In the Leadership through Service (LTS) component, students undertake voluntary roles within the community. Students may participate in voluntary work for legal or non-legal organisations. We encourage you to choose volunteer activities close to your heart and values, or which prepare you for your future social role and contribution.  Seek out what is important to you and the area or areas where you want to contribute.  It need not be explicitly justice-related but have its roots in a community project for the benefit of others. That community might be a environmental, sporting, ethnic or religious group.

Students are encouraged to seek out their own volunteering opportunities within the program criteria. Full details of the criteria can be found in the Brennan Handbook via the Program Resources webpage. In summary, these criteria require that LTS volunteering:

  • is unremunerated (except for reimbursement of travel etc expenses)
  • does not accrue academic credit
  • is for a charity or not-for-profit
  • not a private law firm, unless within their pro-bono initiatives, and
  • is not for a political party.

How to find an LTS opportunity

Students can find volunteer opportunities regularly posted on:

Why volunteer?

Students in the Brennan Program have been active contributors in pro-bono work with law firms such as Dowson Turco Lawyers. Hear from Nicholas Stewart and Vishaya Pracy below, about what the Brennan program means to students and organisations. You can read more about UTS's partnership with Dowson Turco Lawyers in the UTS Social Impact Framework.

p9WhjCTGykw

Transcript

The Brennan Program is a voluntary program run for UTS law students. The key objectives of the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program are to instil a sense of justice consciousness and an understanding of the rule of law. It also aims to encourage people to get involved with pro bono work, volunteering at a number of different organisations over the course of the program, and ultimately to develop those leadership skills needed to enter legal practice.

The Brennan Justice Program is a really great program for university students to not only learn about social justice, but also work practically in the community on social justice projects. It is designed to look at those issues that perhaps mainstream society isn't looking at. It might engage students to pursue other careers that they haven't considered.

The reason I chose to study law was because I was really passionate about making the world a better place and getting involved in what I now know to be social justice issues. On my very first day of law school, the Brennan Program came and spoke at orientation, and I remember feeling so inspired and in awe by listening to people like me talk about the things that I cared about. That really was a moment when I thought, I need to be involved in this in whatever capacity I can.

The program makes sense to me because at its very core, it is about making sure law students understand social justice and the role of law in changing society. It just makes sense for a university to work with private practice to effect social justice change. I think the Brennan Justice Program is all about looking more deeply at the problems that we have in society and looking at how we can tackle those.

I feel so hopeful knowing that potentially thousands of students are going to go through this program in the future. They are all going to find themselves in government, in companies, in not-for-profit organisations. From early on in their career, they will have developed all of these social justice framework skills that they can then use as they pursue whatever they want to pursue.

Getting to experience the human rights sector as a student before I've even started my legal career has been incredible in terms of shaping the way that I will approach the work that I do when I graduate. I know that I will continue to be really involved in pro bono work, and that will be a fundamental part of who I am as a lawyer.

If you're thinking about getting involved in the Brennan Program, it is easy. We design it around you. You get to volunteer where you want to volunteer, you get to do everything you want to do, and really do the things that you care about.

How to log LTS hours via Career Hub

All new volunteer work should be submitted to the Program Administrator for prior approval for credit via email. Please provide the name of the organisation, the nature of the organisation's activities, and the description of your proposed role. Approval is not needed for LTS opportunities advertised on the Brennan Collective. 

Once you are ready to claim your voluntary hours towards the Brennan Award, fill out the relevant details in the 'Leadership through Service' digital form located in your Brennan Justice and Leadership Program workflow on CareerHub, once signed up to the program.

Before filling out this online form, you and your LTS supervisor must complete and sign the Confirmation of Service form as you will be required to upload it at the end of the digital form as evidence of your service and hours completed.  

Members of the Brennan Program not familiar with CareerHub, claiming should watch the below video and get in touch with our team if further advice is required. 

Ek9pVtz3064

Transcript

Hey Brennanites! It's Jennie Siow here, and I'm currently completing the Brennan Program like all of you.

In this video, I am going to demonstrate how to claim your ROJ points and LTS hours for the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program. It's super easy.

Once you sign in to CareerHub, you'll notice the Brennan Program is under this dashboard tab here. Click on this and it takes you to your Program progress. This is my current progress. I signed up about six months ago.

It's worthwhile reading the Brennan emails and handbook, as there is quite a lot you can claim for with the LSS, Brennan, and general social justice events you may attend.

Now, let's show you how to claim. First, I'm going to talk about how to claim your ROJ points.

Step 1: Look for the appropriate category. To know which category your contributions fall into, check the Brennan Program Handbook.

Step 2: Each category features this blue wording, which is the form you need to complete and submit to get the points. Click on the blue wording.

Step 3: Fill in the appropriate details like I am doing in this example for an LSS event. We call this an external event.

Step 4: Click 'submit', or click on 'save draft' if you're planning your claims out and would like to upload it later for approval.

Keep in mind that if you register and attend a Brennan Program event—one run by the Brennan Team—your points will automatically accrue, so there is no need to claim.

Next, I'm going to show you how to claim your LTS hours. You can claim these as you go with different organisations, submit hours in once a year, or at the end of your service—whatever you prefer.

Step 1: Have your Confirmation of Service Form filled by your supervisor. This can also be a photo of the signed form by yourself, or you and your supervisor can use Adobe to sign this digitally. This is a very common approach.

Step 2: Click on the blue wording—'submit Brennan program LTS claim form hours log'.

Step 3: Fill in the appropriate details.

Step 4: Upload your Confirmation of Service Form.

Step 5: Click 'submit', or click on 'save draft' if you would like to upload it later.

And that's it! Told you it was easy, right?

If you have any questions though, just shoot the Brennan Team an email and they'll sort you out. They're very helpful.

Their email is: brennanprogram@uts.edu.au.

Till next time.