Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy : An Australian Story

This article presents a case for law schools to undertake public interest advocacy. It argues that incorporating public interest advocacy into curricula and research enhances clinical legal education and enables law schools to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to justice and law reform. The article outlines an integrated model for law school based public interest advocacy based on the experience of one of Australia’s newest law schools at Newcastle in the Hunter region of New South Wales. The article then describes a recent public interest case undertaken by academics, clinicians and students at Newcastle law school, explaining their participation in the case and exploring the contributions made by the case to legal education, the correction of injustice and reform of the law.


INTRODUCTION
This article presents a case for law schools to undertake public interest advocacy.It argues that incorporating public interest advocacy into curricula and research enhances clinical legal education and enables law schools to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to justice and law reform.The article outlines an integrated model for law school based public interest advocacy based on the experience of one of Australia's newest law schools at Newcastle in the Hunter region of New South Wales.The article then describes a recent public interest case undertaken by academics, clinicians and students at Newcastle law school, explaining their participation in the case and exploring the contributions made by the case to legal education, the correction of injustice and reform of the law.
The case, one of Australia's most controversial deaths in custody, concerned the fatal shooting on Bondi Beach in Sydney in June 1997 of French photographer Roni Levi.The article examines the shooting, its investigation by police, a coroner and an independent commission of inquiry.It analyses the flaws in these legal investigations, considers their justice implications, and outlines the legal and policing reforms achieved through the case.
The article concludes with the suggestion that changes in law school culture as well as curriculum are needed to ensure that law schools embrace public interest advocacy and other forms of clinical legal education for the future benefit of the law and its students.

WHAT SHOULD LAW SCHOOLS DO?
Late last century William Twining imagined an ideal law school, one which would provide: … not only basic education and training, but also specialist training, continuing education, basic and applied research and high level consultancy and information service.The nearest analogy is the medical school attached to a teaching hospital which, inter alia, gives a high priority to clinical experience with live patients as part of an integrated process of professional formation and development. 2ining observed, somewhat ruefully, that this ideal had not been realised in any Western country.
The failure to realise the ideal of law schools which integrate the study and practice of law is partly an institutional legacy.Traditionally, legal education in English speaking countries has been segmented into discrete stages, involving academic instruction at a university followed by practical legal training after law school.Education at law school has consequently often omitted or marginalised legal ethics and practical legal skills such as client interviewing and counselling, the discovery, management and proof of facts, advocacy and negotiation 4 .
Recent reports on legal education in the United States 5 , the United Kingdom 6 and Australia 7 have encouraged a narrowing of the gap between what is taught in law schools and the knowledge, skills and ethics associated with legal practice.There is an increasing acknowledgment amongst legal educators and practitioners that the traditional separation of theory from practice in legal education is inadequate to the task of law, impoverishing both the education of lawyers and the delivery of legal services. 8Increasingly also, many legal educators incorporate the study, appreciation and practice of ethics and justice, as well as the development of basic skills into their curricula. 9 Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story Legal education has traditionally concentrated on law as rules.The study of legal reasoning at law school is confined almost entirely to reasoning about disputed questions of law, most often explored through appellate court rule making .However, as Twining has also observed, "questions of fact deserve as much attention as questions of law" in legal education, scholarship and legal discourse generally. 11olation of theory from practice and concentration on law as rules, limits lawyers' knowledge of law.Separation of theory from practice has contributed to the continuing failure of law teachers and legal practitioners to "acknowledge that [they] are, in truth, members of a common profession of jurists", 12 and to the frequent failure of legal scholars "to see the common thread between the law of the law school and the law in its practical and social contexts". 13Legal realists were among the first to insist that legal theory, scholarship and teaching should move beyond exclusive attention to legal rules and doctrines. 14Legal realism continues to provide theoretical support to bridge the gap between legal theory and practice.But it is not alone.Normative legal theorists appreciate that logical and semantic gaps in legal discourse render law uncertain both in concept and application. 15Feminist scholars, legal sociologists and others agree that legal rules are  Chicago, 1962.15 For example: Hart, HLA The Concept of Law, Oxford  University Press, Oxford, 1994; Stone, Julius Precedent  and Law, Butterworths, Sydney, 1985; MacCormick, N  Legal Reasoning and Legal Theory, Clarendon Press,  Oxford, 1994; Habermas, J Between Facts and Norms,  Polity Press, Cambridge, 1996.inadequate to explain and predict how cases are decided. 16Indeed, legal determinacy and indeterminacy, and the relations between law and facts are central concerns of modern jurisprudential discourse. 17Developments in legal education and scholarship, such as those concerned to explore the theory and practice of fact investigation and adjudication in law and the working relationships between law, ethics and justice, have been especially retarded. 18gal education is not only important to law students and their teachers.It plays an essential role in shaping 'legal culture', and in determining how well the legal system operates in practice. 19chieving systemic reform and maintaining high standards of performance in a legal system, relies on the development of a healthy professional culture that takes justice and ethical concerns seriously. 20The development of a healthy professional culture should start at law school.Inadequate legal education is a sure foundation for inadequate legal service. 21For example, inadequate education and training in advocacy produces poor advocates, and 'poor advocacy can prolong proceedings, reduce the quality of decision making and increase costs for clients and the courts and tribunals'. 22concern identified in public inquiries and reports into legal services in Australia is that the legal profession "has not contributed as it should have to the practice of justice in Australian democracy".August 1999 para 3.35.23 Parker, Christine 'Justifying the New South Wales Legal  Profession 1976 to 1997' (1997)  self-regulation.24 Others argue that improvements in the regulation and delivery of professional legal services will require 'nurturing an internal catalyst of change within the profession itself'.25 Others have pointed to the need to encourage lawyers to undertake pro bono legal service and have suggested educational and other initiatives to foster the development of a pro bono culture in the legal profession to achieve this end.26 Notwithstanding the recommendations of many reports into legal education, the contentions of many academics and legal practitioners, and the teachings of many divergent schools of modern jurisprudence, many law schools continue to maintain their distance from the practice of law .
Only recently have some Australian law schools become involved in the direct provision of practical legal training, mainly in the form of 'add-on' programs available after the completion of the LLB degree .Only a few have attempted to integrate practical legal skills and legal ethics within the basic law degree program .
Most Australian law schools have not only omitted practical skills from their curricula but have also failed to actively support and encourage their academic staff and students to participate directly in the legal process.

Staff and Students
Upon the foundation of its law school Newcastle University formulated a recruitment profile for the school's academic staff that would support the delivery of an integrated clinical program.Staff were chosen from a mixture of academic and practical backgrounds.Some staff came from pure academic backgrounds; others had a combination of academic and practice backgrounds; others had purely legal practice backgrounds.Staff with a background of practice were encouraged to continue to practice in order to enhance the Faculty's teaching and research programs.Pure academic staff were encouraged to collaborate with those working in the clinical teaching and research programs.The inclusion of practising lawyers, both solicitors and barristers, as academic members of the law school, was an essential step in providing Newcastle's clinical program. 44heir proven ability to practice, their skills and experience, and their knowledge of and connection to 'law jobs' 45 were essential to support the clinical program.The Faculty was founded on the policy that clinical staff of the Centre should be members of the academic staff of the law school and their distinctive teaching and research efforts should be recognised equally with those of mainstream academic staff. 46The Faculty's core of full time teachers was complemented by parttime clinical teachers drawn from the judiciary and the profession.
Law schools are often depicted as training schools for anti-social, or at least self-interested, legal practice.They are often seen as training grounds for an elite who go on to earn enormous salaries serving commercial interests rather than engage their skills in the pursuit of justice and the public interest.There is a considerable body of legal educational literature and empirical research that suggests that the overall effect of law school is to inculcate cynicism about legal ideals and even to reorient students' personal values and commitment. 48The literature contains many reports of students who come to law school with ideals of doing justice but who fail to follow their ideals through in their course choices, career choices, and, ultimately, in the attitudes and approaches they bring to their chosen legal work. 49blic interest advocacy at Newcastle developed, in part, in response to traditional law school practices that impart or compound legal cynicism.It engages law students to provide access to justice and encourages their deeper consideration of the relationship between law and justice.
Student interest in and commitment to public interest case work at Newcastle is generous and sustained.

Partnerships with the Profession
The University of Newcastle Legal Centre has grown from seeds sown by community legal centres. 50It shares many of the aspirations and methods of these centres.However, the Newcastle Centre holds a distinctive place in both the public interest practice of law and legal education in Australia.Established as a centerpiece of the University's undertaking to provide integrated teaching and research programs in law and practice, it is truly a law school based legal centre.
Newcastle Law School has extended and consolidated its clinical program through collaboration with the Legal Aid Commission of New South Wales and the Many Rivers Aboriginal Legal Service.Lawyers employed by the Commission and Many Rivers work alongside lawyers from the Centre to provide legal aid services to the community and act as clinical supervisors to law students who assist them with their cases. 51Many people come to the Centre with complaints of injustice.Many receive assistance.However, resources are limited and its educational objectives mean that only some cases can be undertaken as public interest advocacy cases. 52The suitability of a case for public interest advocacy at Newcastle is assessed according to a matrix of considerations.Typically, supervisors ask whether a case is likely to: confront students with a real case of injustice which will challenge them to fashion effective legal responses; demonstrate the practical contribution which lawyers can make to fundamental democratic and legal values, including the protection of individuals and groups from the abuse of public and private power; 56 stimulate research and learning of substantive law , reinforce traditional student skills, 58 foster practical legal skills, and cultivate qualities required of 'good lawyers' 59 ; and encourage students to reflect upon the moral and ethical dimensions of law and how law ought to be practised.

PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCACY AT NEWCASTLE LAW SCHOOL
Students undertake public interest advocacy either as volunteers (pro bono), or on clinical placement with the Legal Centre as part of the professional program, or enrolled in "Public Interest Advocacy", an optional subject in the LLB program.Each student is engaged on an individual public interest case as part of a team, under the supervision and guidance of a clinician and an academic co-ordinator.
Each student member of a public interest advocacy team engages, in different ways, with the client and with fact gathering and analysis, legal research, case-management, preparation of 'pre-trial' materials (including the formulation of case theories and issues and relevant and probative lines of examination and cross-examination), 'trial' presentation (including the formulation of opening and closing addresses and written submissions) and follow up.Some students instruct in court during a hearing, others are engaged in formulating questions as the hearing progresses, and reviewing the evidence at the end of each hearing day, and formulating final submissions.The common cause of injustice in the public interest cases conducted by the Centre is investigative failure.According to Jeremy Bentham, "the basis of justice is evidence". 69Many cases of injustice occur because legal process fails to discover the full facts or because false facts are accepted by it as true.Justice can only be done when the facts are truly known.Correct application of the law to produce justice depends on sound and reliable fact gathering and evaluation.Not even the most rigorous examination of facts at trial, nor flawless legal analysis on appeal, can rectify flawed or inadequate pre-trial investigation of the facts. 70e contribution of law school based public interest advocacy to the exposure of flawed investigation, leading to systemic change in legal process is exemplified by the Levi case.

PUBLIC INTEREST ADVOCACY AND THE POLICE SHOOTING OF RONI LEVI
The Shooting and Its Investigation a kitchen knife.The flatmate ran outside, and shortly thereafter, to the nearby Bondi police station to alert police. 72senior sergeant, Podesta, Dilorenzo and another other Bondi police officer set out to search for Levi in three separate vehicles.Podesta, Dilorenzo and the other officer spotted Levi near Bondi beach at about five past seven, and chased him down the beach and into the water.The senior sergeant did not join his men on the beach but set up a 'command post' to oversee the situation from the promenade, overlooking the beach.Not long after he set up his post, the senior sergeant was joined by a fifth Bondi officer and two officers from Paddington who had heard a call for assistance on the radio in their patrol van.These three officers joined Podesta, Dilorenzo and the other Bondi officer on the beach with Levi.At times Levi was fully immersed in the surf.At other times the police on the beach and the senior sergeant on the promenade could see that Levi was pointing the blade of the knife towards himself.When he saw that Levi might harm himself with the knife the senior sergeant on the promenade called for an ambulance.Police on the beach surrounding Levi later called for police negotiators.
After a time Levi emerged from the water on to the beach.He walked up and down the shoreline shadowed by police who at times had their pistols drawn. 73Police repeatedly called upon Levi to drop the knife.According to police accounts they were positive but firm.According to civilian eyewitnesses they were much tougher and direct.'Put down the knife you fucking dickhead'.And to a female jogger who inadvertently came near, 'Fuck off'. 74l the officers confronting Levi formed the impression that he was mentally unstable and not communicating rationally.One said that they thought that Levi 'might've lost the plot'. 752 No civilian claimed to have been threatened by Levi with the knife.The evidence of the police officers involved in the incident agreed that Levi did not directly and immediately threaten any civilian with the knife.Rather, the evidence of the police officers involved in the incident and some civilian eye witnesses is that Levi was regarded as posing a threat because he was carrying a knife which he sometimes waved, pointed or jabbed at police and which he failed to drop in face of police demands to do so.73 The evidence of some of the incident police adduced at the inquest but not contained in their statements is that, after he emerged from the water, Levi's coat was at most times during the incident off his shoulders.The evidence of most civilians is to the same effect.Another said he reminded him of a mentally ill patient he once had to deal with. 76One officer called to Levi 'let's go up the beach and have a talk.No one is going to hurt you'. 77Still Levi did not respond.Another officer attempted to strike Levi's arm to dislodge the knife with a baton.Levi started to move in a westerly direction towards the promenade.The police attempted to contain Levi by forming a semi-circle around him with their pistols drawn.The same officer again tried to strike Levi with a baton, and again missed.Levi kept advancing towards the promenade with the police surrounding him.
The police dealing with Levi were each equipped with guns.However, they had only two 'long' batons between them and they did not have capsicum spray.Police authorities had for some years been considering equipping officers with capsicum spray and replacing 'long' batons with extendable batons.Capsicum spray can be used to disable a person.'Long' batons are cumbersome and carried in police vehicles, not as part of an officer's personal equipment.'Long' batons were often left behind in the heat of the moment.For this reason extendable batons, lighter, portable, and designed to be worn alongside a gun on an officer's belt had been under consideration but were still not in use by the New South Wales Police Service at the time of the Bondi incident.All the officers on Bondi beach left their 'long' batons behind in their vehicles.During the incident, as an afterthought, one of the officers returned to the senior officer at the command post on the promenade and collected two batons from the five police vehicles parked there to take down on to the beach.This officer was the only officer who engaged a baton in an attempt to deal with Levi.
The senior sergeant on the promenade could communicate by radio with the officers on the beach to give advice or receive their requests for assistance and with command headquarters to obtain any additional assistance to deal with the situation.However, throughout the incident, the senior sergeant did not communicate with his officers on the beach.Police negotiators, especially trained to deal with difficult situations, were not called until 7.21 am, but were expected to arrive within minutes of that call.
Just as the officer with a baton was going in for a third attempt to dislodge the knife from Levi, Podesta and Dilorenzo fired four shots.It appears that Podesta, the most inexperienced officer facing Levi, fired first.His first shot hit Levi in the chest, his second shot hit Levi in the lower back, when Levi was facing away from him.Dilorenzo's shots hit Levi in the chest.When they fired their guns Podesta and Dilorenzo were facing Levi with their backs towards the promenade.Levi was shot about thirty metres from the promenade at about 7.30 am, some ten minutes after negotiators were first alerted by police central communications to go to Bondi beach.The whole incident lasted about thirty five to forty minutes.The police officers who witnessed Podesta and Dilorenzo fire at Levi gave estimates to the Coroner of the distance between the shooters and Levi ranging from two to three metres.Many of the thirty nine civilian eye witnesses estimated that distance to be three metres or more.A police crime scene examiner arrived on the beach within minutes of the incident.He determined the location of the shooters from discussions with one on the officers involved in the incident immediately after it had occurred and while that officer was still on the beach.He determined Levi's location from his observations of disturbed sand, Levi's blood stains in the disturbed sand and the nearby location of the knife which had been dislodged from Levi's hand after he was shot.He estimated that Podesta and Dilorenzo had been 5.2 metres from Levi when they discharged their firearms.But this estimate by the crime scene examiner was relegated to his notebook, and not included in his statement to the Coroner.
Only two of the thirty nine civilian eye witnesses described Levi as "lunging" or otherwise attacking the two officers when they shot him.But each of these witnesses had been interviewed by Bondi police officers who were close colleagues of the shooters and whose involvement in the investigation was in breach of police instructions designed to ensure the integrity of evidence collected in police investigations of police shootings.
According to Podesta and Dilorenzo, Levi lunged at them with the knife and tried to kill them.Podesta said that Levi was about one and a half to two metres away when he fired.Dilorenzo said that Levi was about a foot from his chest with the knife when he fired.Dilorenzo believed his back was, almost literally, against the wall.Both said they were concerned for the welfare of the spectators on the promenade.Both believed that Levi wanted to commit suicide by having police shoot him.These were their accounts, and the reasons they gave for firing their guns, when interviewed by police on the day of the shooting.
Unknown to police, Levi's presence on the beach attracted the attention of a photographer .The photographer took a series of still photographs of the incident, including the very moment of the fatal shooting.These photographs, published the next morning on the front page of a Sydney newspaper, were later provided to the police.However, the police involved in the shooting were unaware of the photographer's presence, and unaware that photographs of the incident had been taken when they made their statements about the shooting.The photographs were to play an important part in attracting public attention to the shooting and as evidence at the coronial inquest.

The Inquest
Robert Cavanagh, as counsel and John Boersig, as instructing solicitor, represented Roni Levi's widow, Ms Melinda Dundas, at the coronial inquiry into Levi's death in February and March 1998. 80A student team, co-ordinated by Ray Watterson and guided and supervised by Cavanagh and Boersig, prepared material for the inquest and, subsequently, in compiling reports and submissions to the New South Wales Police Integrity Commission about the shooting and its investigation.Preparation included extensive student research into the powers, functions and procedures of the coroner and the commission.
A coronial inquest serves several functions, including investigation of the cause of death, preliminary determination of any criminal responsibility, and prevention.It is the explicit preventative function, expressed through recommendations directed to reduce the likelihood of a similar death to that under inquiry, which gives the coronial inquest a unique place in the Australian legal system. 82Preparation for the Levi inquest therefore included not only detailed analysis of the facts preceding and attending the shooting but also consideration of the implications of other inquests and inquiries into police shootings and police conduct.
The Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service handed down its final report six weeks before the Levi shooting. 83The Royal Commission conducted hearings and made findings and observations in relation to the use and supply of illegal drugs by police officers stationed at Bondi police station. 84In the light of these findings and observations, and as part of its preparation for the inquest, the Centre sought from the Crown, unsuccessfully, information relating to the backgrounds and activities of the Bondi police officers involved in the Levi shooting. 85e State Coroner, as required by law, and assisted by an investigation team of senior crime police, assumed responsibility for the investigation of the Levi case within hours of the shooting. 86Significantly (and as discussed later), information uncovered subsequently by the Police Integrity Commission that Podesta and Dilorenzo were both under internal police investigation in relation to illicit drugs at the time of the shooting, was not provided to the investigating police, or to the State Coroner, when the investigation was commenced.
At the inquest, Cavanagh, as counsel for Ms Dundas, draw extensively on the preparatory work of students, to cross examine the shooting incident police, civilian witnesses, police commanders, 87 and police investigators.At the conclusion of the inquest, Cavanagh submitted that the coroner should recommend to government a number of reforms intended to improve hospital management of patients, avoid future deaths at the hands of police and improve the integrity and raise the standards of investigation of deaths in custody.The Director of Public Prosecutions subsequently decided not to initiate prosecutions against the two police officers who shot Levi. 90

The Police Integrity Commission
In part, because of concern that the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions was undermined by the initial police investigative failure, the Centre submitted a detailed report to the Police Integrity Commission on the shooting and its subsequent investigation. 91The report contended that important evidence and matters relating to the shooting were not considered or fully investigated by police prior to the inquest.It maintained that a series of investigative failures compromised the integrity of the shooting investigation and raised serious doubts about the thoroughness and reliability of the evidence obtained by police, produced at the inquest, and available to the Coroner and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The report called upon the Commission to reinvestigate the shooting, investigate whether Podesta or Dilorenzo were using or involved in the supply of illicit drugs prior to the shooting, and whether they were affected by drugs or alcohol at the time of the shooting.The report also called upon the Commission to consider whether police corruption, serious misconduct or incompetence had tainted the investigation of the shooting and caused a miscarriage of justice.
As the report pointed out, the officers who shot Levi would be guilty of a crime if they fired without lawful justification.Consequently, failures in the investigation of the shooting may have caused a miscarriage of justice.A miscarriage of justice may result from a failure to properly investigate or prosecute particular types of persons, whether through bias, political manipulation, corruption or incompetence. 92Flawed police investigation, usually works against an accused person.As the report pointed out, however, in the case of a police shooting investigated by police, investigative flaws are likely to operate in favour of police shooters and to reduce their prospect of being found guilty of unlawful homicide.
Some time after the Centre provided its report to the Commission, the Commission conducted hearings into allegations that some members of the New South Wales Police service were associating with suppliers of prohibited drugs and were involved in the use and supply of prohibited drugs. 93Senior Constable Anthony Dilorenzo and Rodney Podesta 94 were the subject of investigation and inquiry by the Commission at these hearings.At the hearings it was revealed that Podesta and Dilorenzo were the subjects of police Internal Affairs' drugs surveillance.One period of surveillance of Podesta coincided with the inquest. 95A period of surveillance of Dilorenzo occurred shortly after the inquest. 96The surveillance tapes, questions arising from them, and  Levi, Bondi Beach, 28 June, 1997, 23 September, 1998.92 Walker, C and Starmer, K, ed questions arising from other aspects of police Internal Affairs Commission investigations were put to Podesta and Dilorenzo at these hearings.
Rodney Podesta confessed to drug use apparently revealed by police surveillance of him during the inquest 97 and to drug use not long before and around that time.Podesta confessed only to using and dealing in drugs in the period after the Levi shooting. 98Podesta also confessed to participating in the supply of cocaine apparently revealed by the same police surveillance of him.Podesta was charged and convicted in relation to supplying a prohibited drug on this occasion 99 and was sentenced to four months periodic detention. 100 these hearings, and subsequently, Dilorenzo denied any involvement in the use or supply of illegal drugs or any other wrongdoing.However, Dilorenzo was removed from the police service pursuant to s. 181D of the Police Service Act 1900, NSW. 101Such removal is not a dismissal from the service and has the same effect under the Act as resignation or retirement. 102llowing a further submission by the Centre to the Commission, 103 the Commission announced 104 the commencement of further hearings into allegations concerning the involvement of Rodney Podesta and Anthony Dilorenzo in the use and supply of prohibited drugs, allegations that they were affected by drugs and/or alcohol when they shot Levi, and allegations of police corruption or misconduct in the investigation of the shooting. 105The Commission conducted public hearings into these matters in November, 1999 and in February and March 2000 and tabled its report concerning its investigations and hearings in Parliament on 15 June, 2001. 106 The Commission's report revealed details of the investigation of Podesta and Dilorenzo's association with illicit drug use and supply.In May 1996 the Internal Affairs Branch of the New South Wales Police Service had begun an investigation of Anthony Dilorenzo in relation to alleged improper association with drug dealers.In May 1997 Internal Affairs had commenced an investigation into Rodney Podesta's alleged use and supply of prohibited drugs and joined this investigation with that of its investigation into Anthony Dilorenzo.Both officers were still under investigation in relation to drug related allegations at the time of their shooting of Levi, however, as the Commission reported, neither officer was tested for drugs or alcohol following the incident.The Commission found that Podesta: (i) used prohibited drugs, including cocaine and ecstasy, prior to his joining the police force; (ii) continued to regularly use cocaine and ecstasy whilst a serving police officer, between the time he joined the force in May 1995 until the time he left the force in March 1998, including the periods just prior to and after the shooting; (iii) supplied cocaine on several occasions whilst a serving police officer; and (iv) improperly associated with Mark Dilorenzo (the brother of Anthony Dilorenzo), a convicted drug supplier, whilst Podesta was a serving police officer, including in the period just prior to the shooting. 107Based on evidence before it the Commission recommended that consideration be given to the prosecution of Podesta for suppling cocaine.The Commission added that, had Podesta not resigned from the police service, it would have recommended that consideration be given to his removal from the service, having regard to his use and supply of prohibited drugs whilst a serving police officer.

Journal of Clinical
The Commission found that Anthony Dilorenzo used cocaine with Podesta on a number of occasions some months prior to the shooting and was involved in the use of prohibited drugs with another person at a time after the shooting.The Commission added that, had Dilorenzo not been dismissed from the police service because the Commissioner of Police had lost confidence in his suitability to continue as a police officer, it would have recommended that consideration be given to his removal from the service.
The Commission found that police had received information from a number of sources after the shooting alleging that Podesta and/or Dilorenzo were affected by drugs and/or alcohol the evening before the shooting.It found that some of this information had been inadequately investigated and some of it had been "effectively lost" by police investigators. 108The Commission acknowledged that these lost investigatory opportunities supported "legitimate concerns that a proper investigation of the shooting had not been undertaken". 109e Commission's investigations uncovered a number of individuals able to give evidence about Podesta and Dilorenzo's activities on the evening before the shooting.However, two witnesses who may have been able to provide relevant evidence died after the shooting and before the Commission's hearings.In the result, only one witness testified to seeing Podesta apparently under the influence of drugs on the evening before the shooting.
A former girlfriend of Podesta's testified that Podesta had visited her home late that evening, that he appeared to be "high on cocaine", and that he had told her that he had been using cocaine.110However, Podesta's claim that he was with friends and relatives on that evening was supported by the evidence of two long standing friends and his mother.The Commission was "not comfortably satisfied that the account [of the former girlfriend of Podesta] is correct". 111e Commission concluded that the information that it had been able to recover or obtain, almost four years after the shooting, could not support a finding that either Podesta or Dilorenzo were affected by alcohol and/or drugs at the time of the incident.
The Commission criticised many other aspects of the investigation of the shooting.It found, for example, that no "orderly or structured control was taken of the shooting immediately after it occurred [and] that there was a systemic failure to comply with the then procedures [for the investigation of a police shooting], and there was a real risk that such an important investigation may have been carried out by officers who might be perceived as not being at arm's length from Podesta and Dilorenzo". 112The Commission concluded, however, that the deficiencies in the investigation, while serious, were not "due to corruption or misconduct, merely confusion and misunderstanding". 113e Commission observed that the Levi case was "a powerful example of the necessity for an effective system of drug and alcohol testing of police officers involved in critical incidents….if both officers had been drug tested after the incident, there would be no doubts as to whether they were affected by drugs and alcohol at the time". 114A statutory power to conduct random or targeted drug and alcohol tests of police officers had existed since January 1997, but there was no statutory power at the time of the Levi shooting requiring officers involved in critical incidents to provide samples for drug and alcohol tests and random drug testing had not been implemented. 115e Commission maintained that the law should allow for, and require the obtaining of, the best evidence for the purpose of drug and alcohol testing of a police officer following a critical incident.It therefore recommended that blood testing of a police officer following a critical incident be introduced.The Commission also recommended the immediate commencement of random drug testing for the New South Wales Police Service. 116On the same day these recommendations were tabled in Parliament, the government announced that it accepted them and would introduce legislation to give effect to them. 117

Investigative Failure in the Levi Case
The investigative failures in the Levi case, detailed in the Centre's reports and submissions to the Police Integrity Commission or revealed by the Commission's report, include the following: -No independent government agency investigated the shooting: the investigation of the circumstances leading to and involved in the shooting was carried out by the police.
-Contrary to the Police Commissioner's instructions for the investigation of a police shooting, the investigation team included a number of police officers who were close working colleagues of the police involved in the shooting.
-The methods employed by police to gather evidence, particularly the obtaining of statements, cast serious doubt upon the reliability of that evidence.For example, contrary to standard practice for the investigation of a fatal shooting, key eye witnesses to the shooting were not interviewed.Instead, police eye witnesses were allowed to

Journal of Clinical Legal Education June 2002
112 Police Integrity Commission, Report to Parliament,  Operation Saigon, 15 June, 2001.p. iv.113 Police Integrity Commission, Report to Parliament,  Operation Saigon, 15 June, 2001.p. iv.114  prepare their own statements.They did this after talking to each other and to the two officers who shot Levi. 118he manner in which police investigators obtained statements from civilian eye witnesses may have adversely affected the reliability of some civilian evidence.For example, some civilian eye witnesses were interviewed by Bondi police officers contrary to the Police Commissioner's Instructions.
-Media statements about the shooting made by senior police shortly after the shooting may also have affected the reliability of some of the civilian evidence.

Levi and Justice
The resources available to the State, the investigating police and the police under investigation in any inquiry into a death in custody dwarf those available to the victim. 119Law school based public interest advocacy on behalf of Levi's widow helped to alleviate the disparity in the Levi case.Exposure of the flaws in the investigation of the shooting commenced with the initial examination and analysis of the police brief of evidence by the Newcastle public interest advocacy team.More flaws in the police investigation were exposed when police investigators were cross-examined at the inquest by Cavanagh, assisted by his student team.Deeper problems arising from the drug associations of the officers who shot Levi came to light only after the Police Integrity Commission conducted independent investigations, assisted by the information, analysis and research of the submissions made to it by the Newcastle team.
The Centre's reports and submissions and the Commission's report reveal how a flawed police investigation may compromise an inquest and the exercise of a prosecutor's discretion.As the Commission observed, the pattern of police investigative failure in the Levi case, kindled "legitimate concerns that a proper investigation of the shooting had not been undertaken". 120However, as the Commission also observed, it did not address or was unable to satisfactorily resolve many of the questions arising from Levi's very public death in police custody. 121spite the scrutiny by the Coroner, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Commission, and the work of the public interest advocacy team on behalf of Ms Dundas, it remains the case that, as a result of the initial investigative failures on the part of the police, the truth about the Levi shooting may never be known and justice may never be done.

Law Student Participation in the Levi Case
Students contributed to the Levi case by carrying out essential investigative and legal research tasks and drew deep lessons from their contribution.Especially lessons about investigative failure and injustice which may result from it.
Over sixty Newcastle law students actively participated in the Levi case. 122In preparation for the coronial inquest into Levi's death, students attended briefing sessions with the lawyers in charge of the case and undertook various supervised tasks of fact gathering, research and analysis.These tasks included: perusal and analysis of the police brief of evidence; analysis of media material relating to the shooting; background preparation of material for lines of crossexamination.They also included fact gathering, legal and policy research relating to, amongst other things: the jurisdiction, powers and functions of the coroner, especially the recommendations function; other inquests and inquiries into police shootings; police training and procedures in relation to the use of firearms; police training and procedures in relation to the mentally ill; hospital practices and protocols in relation to 'absconding' patients; drug and alcohol screening for police.
In preparing submissions for the Police Integrity Commission, students carried out analyses and prepared material covering a number of areas.Students carried out research and analyses into the nature of contemporary police corruption; 123 compliance by police investigators with the Police Commissioner's Instructions relating to the investigation of a death in custody and the implications of any non-compliance for the integrity of the investigation in the Levi case; the record of police investigative failure in the Levi case and its implications for coronial and prosecutorial decision making; the identification and analysis of the opportunities arising in the course of the investigation of the shooting for the police involved in the shooting to collude on their stories and the implications of any such opportunities for the reliability of the police evidence; the implications of the failure to test the officers involved in the shooting for drugs and alcohol; the record of police/media communications relating to the shooting and its implications for the proper administration of justice. 124principal educational objective of student participation in the Levi case was to assist students to develop the kinds of cognitive skills necessary to undertake sound investigation and management of facts in law. 125Much legal process is devoted to fact adjudication, where the law is clear and undisputed.Facts also underpin the exercise of discretionary judgements in law.Facts are also 30 critical in appellate rule-making.Consequently, contemporary legal educators have challenged academics in law schools to take facts more seriously. 126'New evidence' scholars have attempted to formulate theories and conceptual frameworks for understanding the nature, functions and practices of fact gathering and proof in legal process. 127Despite these advances, the processes of fact-finding and evaluation remain neglected areas of legal discourse, education, and research.
Students involved in the Levi case were challenged to address and provide the most intellectually rigorous answers to a series of questions about facts and law that actually confronted the legal decision makers in the case.These decision makers included the Coroner, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Police Integrity Commission, other lawyers and the police.Students were also encouraged to reflect on the nature and significance of these questions and the alternative answers available to them. 128

Levi Reforms
At the conclusion of the inquest into Levi's death the coroner made a number of recommendations for reform of the law and police and hospital procedures. 129e Coroner recommended that all hospital policies and procedures manuals, including nursing manuals, should include a protocol dealing with all patient abscondments.He recommended that such a protocol should address, particularly, notification of the family, security and, in appropriate cases, notification of police, for abscondments which occur without any forewarning. 130he coroner recommended a number of reforms in the law, protocols and policies relating to drug testing of police officers, the conduct of investigations of deaths in custody, and police training and resources.& Nicholson, London, 1991; Twining, W, Rethinking  Evidence, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990.See also Franklin, J The Science of Conjecture: Evidence and Probability Before Pascal, John Hopkins University Press ( Franklin complains that law students are taught about subtle rules on the exclusion of evidence instead of how to evaluate the facts).127 See, for example, Wigmore J The Science of Judicial Proof as Given by Logic, Psychology, and General  Experience, and Illustrated in Judicial Trials, 1937;  Tillers, P & Green, E D (eds) Probability and Inference in the Law of Evidence, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic  Publishers, 1988; Anderson, T & Twining, W Analysis  of Evidence: How To Do Things With Facts,  Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London,1991; Twining,  W Rethinking Evidence: Exploratory Essays Blackwell  1990; Twining, W and Stein, A Evidence and Proof  Dartmouth, Aldershot, 1992; Wells WAN Natural  Logic: Judicial Proof and Objective Facts, Federation  Press, Sydney, 1994; Roberts, Graham   • The Coroner's recommendations relating to drug testing and police training and resources were as follows: • Legislation should be amended to provide for police officers involved in a fatal shooting to be mandatorily alcohol/drug tested as soon as possible following such an incident. 137 • Police training in dealing with mentally ill persons should be reviewed and constantly updated and reinforced with police officers. 138 • Police service proposals to introduce capsicum spray and extendable batons be expedited. 139ny of the coronial recommendations in the Levi case have been implemented.Reforms have been introduced to the hospital and police management of situations involving people who may be mentally ill. 140Legislation now provides for the mandatory drug and alcohol testing of police officers involved in fatal shootings. 141The New South Wales Police Service now equips its officers with capsicum spray 142 and extendable batons.police officer following a critical incident recommended the introduction of blood testing of a police officers following a critical incident.The Commission also recommended the immediate commencement of random drug testing for the New South Wales Police Service.Each of these recommendations was accepted and acted upon by government.
However, the Levi case has highlighted the need for further and deeper structural and institutional reforms of the criminal and civil justice systems in New South Wales.These reforms are still outstanding.They include an overhaul of the State Coroner's Office and the substitution of an independent agency for the police in future investigations of deaths in custody.
The coronial system in New South Wales has been described as, "the proverbial poor relation in the administration of justice in NSW". 145There have been many calls for a major overhaul of the coronial system; to upgrade the status and resources of the Coroner's office, to improve its fact finding capacity, to provide greater access to and assistance for relatives of victims, to reform the coroner's powers and procedures to give greater emphasis and efficacy to the preventative role of an inquest and improve monitoring and implementation of coronial recommendations. 146At least one commentator has drawn attention to the absence from the coronial system of mechanisms for independent or public interest representation in cases raising issues of major public concern. 147e Levi case highlights the limitations of current coronial practice and underscores the need for a systemic overhaul of the New South Wales Coroner's Office.A modern coronial system needs to discharge its investigative, preventative and educative functions to the highest standards.This requires the assembly of an independent specialist team of legal, medical, police and scientific investigators under the guidance and direction of a State Coroner with the status of a Supreme Court judge.Only such a specialised and autonomous institution, properly resourced in terms of skills and infrastructure, is able to provide a fair and adequate, thorough and caring community response to questionable death.A response which will truly "speak for the dead to protect the living".In routine coronial inquests, investigations are usually carried out by the police.The police also prepare the brief for the inquest, assist the coroner and secure the attendance of witnesses.
In police custody and police shooting cases investigations are usually supervised by counsel assisting, instructed by the Crown Solicitors' office.
Roni Levi met a very public death at the hands of police, a death witnessed by the media and scores of civilians.The Levi case calls into question the professionalism and integrity of police investigative methods, and the effectiveness of coronial superintendence of police investigators attached to the police service.The police investigation of the Levi shooting, the recommendations made by the coroner relating to such investigations, and the report of the Police Integrity Commission, combine to emphasise the need for more fundamental reforms in the investigation of deaths in custody.
The Royal Commission into the New South Wales Police Service recommended the establishment of a new agency, external to and independent of the police service "with a specific focus upon the investigation of serious police misconduct and corruption" 149 That agency has been established as the Police Integrity Commission. 150The Royal Commission proposed that this new independent agency be responsible for the investigation of a special category of complaints about police matters, namely, 'serious misconduct and corruption', 151 which should include, "matters in which it is unlikely that there will be public confidence in an internal police investigation (for example, where the complaint relates to death or serious injury in police custody)." 152The latter recommendation has not been implemented.The Levi case underscores the need for government to implement the Royal Commission's recommendation for the investigation of complaints about deaths in custody to be undertaken, not by police, but by an independent agency such as the Police Integrity Commission and to consider transferring the primary responsibility for the investigation of all future deaths in custody from the police to an independent agency such as the Police Integrity Commission.

CONCLUSION
The Levi case illustrates the educational, justice and reformist role and value of law school based public interest advocacy.However, law school based public interest advocacy is unlikely to develop and contribute to justice and learning about law unless it becomes a part of the teaching and research culture of law schools.Until accepted by the academic system, public interest advocacy will never effectively serve justice, produce legal change and contribute to a better understanding of law itself.The potential for collaboration between law students, academics and practitioners to contribute to the public good is enormous.The future of law school based public interest advocacy will depend, however, upon greater preparedness to take it on, greater recognition of its worth and greater support for its endeavour.
At the start of the 21st century, Newcastle Law School is the only clinical law school in Australia with an integrated approach to clinical legal education.education in their curriculum and there are signs that public interest advocacy and other forms of clinical legal education will move from being fringe dwellers and take a real place in the Antipodean law school of the twenty-first century.
Perhaps the clearest signpost to the future is that placed recently by the Australian Law Reform Commission.The Commission's recommendations included those aimed at encouraging an emphasis in Australian legal education upon legal ethics and high order professional skills (without derogating from the responsibility law schools have to provide students with a grounding in substantive law); a national discipline review and the establishment of an Australian Academy of Law.A national discipline review of legal education in Australia and the establishment of an Australian Academy of Law, as envisaged by the Commission, might be expected to provide foundation and support for the future of clinical legal education in Australia.
However, Australian law schools, like their counterparts throughout the world, will need to change their culture as well as their curriculum to ensure that public interest advocacy and other forms of clinical legal education develop for the public benefit and for that of the law and its students.William Twining imagined an ideal law school as one, which "gives a high priority to clinical experience". 156Anthony Amsterdam 157 and, more recently, the Australian Law Reform Commission, have argued that the law school of the 21st century should move away from "a solitary preoccupation with the detailed content of numerous bodies of substantive law" 158 and more effectively integrate clinical legal education and other forms of "properly conceived and executed professional skills training" into their curricula. 159To do so law schools will need to confine to history Langdell's 19th Century catechism for law students and their teachers that "everything you would wish to know can be obtained from printed books". 160Law schools will need to take more seriously the 20th Century pedagogy of jurists like Twining and Amsterdam, in order to find a proper place for "learning from the experience of practising law" 161 in the new millennium.

School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story 11
23Some commentators have argued that lawyers should take responsibility for creating institutions in which they address community concerns as a quid pro quo of professional Law 16 For discussion of the role of legal theory in clinical legal education see Noone, MA "Australian Community Legal Centres-The University Connection' in Cooper, J and Trubek, L (es) Educating for Justice: Social evidence); Burns, R P A Theory of the Trial Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1999.19 ALRC Managing Justice para 2.3.The Commission was asked to consider the significance of legal education and professional training to the legal process in the context of reform of the federal civil justice system.observed: 'professional formation involves the lifelong honing of skills and deepening of knowledge.Those of us involved in professional formation know we are only putting in place a foundation stone which will be built on over a lifetime.But that foundation stone is quite different from every other stone in the edifice.Placed well it guarantees a solid structure.Placed badly it can support a structure which is not up to withstanding the pressures it will inevitably come under.'ACLEC First

NARROWING THE GAP BETWEEN LAW SCHOOL AND PRACTICE: THE NEWCASTLE ENDEAVOUR
30Many academics have made important contributions to law reform by way of submissions, and sometimes by membership of law reform agencies.Others have made significant contributions to test cases in appellate courts.Countless law school academics and students have supported community legal centres through their individual labour.Some law schools co-operate with community legal centres in the provision of client clinics that students may elect to participate in under supervision for academic credit. 31However, most Australian law schools have not encouraged staff and student participation in legal practice as an integral part of their teaching and research programs.

Journal of Clinical Legal Education June 2002
method, a 'building block' skills and techniques subject, and containing other foundation law subjects(criminal  law and procedure, torts, contracts, andproperty law), has several related aims.These include, imparting substantive legal content, providing an introduction to essential legal concepts, principles, ethical ideals, techniques, approaches, and generic problem solving methods and techniques.Inculcating an interest in the functions of law in its various contexts and enhancing student appreciation of law through a study of jurisprudence.42 As Simon Rice has observed, from an educational standpoint, clinical case research requires students to consider the impact of legal rules and provides an opportunity to consider values in law and law in society issues.Because it derives from but is not limited to legal action taken on behalf of an individual client, clinical project work can demonstrate for students the extent to which law can serve broader interests than those of the individual and its political and social impact.Rice, S A Books and chapters in books.Research papers and theses.Articles and case-notes in law journals, including clinical law journals.Community legal education, including article and feature writing in newspapers, and participation in television documentaries and radio current affairs programs.

47 Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story 15
44 Those recruited to Newcastle's 'clinical law school' include former and current members of federal and state courts or tribunals, a senior criminal trial barrister, partners and solicitors in private and public law firms and government law offices such as the Director of Public Prosecutions.45 In the sense employed by Karl Llewellyn and other legal realists.Llewellyn saw law as consisting not just of rules but of institutions and people carrying out 'law jobs', in which techniques and methods engaged in the application of rules are as important to the understanding and operation of law as the rules themselves.And in which values and ideals are at work, often undetected by the uninitiated, in the creation or buttressing of rules.In this context those 'uninitiated' into 'law jobs' included not just law students but the traditional academic teachers who taught them.See, for example, Llewellyn, K The Bramble Bush (1930) (1951), and The Common Law Tradition (1960).46 However, equal recognition of the value of the work of clinical legal staff, in terms, for example, of tenure and promotion, remains problematic.

Legal Education June 2002 48
Some of this literature is reviewed by Adrienne Stone in'Women, Law School and Student Commitment to the  Public Interest' in Cooper, J and Trubek, L (eds)Educating for Justice: Social Values and Legal  Education, Dartmouth Publishing, Aldershot, 1997 pp.58-61.The literature includes the following: Rathjen, G `The impact of legal education on the beliefs, attitudes and values of law students' [1976]44 Tennessee Law Review 85; Stover, R. V Making It and Breaking It.The Fate of Public Interest Commitment During Law School, Univ. of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1989; Kubey, C ' Three Years of Adjustment: Where do Your Ideals Go?' Juris Doctor December 1976 p. 34; Erlanger, H.  and Klegon, D. (1978), 'Socialising Effects of Professional School: The Law School Experience and Student Orientations to Public Interest Concerns' (1978) 13 Law and Society Review 11; Erlanger, H, Epp, C, Cahill, M. and Haines, K. 'Law Student Idealism and Job Choice: Some New Data on an Old Question', (1996) 30A Law and Society Review, 85; Reidel, C 'Public Interest Law: A Growing Commitment: A Shrinking Market National (1996) Jurist 38; Gunier, L et al (1994) 'Becoming Gentlemen: Women's Experience at One Ivy League Law School" (1994) 143 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1; Homer, S and Schwartz, L (1990) "Admitted but not Accepted: Outsiders Take An Inside Look at Law School" (1990) 5(1) Berkeley Women's Law Journal 31; Granfield The Making of Elite Lawyers: Visions of Law School at Harvard and Beyond Routledge, New York, 1992.49 For example, the predominant answer to the question about how law school had influenced their values, in the Pearce Report's survey of Australian law graduates ,was that it made them `more cynical' (54%).This was followed by `more practical' (52%), and `more politically aware' (39%).Only 10% of graduates reported that legal education made them `more idealistic'.Pearce, D et al Australian law Schools: A discipline assessment for the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission AGPS Canberra 1987, Appendix 5,195, Table 5.19 (Pearce report).Centre, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1996.51 The Commission and the indigenous legal service established a collaborative legal service, research and education effort with Newcastle law school in 1996.

Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story 17
Public interest advocacy is taught and practised at Newcastle law school as a form of clinical legal education.53Attheheart of clinical legal education is a real client.It is the presence of a real client that distinguishes clinical legal education both from traditional legal education, which may often be conducted without any reference to a 'client', and from practical legal skills training, which hypothesises or simulates client situations.54Clinicallegaleducationexposes students to real, factual problems requiring real solutions.As Hugh Brayne has observed, 'good judges and good lawyers use a combination of legal knowledge, analytical powers, insights, experience, and understanding of human nature to make difficult decisions in a practical and wise way.'.55Law students engaged in public interest advocacy gain personal experience of the impact of law on individuals.Under the collaborative guidance and supervision of academics and practitioners, students who learn by assisting others construct a foundation for personal growth towards becoming 'good lawyers'.
Public interest advocacy at Newcastle brings together a team of academics, practitioners and law students to work on individual cases that raise fundamental concerns about the administration of justice.Given the educational and research missions of the University, public interest advocacy at the law school has a number of related objectives, including encouraging student learning, inspiring research and analysis, and promoting improvements in the law.Law School52 At Newcastle, cases are assessed in the light of the justice and educational objectives and values discussed in this paper.By way of comparison, at Harvard Law School, Alan Dershowitz considers the following matters when deciding whether to accept a case: 'is the case likely to raise important issues of a general nature?';'whether I can make effective use of my students'; 'whether my academic skills will add a special dimension to the defense'.According to Dershowitz, the O J Simpson trial in which he was involved met all these criteria and provided one additional factor.Dershowitz surmised that the Simpson case 'would become The lifetime guarantee of tenure entails the responsibilities to challenge the popular and defend the unpopular'.Dershowitz, A Reasonable Doubts: The O.J. Simpson Case and the Criminal Justice System at pp 25-26, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1996.See further Dershowitz, A The Genesis of Justice Warner Books, New York, 2000 at pp. 89-92.55 Brayne, H 'A Case for Getting Law Students Engaged in the Real Thing-The Challenge to The Saber-Tooth Curriculum' (2000) 34(1) International Journal of Legal Education 17, 26.

Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story
Public interest teams at Newcastle have undertaken a number of cases, including the Leigh Leigh case, the Eddie Murray case, the Eastman cases, 60 a justice program in East Timor,61and, most recently, the Roni Levi case.62TheCentrerepresentedRobyn and Jessie Leigh, mother and sister of Leigh Leigh, a fourteen year old Newcastle schoolgirl, sexually assaulted and murdered at a teenage beach party in November 1989.Acting upon a report prepared by the Centre on behalf of the Leigh family, the NSW Minister for Police announced in Parliament in October 1996 that the New South Wales Crime Commission would conduct a review of the police investigation into the Leigh Leigh case.63TheCrimeCommissionand,subsequently, the New South Wales Police Integrity Commission, revealed significant investigative failures in the case, recommended disciplinary action in relation to the officers involved and the introduction of reforms in investigative procedures relating to serious crime.The Centre also represented Arthur and Leila Murray, the parents of Eddie Murray, an aboriginal footballer.At the age of twenty one, Eddie was found dead, hanging in a police cell at Wee Waa, in June 1981.Eddie Murray's death was one of the cases reviewed by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1987.Work over a number of years by a Newcastle public interest advocacy team resulted in the exhumation of Murray's body in 1997 by the New South Wales State Coroner.An additional autopsy revealed a previously unidentified and unexplained fracture to Murray's sternum.The Murray case was referred recently by the New South Wales government to the Police Integrity Commission and is currently under active investigation by the Commission.The Centre is currently representing, amongst others, the families of five young women who went missing in the late 1970's and the family of a young unarmed Maori man fatally shot by police in Sydney in February 2000.The work of the Centre on missing persons lead to the establishment by the New South Wales Police Service in 1997 of its largest ever investigative strike force to re-investigate the disappearance of the young women.The disappearance of the young women is currently the subject of an inquiry by the New South Wales State Coroner.A number of reports and submissions to courts, tribunals, government and government agencies have resulted from the work undertaken by the Centre in these public interest cases.These reports include those on: the murder of Leigh Leigh and its investigation by police; 64 the death in custody of Eddie Murray and its investigation by police and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody; 65 the unresolved disappearances of a number of missing persons in the Sydney and Hunter regions and their investigation by police ; and, most recently, the police shooting of Roni Levi and its investigation by police, the State Coroner and the Police Integrity Commission.67Thereports have sought redress of individual injustice, exposed failures in legal fact gathering and analysis and laid the ground for more general reform.68 regularly drawn the attention of national, state and local media and featured in media such as, The Australian Higher Education Supplement, the Sydney Morning Herald Magazine Good Weekend, Insight (SBS Television), The 7.30 Report and Australian Story (ABC Television).A Very Public Death and other submissions by the Centre relating to the shooting of Roni Levi have been the subject of public inquiry by the New South Wales Police Integrity Commission.The Levi case is discussed in detail later in this article.
French photographer Roni Levi was shot and killed on Bondi Beach by Constable Rodney Podesta and Senior Constable Anthony Dilorenzo, police officers stationed at Bondi police station, at approximately 7.30 am on Saturday morning 28 June 1997.During the evening before his death, with the help of some friends, Levi presented at St Vincent's Public Hospital, Darlinghurst, in a confused state.Levi had no history of drug or alcohol abuse, violence or psychiatric illness.71He was diagnosed by doctors at St Vincent's as suffering from borderline delusional thought processes and admitted as a voluntary patient for neurological and psychiatric investigation.Before such investigation could be completed, and still apparently in a confused state, Levi left the hospital in the early hours of the Saturday morning.By some means, still unknown, Levi travelled from the hospital to his flat near Bondi beach.Around six a.m, when his flatmate opened the front door to let him into the flat, Levi was swaying and unsteady on his feet.His flatmate asked Levi what was wrong but Levi did not respond.Instead he went to his own room, obtained a coat, and left the flat.About twenty minutes later, he returned.This time when his flatmate opened the door Levi walked into the kitchen and picked up description of Levi's background: 'The deceased died on 28 June 1997.He was born on 6 January 1964 at Ashcalon, Israel and was the eldest of five children.The evidence discloses that he was interested in fine arts, painting and photography when at school and that after leaving school, he went to a photographic college.nor was he known to be suicidal.'Inquest into the Death of Roni Levi, Transcript Monday 9.2.98 at pp.5-6.

78 Journal of Clinical Legal Education June 2002
78The duration of the incident measured from the time Levi's flatmate first alerted police (at some five to ten minutes before 7.00 am) until police discharged their fire arms atLevi (at about 7.30 am.) The Coroner referred the shooting to the Director of Public Prosecutions,88and handed down a number of recommendations for reforms in the law and hospital and police procedures.89 W. Hand, State Coroner, Glebe, 6 March 1998.89Recommendations of the Inquest into the Death of RoniLevi, D.W. Hand, State Coroner, Glebe, 11 March,  1998.

Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story
• The investigation of a police shooting should be monitored by an Assistant Commissioner or Chief Superintendent of Police. 132The scene of a police shooting should be attended by an Assistant Commissioner of Police to ensure that proper investigative procedures are followed and necessary resources are provided for the investigation.133

Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story
143New guidelines regulate the conduct of police investigations of deaths in custody.144Aspreviously noted, the Police Integrity Commission, seeking to ensure that the law obtains the best evidence from the drug and alcohol testing of a of Deaths/Serious Injuries in Custody for the New South Wales Police Service.The new guidelines incorporate and seek to give effect to the coroner's recommendations relating to the conduct of police investigations of police shootings.

148 34 Journal of Clinical Legal Education June 2002 145
Hogan, M "Towards a New South Wales Coronial System for the Nineties"(1991)2(3) Current Issues in Criminal Justice 75 at p. 77 and p.78.It may be, for example, that poor resources and support accounts, at least in part, for the lengthy delays that have attended a series of 'high profile' inquests in New South Wales, including the inquests in relation to Thredbo and the Sydney/ Hobart Yacht race.146 Selby, H The Inquest Handbook, Federation Press, Sydney, 1998.147 Hogan, M "Towards a New South Wales Coronial System for the Nineties" (1991) 2(3) Current Issues in Criminal Justice 75 at p. 79.Hogan argues that the imperative for those closely connected with death to deny culpability is strong.Positing the need for a form of amicus curiae procedure in inquests, Hogan argues that unravelling the unusual circumstances of death occurring in a public institution demands more than the choice offered by the competing versions advanced by those directly interested.'The representation of the public interest is inadequate.Coroners come from a context that is not usually investigative or inquisitorial.The judicial role in local courts is a passive recipient and adjudicator of evidence presented by competing parties......In all cases, too much responsibility to represent interests other than those of the individuals or agencies involved in the death falls on the existence, willingness and resources of relatives of the deceased.This is too great a burden.' 148 The Ontario Law Reform Commission has expressed the view that an inquest should serve three primary functions: (i) as a means for public ascertainment of acts relating to deaths, (ii) as a means for formally focussing community attention and initiating community response to preventable deaths, and (iii) as a means for satisfying the community that the circumstances surrounding the death of no one of its members will be overlooked, concealed or ignored.See Bennett, RC Deputy Chief Coroner Ontario "The Changing Role of the Coroner" 1978 .

Law School Based Public Interest Advocacy: An Australian Story
Others are moving to include clinical legal