Hello!
It's your law school hype girl Bek, and this is The Law Student's Docket, the podcast for all law school survival related content where I talk about things such as the process of becoming a lawyer, tips for studying and exams, and getting a job in the legal profession without any prior experience.
For this episode I planned on discussing the four steps involved in becoming admitted as a legal practitioner in New South Wales, but in planning the episode I realised there’s so much to talk about, so it could be overwhelming and also, a very long episode. So, I’ve decided to turn, ‘How do I become a lawyer?’ into a mini-series of four episodes, with each episode covering one of the four steps.
In today’s episode, I’m going to give a very brief overview of the four steps, I will introduce you to the Legal Profession Admission Board and will cover step one in becoming admitted as a legal practitioner in New South Wales.
Let’s get into it.
The four steps to becoming admitted as a legal practitioner in New South Wales are: step one, completion of an accredited legal qualification; step two, completion of Practical Legal Training; step three, gaining admission to legal practice; and step four, applying for your Practising Certificate, or sitting the Bar Exams (in other words, do you want to begin your career as a solicitor or go on to sit the Bar Exams to become a barrister).
And before I delve into step one, I’m going to introduce you to the Legal Profession Admission Board (the LPAB) of New South Wales.
The LPAB is a self-funding statutory corporation. And what a statutory corporation is, it's a corporation made by an act of parliament. The LPAB is constituted by an Act, and that Act is the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (NSW). And I'm just going to refer to that as the Application Act.
The Application Act, as well as the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW), has given the LPAB the powers necessary to perform its functions, and what those functions include:
- Accrediting academic law courses and practical legal training courses in New South Wales;
- Determining the eligibility and suitability of people seeking to be admitted as a lawyer in New South Wales; and
- Maintaining the Roll of Lawyers in New South Wales.
And with its powers, the LPAB made the NSW Admission Board Rules 2015. And I'm going to just refer to those as the Rules.
Now rule 5 of the Rules is relevant to step one because rule 5 provides that you need to successfully complete a tertiary academic course in Australia, whether or not leading to a degree in law, which:
- Includes the equivalent of at least three years’ full-time study of law;
- Is accredited by the LPAB; and
- the student acquires and demonstrates appropriate understanding and competence in each element of the academic areas of knowledge set out in Schedule 1 of the Rules.
That's a lot to take in, so let's break this down.
That first part: “Successfully completing a tertiary academic course in Australia, whether or not leading to a degree in law, which includes the equivalent of at least three years’ full-time study of law”.
The two options I’ll mention here are: successfully completing a Bachelor of Laws or successfully completing a Juris Doctor.
For most of you listening, it’s probably going to be a Bachelor of Laws. This is an undergraduate study, so it’s suitable for high school leavers and those without previous tertiary study.
A Juris Doctor on the other hand is a postgraduate qualification. That's a pathway into the law profession for those who already have a degree not in law or for those with a law degree from overseas. A Juris Doctor takes three years of full-time study to complete.
Going back to a Bachelor of Laws, some universities offer a standalone Bachelor of Laws, such as the University of Technology Sydney and Western Sydney University, and at those universities, it's four years of full-time study.
Some universities also offer double degrees. I studied a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Criminology, and that was five years of full-time study. You might consider combining your Bachelor of Laws with, for example, a Bachelor of Science, or a Bachelor of Business, or a Bachelor of International Studies. There are a lot of combinations available, but not all universities offer everything. For example, at the moment I can see the University of Sydney offers five combined degrees, Western Sydney University offers 13, and the University of Technology Sydney and the University of Wollongong offers 16.
Some of the benefits of doing a law double degree include:
- Graduating sooner: double degrees are typically completed one or two years faster than two degrees separately, without compromise to the full legal curriculum;
- They expand your career options; and
- They build your professional network, and you have connections across multiple industry sectors.
You might wonder what full-time study entails, and I will use Bachelor of Laws at Western Sydney University as an example.
To successfully complete a Bachelor of Laws at WSU, you need to complete 320 credit points. Each subject you do, has a certain amount of credit points.
In your first semester you will complete four subjects, and each of those subjects are worth 10 credit points. By the end of the semester, the first semester, you would have completed 40 credit points. Because each year has two semesters, by the end of year one you would have completed 80 credit points. By the time you do four years, you've completed 320 credit points, and you’re ready for graduation.
I think a very popular questioned asked when going into uni is, how much time do I need to spend studying? And university’s put out the expectation that if you’re enrolled full-time at university, then you should commit to your studies on a full-time basis, that is, devoting the same amount of time to full-time study as you would in a full-time job.
Usually, for a subject of 10 units, you would be expected to do 10 hours of study a week. Therefore, if you’re studying full-time doing four subjects worth 10 units each, that’s 40 hours of study a week. Say if you've done three hours’ worth of lectures and tutorials for one subject, the remaining seven hours is left over for self-directed study in that subject.
When I was at university, I didn’t have a stopwatch keeping track of me to make sure I did 10 hours of study for each subject a week. It depends on so many factors, you might be struggling in one subject and breezing through another, so you might put more hours into studying for the subject you’re struggling in. I also had two jobs when I was studying, one at a hotel and one at a law firm. I had set days at the law firm, usually Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and I worked at the hotel on the weekends. Where I could, I did classes in the evening. But I was casually employed, so university was the priority. Being a casual employee ensured I had the flexibility to adjust my availability. And as this podcast goes on, I’m going to be talking a lot about organising yourself, avoiding procrastination, and using your time wisely.
If you’re worried about the workload, a lot of universities offer the choice to study part-time, meaning you’ll do less subjects each semester. For example, rather than completing a Bachelor of Laws in four-years, it might take six or eight years doing it part-time. I found that my university was really flexible in changing my enrolment type. For example, in one of my semesters I did three subjects instead of four, and I then completed that fourth subject during the summer school session. So even if you enrol into university full-time, and you finish your first semester and think "oh, I just can't do that again", you’re usually able to change your enrolment. But it’s important you ask these types of questions of the university you’re considering enrolling into, prior to actually enrolling, because the more you know it can give you some relief later on knowing you have options.
So going back to rule 5 of the Rules, there was a part that said the tertiary academic course you need to successfully complete needs to be accredited by the LPAB.
On the LPAB website, there is a list of academic courses accredited by the LPAB. Jump on that website and make sure the university you’re considering enrolling into for a Bachelor of Laws or Juris Doctor, is on that list.
Finally, rule 5 of the Rules also provides for a student to acquire and demonstrate appropriate understanding and competence in each element of the academic areas of knowledge set out in Schedule 1 of the Rules. Those academic areas of knowledge are also known as the ‘Priestly 11’, and they include:
- Criminal Law and Procedure
- Torts
- Contracts
- Property
- Equity
- Company Law
- Administrative Law
- Federal and State Constitutional Law
- Civil Dispute Resolution
- Evidence; and
- Ethics and Professional Responsibility
The subjects that take form of the Priestly 11, will usually be referred to as your ‘core subjects’ at university. As well as completing the core subjects, you have elective subjects to choose from and complete.
Well, there you go. That’s the first step towards becoming a lawyer. I hope you found this episode helpful, and if you would like to reach out to me about anything from this episode or about the Law Student’s Docket in general, feel free to contact The Law Student’s Docket on Facebook or Instagram, or you can email me at legallybek (l-e-g-a-l-l-y-b-e-k) @outlook.com. You can also stay up to date with law school related content by following The Law Student’s Docket on Facebook or Instagram, join the Law Student’s Docket Facebook group, and follow my tiktok @legallybek. If you’re enjoying the podcast, it would mean so much if you could give it a 5-star rating on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Next week I’ll be discussing step two of becoming admitted as a legal practitioner in NSW, which is the completion of Practical Legal Training, and I look forward to having you tune in. But for now, enjoy your week, and I’ll chat to you next Wednesday – bye!