Ms Paraskevi Kontoleon

Introduction, Teaching and Course Development

Paraskevi is an early career teaching academic at the University of South Australia’s Law School. She is also one of the supervising solicitor's in the UniSA Legal Advice Clinic. Prior to this she worked in private practice for approximately ten years. She is the author of a book entitled 'Music and the Law'. The link to the book is below and here is a link to her biography at Federation Press: Paraskevi, Author.

Paraskevi has taught and continues to teach across a variety of courses since commencing employment with UniSA. She has been involved in course development and teaching of courses including Dispute Resolution & Civil Litigation, Torts A, Torts B, UniSA Legal Advice Clinical Placement, Music and the Law, and Music, Arts, Literature and the Law (Study Tour: England/Italy) to name a few. 

Paraskevi has also been involved in the course development online courses such as Foundations of Law as part of UniSA Online.

She is an avid support and contributor to the entertainment and arts scene in South Australia. She is a musician and features in a number of local bands playing in Adelaide. In conjunction with her team at the UniSA Legal Advice Clinic, 2015 welcomed the first of a series of free seminars run by the Legal Advice Clinic in the field of Arts Law. The seminar series, entitled ‘Keeping it Legal’ has been a huge success. The Clinic now also provides young and emerging artists with advice on arts law matters.

Research

Despite her main role being in teaching, Paraskevi is an active researcher in the fields of Education, Intellectual Property Law, Health Law and Clinical Legal Education.

Paraskevi has presented her work at various discipline specific and educational conferences including in Australia, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands since 2017. She is now a Conference Lead for an international Education Conference run by the Communication Institute of Greece and entitled 'EDU2020: International Conference on Education' to be held in Athens, Greece on 10 - 14 May 2020. Please feel free to look at the upcoming Confrence details here: EDU2020 in Athens Greece!!!

Paraskevi’s main research are as follows:-

- Education (Learning and Teaching)

Innovation and interactivity in legal education using active learning strategies such as Work Integrated Learning, peer to peer teaching, students as co-creators and the flipped classroom. As part of her research, she has entirely redesigned courses, such as Dispute Resolution & Civil Litigation to place a focus on Work Integrated Learning with authentic problem solving and preparing students for work upon graduating.

Paraskevi is also conducting ongoing research into the effectiveness of preparing upcoming students for their law studies. As part of this initiative she has formed a 1st Year Focus Group that consists of 2nd year law students providing mentoring to the 1st year cohort as well as developing resources and materials for 1st Year students. As part of this project, the current 2nd years run a weekly mentoring session for 1st year law students under the supervision of Paraskevi.

On 28 March 2020, the 1st Year Focus Group will be running a Mini-Master Class for 1st year law students. Details on how to register can be found here: 1st Year Law School Mini Master Class

Please see the video below as an example of the type of 'students as co-creators' work her students have developed. These videos are now part of the training and induction for final year students undertaking their legal clinical placement in the Legal Advice Clinic:

How to Conduct a Legal Interview

Dealing with Conflicts over the Telephone

How to Arrange an Appointment by Telephone

- Intellectual Property/Contract Law (Music, Arts)

Paraskevi, being an avid music lover and artist, conducts ongoing research in the fields of intellectual property and contract law as it relates to musicians and artists in general across Australia. She published a book, 'Music and the Law' in 2016 through the Federation Press, targeting both tertiary students and artists who are keen to learn more about their rights/obligations according to the law. You can purchase a copy of the book at this link: Music and the Law Book

You can also check out her interview with Dan Lander for the UniSA Business Magazine in 2017 if you click this link: Creative License

- Intellectual Property Law (Biotechnology & Ethics)

Paraskevi is in the last phase of her Masters in Law (due for submission in November 2019), looking at the current status of Patent Law in Australia through the lens of biotechnology and the 2015 High Court decision in Myriad Genetics (on the patentability of human genetic material). She has published a co-authored article on the High Court case in the Journal of Law and Medicine. The article can be located here: Article on Patenting Human Genetic Material

- Clinical Legal Education

Paraskevi works as a Supervising Solicitor at the UniSA Legal Advice Clinic and undertakes ongoing clinical research with her colleauge, Matthew Atkinson, Managing Solicitor, in various issues affecting clinical legal education, as well as cross-disciplinary academics such as Dr Katia Ferrar from the School of Physiotherapy on access to justice in South Australia and beyond in a Health Justice Clinic partnership.

- Conference Lead, Communication Institute of Greece, 'International Conference on Education', since 2019.

- Member, Flipped Learning Community of Practice, at the University of Adelaide, since 2016.

- Member, Law Society of South Australia, since 2005.

Qualifications

• Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice The Law Society of South Australia

• Bachelor of Laws with Honours University of Adelaide

Work history

University of South Australia, since 2011.

Private Practice 2005 - 2014.

Casual teachcing employment with the University of Adelaide and Flinders University, 2010 - 2013.