Australia archives guide: Australia

The records below, which hold references to Australia, were transferred to the Records of Legal Education Archives (now subsumed into the IALS Archives) by individuals and organisations with a particular interest in legal education, both the UK and abroad. A particular focus was on legal education in the Empire and later the Commonwealth, including Australia. 
The records listed have been selected for specific references to legal education and the law in Australia. There may be more relevant material under general headings such as Commonwealth. To browse the Archives catalogues for more information see this link:
https://ials.sas.ac.uk/ials-library/archives/ials-archives-collections
The records are open 20 years after last date on file; CLOSED items are designated in red.
All the records listed below, other than those which are currently closed, may be viewed by prior appointment in the IALS Library. Requests for an appointment to examine any of the records should be made to the Archivist (ials.archives@sas.ac.uk).

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British and Irish Association of Law Librarians: Archives, 1969-2021

Administrative history: the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) arose from an Ad Hoc Committee which was convened at the First Workshop on Law Librarianship, Leeds, 1968.  The purpose of the Ad Hoc Committee was to investigate the possibility of setting up a British equivalent to the International Association of Law Libraries.  
BIALL was formally established on 16 April 1969 at the Second Workshop on Law Librarianship, in Harrogate.  The first AGM was held in September that year.  Although affiliation to other groups such as the International Association of Law Librarians and The Library Association had been suggested, BIALL was set up as an independent body.  
Aims: the original aims of the organisation were: to hold conferences and provide forums for people to meet and discuss questions relating to law libraries; to promote the better administration of law libraries; to promote the role of law librarian; to promote bibliographical study and research; to publish information of interest to the membership; and to work with other bodies for the benefit of the Association.

Selected items:

BIALL 10: Allied/Affiliate Groups, 1964-2006

BIALL 33: Joint Study Institute, 1997-2013 

Administrative history: the Joint Study Institute was sponsored by the various associations of law libraries.  The first conference in 1998 was sponsored by BIALL.

Administrative history: the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA) was founded during the Fourth Commonwealth Law Conference in New Delhi in 1971.   The idea was initiated by Indian lawyer Dr Laxmi Singhvi, CLEA's first chairman.  The Association's objects were to foster high standards of legal education and research in Commonwealth countries: to build up contacts between interested individuals and organizations, and to disseminate information and literature concerning legal education and research.
The CLEA's structure, objectives and functions are set out in its Constitution, adopted soon after its foundation.  Membership is open to individuals, schools of law and other institutions concerned with legal education and research.  Patrons are appointed from various Commonwealth countries.  The affairs of the Association are managed by an Executive Committee, drawn from the Commonwealth regions, which meets annually: its actions are reviewed at 5 yearly General Meetings, the first of which was held in Edinburgh during the Fifth Commonwealth Law Conference in 1977.  There is an Advisory Panel in the United Kingdom.  The administration of the Association was carried out by a chairman and two secretaries, one in London and one abroad.  In 1990 the office of chairman was replaced by a president and executive chairperson (since renamed vice president).  The President may be elected from any part of the Commonwealth: the Vice President must be established in the UK.  In 1994 a South Asian regional chapter was formed.

Selected items:

CLEA 06: Miscellaneous CLEA Publications and Offprints, 1978-1992

CLEA 07: Conference on emerging educational challenges for law in Commonwealth Asia and Australasia: the implications for Legal Education – conference papers, 1992
Administrative history: this conference was run by the CLEA together with the Hong Kong Law Teachers’ Association, the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and the University of Hong Kong from April 10-12, 1992.  

Commonwealth Legal Records Project (CLRP): Archives, 1989-1993

Administrative history: the Commonwealth Legal Records Project (CLRP), which began its investigations in 1990, was jointly sponsored by the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers (ACARM) and the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (CLEA), and was financed by a grant from the Leverhulme Foundation.  It comprised a three-year programme of research into modern legal records throughout the Commonwealth.  The objectives of the study were to:

• analyse questions relating to the nature, extent and potential uses of legal records of all kinds;
• collect information about the state of legal records in selected Commonwealth jurisdictions;
• analyse factors relevant to devising informed policies regarding the management, appraisal, preservation and destruction of legal records and suggest guidelines;
• produce and disseminate the findings of the study in a form that would be useful to interested institutions and individuals in different jurisdictions in the Commonwealth, especially developing countries.  

Publications: the project produced one book, Legal Records in the Commonwealth, and one major study, Legal Records in Accra (Ghana).

Selected items:

CLRP 03: Research Files - General

Biographical history: Sir William Leonard Dale (1906–2000), lawyer and civil servant, was born on 17 June 1906 at The Rectory, Preston in Holderness, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the elder son and eldest of the three children of the Revd William Dale (1852–1934), Church of England clergyman, and his wife, Rose (1870–1963), daughter of Herbert Leonard, farmer, of Marfleet, Yorkshire.
After Hymers College, Hull, Dale entered into articles with solicitors in the city. After an external London University LLB, he read for the bar, supporting himself on a Gray's Inn scholarship and occasional appointments as a suburban church organist. Call in 1931 was followed by a London pupillage, practice briefly on the north-eastern circuit, and a return to chambers in the Temple. He then joined an English solicitor practising in Jaffa. In 1935 he applied for a legal post in the Colonial Office. 
Dale moved to an administrative position in the wartime Ministry of Supply in 1940, returning to the Colonial Office after VJ-day to the legal complexities of Raja Brooke's cession of Sarawak to the British crown. He was made CMG in 1951, in which year he fielded a request to identify a legal adviser for the new kingdom of Libya by promptly volunteering himself. He returned in 1953, despite the Libyan government's entreaties to stay on as a Supreme Court judge.
A move to the Ministry of Education in 1954 produced a change of work. But Lord Hailsham's arrival as minister in 1957 led to clashes, to which Dale responded by declaring himself semi-redundant, and taking up work for half the day at the Foreign Office. In 1961 he became the legal adviser to the Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO), and in the following year he was seconded to the central Africa office to help deal with the break-up of the Central African Federation. He was promoted KCMG in 1965, and retired a year later, a period which spanned the CRO's amalgamation with his old department, but not the final merger into a single Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In London on 17 June 1966, his last day in service, he married Gloria Finn (b. 1922), textile designer, of Washington, DC, daughter of Charles Spellman, stockbroker. They had one daughter, Rosemary.
A spell in the law officers' department (1967–68) was followed by a decision to move to Beirut as general counsel to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees. Return home in 1973 opened the most productive and creative phase of Dale's legal life, and a working partnership with Kutlu Fuad, head of the legal division in the Commonwealth Secretariat, which had been founded in Dale's CRO days. First came a study of how to provide competent Commonwealth draftsmen, commuted into a fuller investigation into what legislative style would best meet the needs of newly independent countries, and unlocking Dale's interest in simpler approaches to writing statutes. Then came the call to take over the Government Legal Advisers course (another Dale–CRO creation), through which over the next quarter-century Dale persuaded eminent British figures into nurturing the practical skills of generations of overseas lawyers. The final flowering came in the decision of London University's Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) to found a centre for legislative studies in Dale's honour on his ninetieth birthday. The mark of his continuing vigour and determination lay in his becoming its founding Director and establishing a firm base for its activity before stepping down shortly before his death.
Dale published in 1994 an autobiography under the title Time Past, Time Present, which told among other things how his most enduring published work (The Law of the Parish Church, 7th edn, 1998) first came to birth as the winner of a Gray's Inn essay prize in 1931. In 1983 came The Modern Commonwealth, a sound guide to that subject. But he was proudest of all of his Legislative Drafting, a New Approach (1977), which, though less a new recipe than a justified critique of the stuffiness of the English parliamentary drafting style, was well received. 
He died of prostatic cancer on 8 February 2000 at Compton Lodge, 7 Harley Road, Camden, London, and was buried at St Pancras Church, Finchley, London. He was survived by his wife and their daughter.

Selected items:

International Law Association (ILA): Archives, 1866-2019

Administrative history: the International Law Association (ILA) was founded in Brussels in 1873 as an association 'to consist of Jurists, Economists, Legislators, Politicians and others taking an interest in the question of the reform and Codification of Public and Private International Law, the Settlement of Disputes by Arbitration, and the assimilation of the laws, practice and procedure of the Nations in reference to such laws' (afternoon sitting of the first conference of members, 19 November 1873: reference ILA 01/01). It was initially called the Association for the Reform and Codification of the Law of Nations, changing its title to the International Law Association in the early 20th century. 
The Association was to consist of a Council of officers comprising a President, vice presidents, secretaries and other members of the Conference (called the Bureau), plus a series of local, departmental or provincial committees who were to report to the President. These committees have since expanded into International Committees. The ILA has consultative status, as an international non-governmental organisation, with a number of the United Nations specialised agencies. 

Access: The ILA stipulates a 30 year closure rule. Closed items are designated in red.

Selected items:

ILA 01: Records of the Executive Council, 1873-2010
ILA 01/07: Papers and correspondence of Officers of the Association, 1873-2010

ILA 02: Conference, 1874-2014

Administrative background: the focal point of the ILA's activities is the series of Biennial Conferences.  These conferences, of which 69 have so far been held in different locations throughout the world, provide a forum for the comprehensive discussion and endorsement of the work of the ILA's international committees.

ILA 03: International Committees, 1875-2019

ILA 04: Regional branches of the ILA: records, 1877-2013

ILA 06: Library material, 1866-1969

Society of Legal Scholars (formerly Society of Public Teachers of Law): archives

Administrative history: The Society of Public Teachers of Law (SPTL) was founded in 1909 by Dr Edward Jenks, the then Principal and Director of Studies of the Law Society. 
Aims: Rule 2 of the Society states that "The objects of the society shall be the furtherance of the cause of legal education in England and Wales, and of the work and interests of public teachers of law therein by holding discussions and enquiries, by publishing documents, and by taking other steps as may from time to time be deemed desirable" (see SPTL 06: List of Members and Rules 1910).
The Society was to consist of a) ordinary members (any public teacher of law in England and Wales) and b) honorary members (any past teacher of law, overseas teacher of law or person who has "conferred important benefits on the Society or on legal education") (Ibid. Rule 6, p.11).
The Society's affairs were to be managed by a General Committee, whose officers were to consist of a President, Vice-President, Treasurer and Honorary Secretary. Other Committee members were to comprise one member for each university conferring degrees in law, and one member for each body conferring professional qualifications in law. Thus all branches of legal education would be represented.
Since its inception, the SPTL has acted to improve the quality of legal education and research through publishing reports, setting up working parties, putting forward submissions, holding conferences and producing journals and newsletters on matters relevant to legal education. Its representation on the different law teaching bodies in England and Wales has meant that it has operated with great effectiveness as a pressure group for change.
In 2002 the Society of Public Teachers of Law was renamed the Society of Legal Scholars.

Selected items:

SPTL 15: Printed Papers relating to SPTL interests, 1966-1993#

Professor William L Twining, Law Teacher (TWIN): Papers, 1944-2006

Biographical history: William Lawrence Twining (b.1934) has had a long and distinguished career in law teaching and has been involved in many projects relating to legal education.  He was educated at Charterhouse School, Brasenose College, Oxford and the University of Chicago.  He has held numerous university posts and been an active officer of many legal education associations, including the Commonwealth Legal Education Association (records held in the IALS Archives; ref: CLEA).  He was Supervisor of the Commonwealth Legal Records Project (records held in the IALS Archives; ref: CLRP). 

Selected items:

TWIN 03: Papers relating to research projects, 1965-2014

TWIN 04: Third party research material and articles, 1944-2006