case names in order to confidently recognise in a list of MC Q options.
Overall, I enjoyed the subject.

No

Tanya Josev

Not really. There was only one E-Tutorial that had 4 case scenarios for practice.

5 Out of 5

First Principles of Business Law + E-Tutorial registration code (comes standard if you purchase the textbook new). If you purchase a second hand textbook and don't want to fork out $80 for a code, the Law Library computers has the tutorials installed.

1x 2 hour lecture, 1x E-tutorial to be completed in your own time (takes approx 1-2 hours to complete)

2013 Semester 1

Three Semester tests at 15% and end of year exam at 55%; All multiple choice

Give your overall opinion of the subject, lecturers, assessment etc. and a recommendation, plus anything else which you feel is relevant.
Dont do this subjects, its terrible. The low contact hours and multiple choice assessments might attract you but there is ALOT of rote learning where you memorise cases and regurgitate them. Very pointless subject, it is more LAW than actual COMMERCE (e.g. Accounting or economics subject) and I would not suggest doing it unless you are doing an Accounting Major where you have to complete it.

NO!!!

Theres one dude that plays weird music during the breaks. His not that great, really boring

NONE!!!

0.5 Out of 5

You have to buy the subjects tutorial book and "textbook". The tutorial book allows you access to the online tutorials.

2 hours Lectures a week with tutorials which are done by yourself in your own time (averages around 1-2 hours a week if you want to get a good mark)

2011 Semester 1

(Optional) 74