PLT Drop-In Session
Join us for an information session on UTS' Practical Legal Training Program and have all your questions answered.
Did you know that Practical Legal Training (PLT) is an essential study requirement for any person wishing to practise law in NSW?
Join Maxine Evers for an informal drop-in session, where you can get all your questions answered about this important step in your law journey.
Watch our last info session recorded in October 2022:
ladies and gentlemen for those who don't already know me my name is Stuart Lowe and I'm the head of the PLT program here at UTS
what I'd like to do over the next few minutes is share some information with you with respect to practical legal training and admission basically what I'd like to do is spend some time just talking to you about the things that you probably need to know or want to know with respect to PLT and how you would go about actually becoming a legal practitioner here in New South Wales. Now the presentation will basically be split up into two parts the first part will concentrate on a general overview of the types of things that you need to be aware of with respect to practical legal training and basically choosing a PLT provider I'll also spend some time talking to you about some general aspects of how you go about becoming admitted as a legal practitioner here in New South Wales and the second part of the presentation will essentially be a Shameless advertisement it will be very much centered upon why I think it would be a fantastic idea for you to undertake your PLT here at UTS
now the first question that really uh gets asked of me a lot is why do I need to do PLT now the simple answer to that is that you don't have to do PLT you can finish your law degree and that is that however if you want to be eligible to be admitted as a lawyer you need to complete PLT at the end of your university studies and as you'll see this is basically designed in order to allow you to build on the theoretical understanding that you've developed during your degree studies
PLT as you'll see is essentially all about this idea of developing practical skills and knowledge that you will need in order to be employable as a graduate lawyer when you are when you get through the system and you've managed to find yourself a job as a legal professional
as you'll see during the discussion the subjects that you will do are really a combination that is designed to help you learn the nuts and bolts of what it's like to work in a firm or what it's is expected you in a legal organization as a professional lawyer so it's all about the practicalities of becoming a graduate lawyer
what do you need to know about PLT courses generally the first thing you need to understand is that there are a range of PLT courses out there and they're offered by a number of different PLT providers and UTS is just one of these PLT providers another thing that you should be aware of is that the legal profession uniform admission rules uh require that all PLT courses must enable you as students to acquire and demonstrate an appropriate understanding of and competence in each of the areas set out in the PLT competency standards for entry level lawyers now you can go and have a look at these particular competency standards they're set out and schedule two of the rules that I I just mentioned a moment ago but the main thing that you'll see throughout this presentation is that PLT is all about gaining competency it's all about assessing your competency to um to be able to work in the legal profession the other thing that you should be aware of and and this is important when you're looking at various different PLT providers is that your PLT course should build on the knowledge and understanding of the law and the legal systems and and legal practices which you've acquired throughout your law degree it's not about learning the law it's about learning how to apply the law it's learning how to actually function within the legal system and that's a very important aspect to to understand because many students have trouble making that transition from the purely sort of theoretical stuff that we teach you in your core subjects and your elective subjects and they sort of struggle with the different sort of uh requirements that are need to be displayed in in PLT courses themselves
with respect to the basic competitions and competencies and skills that you'll require essentially before you complete PLT you will need to be able to demonstrate competency in the following areas so General lawyer skills problem solving ability you'll need to display competency in Work Management and business skills that includes trust accounting and Office Accounting you'll also need to have demonstrated skills and competency with respect to civil litigation practice commercial practice property law practice now in addition to these main core requirements you'll also be required to undertake two additional elective areas and we'll talk about what elective areas we offer here at UTS uh in a moment
so how does PLT achieve all this very simply all PLT programs will need to build on the knowledge skills and attitudes that you've already gained throughout your studies whether it be through the core subjects you've done or the elective subjects you've done now with respect to PLT programs the the requirement is that um doesn't matter where the the program is or where what program you've undertaken all PLT programs require 900 hours of approved training now this includes a minimum of 450 hours of program training so what we mean by program training is essentially coursework in addition to that there is a minimum requirement of 15 days works workplace experience now the balance of those hours can be made up of either additional training additional coursework training or workplace experience now here at UTS as you'll see we've elected to adopt the latter because we see that workplace experience is really where you get to fully appreciate and understand how the legal profession works but having said that when you're looking at selecting a program please make sure that when you're comparing various programs make sure that you're comparing apples with apples because not all um not all providers will will give you the opportunity to do these extra workplace experience they'll require you to do additional training now obviously any additional training is going to come at an additional cost so you need to be aware of what those costs are and how that fits into the various fee structures before you make a decision
another aspect that may affect some of you is this idea of early start rule under the lpab's early start requirements now depending on the course type that you're doing it may be that you can commence your PLT early but in order to do this you need to have written consent from the legal profession admissions board the lpab and you also need to have completed all your course subjects and have no more than two electives remaining in early your law degree or your double degree the other Proviso is that you will need to undertake these two remaining electives concurrently whilst you're undertaking your PLT subject so as you can imagine that uh that will actually involve or could possibly involve quite a a heavier workload than the than the normal um 18 or 24 credit points that we normally allow now if you feel that um that you want to Avail yourself of this early start rule it's your responsibility to ensure that you meet all these requirements if you want to take advantage of the rule itself now I strongly recommend that you read the lpab's guide for applicants for admission as a lawyer before you start making any applications it that particular document sets out all the requirements and will give you a very clear guidance as to what the clients are and how you go about how you go about activating this early start rule as I said one effect uh all of you but it may affect some of you so I thought I'd bring it to your attention so that you're aware of um the ability that's available to you
this particular slide just talks briefly about the admission process itself now admission is a very important requirement if you intend to become a legal practitioner so if you want to work as a lawyer you need to need to be admitted as a lawyer here in New South Wales you must in order to do that you must apply to the lpab for what's called a compliance certificate now in order to be admitted you need to satisfy the lp a b of several things and these things include firstly that you have completed a law degree or equivalent course secondly you have successfully undertaken a practical legal training program a PLT program and thirdly that you are fit and proper person now I won't go into what exactly is meant by a fit and proper person that's set out in the lpab's admission requirements but suffice to say that in order to be a fit and proper person you might need to make certain declarations regarding your suitability um so that's part of the application process itself
this diagram is just a very simple way of um getting you to realize the various major steps in in the admission process firstly uh obviously the the degree itself whether it's an LLB a JD or a diploma of law you must must complete that you also must complete the PLT requirements whether that's with us or some other provider once you've got those two requirements out of the road then you make an application to the lpab now that involves polls completing lots and lots of different forms and that's really up to you to complete that application process now once your application has been assessed and the lpab are happy that you're a fit and proper person and that you've met all the other requirements for admission then you will be admitted to the Supreme Court of New South Wales which involves a lovely ceremony and you get to add your name to the to the uh to the role
some other things that you need to be aware of when when you're thinking about PLT particularly with respect to timing and this involves what the lpab uh call their stale learning rules now there's two slightly different rules one relates to degree studies the other uh relates purely to PLT studies now with respect to degree studies your degree studies must be completed um no more than five years before you seek admission now if you completed an accredited Australian law course more than five years before applying for admission uh you must have your qualification assessed by the lpab's academic exemption subcommittee now this is particularly important and we actually had one of our students for foul of this rule fairly recently where her degree she completed it back in 2011 and now she's actually seeking admission some some number of years down the track now she has had to actually put in an application to the exemption subcommittee and they're assessing whether or not she will need to do extra subjects to make up for this stale learning now it's your responsibility to ensure that you had met these requirements before you seek admission
now with respect to PLT studies there's a very very similar rule that mirrors the one that we we just looked at and basically what that says if you've completed your PLT more than five years before applying for admission you again will need to have your qualification assessed by the lpab
now with respect to these two rules the take-home message is and and this is part of the reason why I thought it was important to talk to you um I think the main thing that you take away from this should be that it is a really really smart idea not to leave your PLT to too far after you have completed your law degree because this is where you start to run into run into problems my strong suggestion would be that um those of you who are going on to um to uh practice and want to be admitted and and uh um work as as a lawyer my strong suggestion would be for you to do your PLT and become admitted as soon as you can after completing your degree that way you won't run foul of these uh stale learning rules
now comes the Shameless adversement okay why I think it is a fantastic idea that you undertake your practical legal training here at uh at UTS so with respect to why should I do my uh PLT UTS lots of different reasons as you can see the first one I think is is a particularly important one is that when you study with us you are actually gaining a university level qualification the cut same can't be said for other providers not everybody who provides PLT will be able to give you a university level qualification as part of that you need to understand that all our teaching staff here have extensive legal and teaching experience and they're very much experts within the profession another important aspect that I think sets us apart from many of the other providers is that with respect to practical experience you can accumulate full-time practical experience hours whilst you're undertaking your academic studies okay the beauty of that is that it does not cost you extra money as you will see from some of the other providers if you want to do this practical experience some of the providers will actually charge you for the privilege here at UTS we've actually built that into our um into our qualification structure
one of the other things that I think sets UTS apart is our focus on experiential learning basically our main thrust is that you get exposed to real life scenarios and become job ready basically the beauty of it is that you are learning from the best if you are coming here to UTS and as you'll see in a moment when when we go through the uh the uh PLT teaching team there is a lot of experience both from a uh a professional um legal aspect as well as a teaching uh perspective so um with respect to experiential learning the staff that we've got here are able to provide you and expose you to real life scenarios in order to make sure that you are job ready when you've finished your plc another important aspect of PLT here at UTS is our ability to provide flexible delivery modes for you now a flexible flexible delivery modes are available and they include online courses um and also more face-to-face Focus depending on um on when you when you undertake that that particular course now even if you are doing online courses there will be as you'll see in a moment some requirement for an on-campus attendance now that's normally in relation to things like assessment or practical experience practical uh um practical sessions such as negotiations and and witness examination and so on and so forth now early start rule we've spoken about previously but um from a UTS aspect you can commence if you're one of those students that this rule relates to you can convince your PLT early if you uh if you meet all those requirements that have been set out by the lpab now the final little um final little selling point here I think is that um when you come and do PLT with us here at UTS is I think you're getting real value for money as part of our structure we're able to offer automatic um recognition of Prior learning for all those people who have either an LLB or a JD so um those people who are studying those particular degrees or or graduates for those particular degrees we'll enjoy that recognition of Prior learning which essentially reduces the fees considerably as we'll see in a moment now in addition to that if you are a UTS student or a UTS uh a lawn you will also enjoy a further 10 discount on top of those reduced prices so as you can see real value for money not only getting a really good um exposure to the the Practical aspects of how to be a lawyer and being able to do that by talking to a real live lawyer in the classroom if that's uh if that's the mode that uh that you're choosing you also get the benefits of that reduced cost so I think win-win all all around in with respect to value for money
has all this done essentially getting you ready for um for this particular um way of studying the first thing you need to understand is our study modes here at UTS you can either do your study for PLT full time which is which can be done in one session or you can do a part-time which can be spread over either two or three sessions now one session is a rule of thumb is equivalent to 12 weeks 12-week study now course delivery as I touched upon a moment ago is mostly online delivery delivery particularly with respect to the requirements that have been imposed on us by covert but in addition to that online delivery there may be some requirement for you to attend on campus for either assessment or some type of practical practical training aspect now we have three different intakes here at UTS uh Autumn spring or summer so it's up to you where uh you feel it's going to be best for you to actually start your PLT um and uh depending on on uh when you finish your degree and how quickly you want to progress your PLT you can enroll in any or all of those uh those uh semesters or sessions
here's a quick diagram of our PLT teaching team we've got a fantastic team as I said very very experienced lawyers in their own right but equally experienced in the art of art teaching and learning and as you'll see uh from the from the quick bios that we've included with the with the hacky snaps here of each of the teaching team members there is a long history of legal experience resident in the teaching team when I was sitting down putting this presentation together the other day it I roughly calculated that between the five of us there is in excess of 130 years of legal experience and uh you know that type of experience doesn't come come along very very often so I think we're very blessed in the to have the caliber of legal professionals that we do on the teaching team are equally blessed with the quality of their ability to to teach and impart knowledge
as you would have guessed by now the whole uh whole thrust of PLT here at UTS is really reliant on this idea as experiential learning now basically what that is all about is getting you exposed to real life scenarios and enabling you to learn from practicing barristers and solicitors now the way we do that it's not through sitting you down with textbooks it's not through getting you to write essays or undertake exams so that as far as assessment goes there's nothing nothing like that essentially the way that we try and impart this knowledge and and expose you to these types of Concepts and experiences is through getting you to do uh things like practice files or drafting documents for example drafting a wheel or draft drafting an affidavit we also get you to get up on your feet in in our mood courts and have experience uh with respect to making applications or you know perhaps running a a bail application all these types of things are giving you experience at what it's like to be a lawyer in a very controlled and safe way it's much better that you um you undertake your first client interview or for undertaking the first negotiation or your first bail application in this in the safe safety of um your PLT class rather than have to do that in front of a real life client or in front of a real life church um in the workplace so we we give you this type of experience and allow you to experience it in a safe and controlled manner so that you uh when it comes time to do this for real you've had the benefit of being able to do it um in in a supportive teaching environment
quick subject overview as you can see from the from the table there there's four subjects that need to be undertaken as part of your PLT now as you'll see the first three subjects are the coursework subjects and they are each designated as six credit points subjects but I'll draw your attention to the fourth subject and that's practical experience and as you'll see that that is um identified as being a zero Credit Point subject now the why why we've actually stretched in that way is that it actually allows us to offer you recognition of Prior learning and also allows us to charge you for eight credit points rather than the normal 24 credit points that would uh would normally be stipulated if you were undertaking a graduate certificate of this nature so the way we've structured it actually builds in savings for you now what I'll do now is just go through each of the subjects very quickly to give you an overview of the types of things you can expect when when it comes time for you to undertake these subjects now the first one that you're required to do is legal and professional skills now as you can see here um legal and professional skills assumes that you have an understanding of the disciplinary knowledge that you've been taught in your core subjects and also your elective subjects as part of your degree studies now the beauty of legal and professional skills is that it's a bit of a uh eclectic subject now what it does is it draws lots of different small aspects or small elements of what it means to be a legal professional and brings them all together under the One Umbrella so as part of that you'll learn your ethical obligations in relation to being a legal practitioner you'll learn what are the requirements for becoming admitted what are the uh what are the aspects that you need to understand with respect to work-life balance as a lawyer so all these types of things in addition to how to draft a letter how to interact with how to interact with clients what are the things that you need to do with respect to um ensuring that you've complied with the rules um in relation to Legal accounting all these types of things are covered in legal and professional skills the next subject that you will undertake will you will be transactional practice now this is a subject that addresses the law practice procedure and skills that you need in order to be able to conduct an advise on a range of property and Commercial matters so as part of that you'll learn how to convey a torrent title property you'll learn how to convey a strata title property you'll also learn various aspects about residential tenancy and the various options that flow from that you'll learn about how to conduct a sale and purchase of a business so all these types of things are crucial parts of being a lawyer now it may be that you're never going to transactional practice when when you um when you go into practice but these are all things that are expected of legal practitioners and as you'll see all these skills are part of those competencies that we spoke about earlier in the presentation now the thing to really understand from transactional practice is that the way you learn this is very much through you being guided with respect to how to draft relevant documents how to analyze your clients problems in this particular area of the law so in addition to being able to conduct these sales or prepare prepare a property for conveyance you'll also be required to actually advise your clients on what are the various options that might be available to them or if there's a problem that's Arisen you need to come up with some solutions that you can give to your client so again very important skills that we as lawyers need to have in in our repertoire the third courseware uh courseware subject is litigation and estate practice now as you can see this subject is is at the moment broken into three components the first component is civil litigation and as part of the civil litigation process um you'll be able to identify a particular case Theory assess the merits of your case be able to advise your client on the various um alternative dispute resolution options that may be available you'll also be taught how to draft the relevant court documents in order to I suppose prepare a case so that it can go it can go before the court in uh in a contested hearing another component of this particular subject is wills and estate practice now in this subject you're exposed to all the issues in relation to Drafting and Advising on Wheels and also preparing um probate documents now as part of that you'll be able to identify and advise various on various issues that arise in this area of the law and be able to you know deal with those problems as if and when is required so again really important things that you know each of us as lawyers need to have some basic understanding of wills and estate practice now at the moment um for the third component of uh litigation and state practice you get to choose either criminal law practice or family law practice now criminal law practice is very much based on this idea of the game you gaining skills and knowledge with respect to how the criminal law is actually practiced within our court system so as part of that you'll prepare and present a bail application you'll uh you'll develop a plea of guilty or a clear mitigation and as part of that process you'll be taught how to actually undertake a case Theory analysis uh of various fact scenarios so that you can be better prepared with uh with respect to being able to function in uh in in a criminal law setting in a similar vein family law practice will prepare uh prepare you to be able to uh prepare and present and applicate what's called an application in case and draft and affidavit so essentially that's seeking uh particular orders that you've uh you've devised in consultation with your client and seeking those orders and providing uh relevant documentation to support those orders that you're after from the court
practical experience this is the the the fourth one on on our list and essentially as you'll see in a moment this subject is really aimed at enabling you as students to bring together all the knowledge and legal understanding that you've gained not only in your degree studies but in the other three PLT subjects that we've just spoken about and be able to apply that learning in the legal workplace so essentially this is your I suppose um internship um apprenticeship whatever you whatever way you want to describe it this is where you get to actually get your hands dirty in the workplace and apply your knowledge uh in the workplace so as part of practical experience students undertake a minimum of 75 days of full-time or equivalent part-time work experience in a legal office environment now as we spoke about before this is a dry Credit Point subject and the beauty of that is not only is it saving you money but it also works on a graded pass or fail system so there's no marks involved in the subjects that say that you satisfactorily complete the requirements or you don't now the other beauty of um undertaking practical experience here as part of our PLT program is that you can actually enroll in this subject when you're enrolling in legal and professional skills so you can actually start ticking off these 75 days whilst you're undertaking your other PLT coursework subjects now your practical experience must be approved we have a practical experience committee here at UTS and you need to make an application in order to have these These Days recognize and if you have any queries about that or any questions pardon me don't hesitate in contacting the Practical experience staff on the email on the slide that they'll be able to answer all your questions with respect to practical experience particularly with respect to placements now just some added information with respect to practical experience as I said before there's a compulsory 75 days practical experience as part of our program the beauty of our program is that um depending on the type of work that you've done you can actually claim a maximum of 60 days work experience for work that you've done up to two years prior to commencing the subject so for for all of those of you who've been working as paralegals for the for the last few years and so on and so forth you can actually make an application to have those days recognized um as part of your active experience requirement another question that sometimes arises is how long do we have to complete practical experience the good news is that you don't need to rush through it you have up to two years from the session that in which you commence your enrollment in in PE but essentially that means that you don't have to to rush in order to complete those 75 days if however there is some problem and you encounter health issues or there's some issues in family or work an extension can be can be granted in special circumstances