This is the transcript for the video Law at UTS

00:00

My name is Lesley Hitchens, and I’m the Dean of this faculty.

00:07

This is the eighth year of my deanship, and I have to say it’s been

00:13

one of the most exciting times of my entire career.

00:21

UTS has just been a fabulous experience, to work here,

00:27

and this faculty is just a great faculty to be involved with.

00:33

both in terms of faculty and staff,

00:37

and students. As Dean, I have overall

00:42

responsibility for all that we do in the faculty,

00:47

and so I have responsibility for the students and I have responsibility

00:53

for the staff, and for the overall direction of

00:58

the faculty, and some of that that i want to tell you

01:02

a little bit about tonight so that you can understand

01:05

more about who we are as a faculty of law. So as I said what I want to do

01:12

is talk to you about UTS Law, what it is we do here,

01:20

and the type of legal education that we provide. I think it’s really important to

01:26

understand that we’re not saying we’re the best,

01:30

or that you know, you must come here, it’s about you having information

01:35

of this law school and making a choice,

01:39

because of your particular circumstances interests

01:42

and so forth. But, here are a couple of reasons I suppose as to why

01:48

UTS or what we see is important and successful

01:52

about UTS. So as you can see UTS graduates do very well

01:58

in securing jobs now. This is a national survey that’s conducted and as you can

02:04

see at the bottom of the screen the last this information was available

02:09

as at June 2019. So it’s an independently conducted

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survey measuring graduate outcomes, and 92% of our graduates secure jobs

02:21

within four months of graduating, and that’s if they’re

02:25

full-time seeking full-time etc and they

02:31

earn good salaries as well as you can see.

02:35

So UTS is still a relatively young university, and yet it’s been incredibly

02:41

successful in world rankings. Of course, we

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always like when we do well in them, but it is

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ranked as Australia’s number one university,

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I think in a practical sense what that does mean for us in the university and

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the Law Faculty is we’re not bound down in ways of doing

03:02

things, don’t get me wrong I think tradition is

03:05

great and law is steeped in traditions.

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It’s one of the important ways if you like that it

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builds and grows and so forth, but i think it means that we are able to

03:20

be more flexible, and to make changes, and to respond to

03:24

changing circumstances, and to be willing to share

03:27

old practices. For the Law Faculty we have a very

03:32

strong commitment to education, and to teaching, and to research

03:39

that is really real world involved if you like. So,

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whilst we believe in education, in teaching,

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and research, as being academically rigorous,

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we also believe that it’s important to have a very practically focused outcome.

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So, if you’re studying law here, we try to think about that very much,

04:04

from the way in which law is practiced, the

04:09

way in which law develops, and we make sure that the assessments

04:14

and the way in which you’re taught all help you to apply that law in a very

04:19

practical sense. In the same way, we think about

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that in terms of our research. We do research that we believe has a

04:28

real world impact, and last year in an Australian

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government survey ,we were the only law school

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that achieved the highest scores for both engagement and impact in

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relation to our research. So everything we do, we try to see how

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does that work in the real world, what does it look like, how does it have

04:52

an impact. And, so many of our colleagues as well

04:57

have expertise in professional areas of law,

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and bring that knowledge and expertise into

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the faculty. Whether it’s through taking a class

05:10

being one of our sessional teachers, or whether it’s coming in doing guest

05:15

lectures, or in some other way engaged with our

05:19

faculty, but we believe very strongly for that.

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And, I think that’s what people see our

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graduates as being like graduates who are

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practically focused, who are able to understand how law works

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in the real world. We’re very focused as well not only on

05:40

knowledge, but in that practical sense

05:44

of focusing on skills as well, so that we in all subjects think about

05:52

the skills that might be needed and might be aligned

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with that subject. For example, if you’re in a subject and there are

06:00

certain skills that might be looking at communication

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skills, oral, written, analytical skills, problem solving skills, then the

06:10

subject and the academics teaching that subject

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will make certain that the assessment in that subject is also

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designed to assess not just your knowledge,

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but also the skills that you have developed and that they think are

06:30

important for that particular subject. So

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that’s a very strong feature of what we try to do here.

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I think as well we have a very strong collaboration

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in this faculty between academics, between faculty staff

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and between students. We work closely together

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and I’ll and a couple of examples of that which we’ll talk about later

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are our, law students society, we feel we have a great partnership with them,

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and also our brennan justice and leadership program,

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which is co-run with students and faculty. We have a very strong

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commitment to extra curricular activity and many

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academics are engaged in supporting the students who

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run competitions and so forth which further give opportunities for

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building skills and knowledge, as well as building

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relationships, and networks, and so forth within the faculty.

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One of the things that i think is also really important for us

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in terms of innovation is that we’ve really tried

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to look ahead to how law is changing. Law as I said is a very traditional

07:52

subject. There are key areas of knowledge and

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they are called colloquially the priestley eleven.

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There are key areas of knowledge, very traditional areas of law,

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fundamental areas of law that every student must learn and must be

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assessed in in order to qualify to be admitted

08:16

as a lawyer and those traditional areas of law

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will never change. The need for that deep disciplinary knowledge will not change,

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but the way in which lawyers are working, the way in information technology,

08:31

artificial intelligence is changing the practice of law is

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creating new law, and is creating new challenges for old

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law. It’s really important that students

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these days can have that understanding and that’s

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something that has been very important in this faculty, in trying

08:53

to understand what that might look like and to give our students opportunities

08:58

to understand what that future

09:03

of the legal profession might look like. I’ll give you

09:07

some more illustration of that a little bit later.

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Our curriculum is, we believe, very integrated.

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As i said we try to look to the future. We’re constantly

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evaluating what the landscape looks like and we have really good connections

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with those who are in practice, those who are leading

09:30

this legal technology space, and we work closely with them to

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understand what that looks like to give our

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students opportunities,. I think something

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important here, is that your learning doesn’t just

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come through a formal curriculum. What you do in the

09:53

classroom is is of course very helpful, but we

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also strive to provide opportunities that are extracurricular,

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that can give really valuable and important learning experiences,

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for some students life-changing

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experiences. One of those that we’re very proud of is the Allens,

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it’s very long title, the Allens Neota

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UTS Law Tech Challenge for Social Justice,

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and this is the most amazing experience that our students have. They work as

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volunteers, they spend a number of months working on

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this, and they work with real NGO clients who

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have a problem that they think might be able to be

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solved through the use of technological applications. The

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students work with Allens, a major law firm,

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in teams and with tech advisors, and out of that they build technological

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solutions for the client. This isn’t just a

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practice area, it’s not just a game, the applications have to be

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ready to be used by the end of the challenge for the client.

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And, I’m very proud to say that I think of

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over the last three years that probably means we’ve developed about 15 or so

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applications, all but one are in use and the only one that

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isn’t in use was because the law changed. These have

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been really valuable opportunities for

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students. With King & Wood Mallesons, another

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major law firm, we’ve been able to operate hackathons.

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and more recently we’ve been doing some design thinking work with them

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around how to think through future ways in which law,

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law legal professions will work. With Westpac Corporate Council

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we’ve done again some design thinking work with them,

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where students and Westpac themselves try to

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imagine what the future of law will look like. These are just

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incredible experiences that students can have,

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working with leaders in the field, whether as lawyers,

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whether it’s people who are thinking about

12:13

new tech solutions, and so forth. Some of our students who’ve done something like

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the Allens Neota Challenge, who’ve done our major, which

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i’ll talk about in a moment, have gone on to create careers in that

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legal technology future area.

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I’m just going to talk briefly now about the Legal Futures and Technology major.

12:36

When we started looking at this area

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we realized that actually it was great having the extracurricular opportunities,

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but we should do something more coherent within the law degree

12:48

itself. What we have done is create a major. Now it says there as you

12:55

can see by the title, more than just coding.

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i don’t think coding learning to code is really what it’s all about.

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What’s really important is that you understand

13:06

the implications of technology as a lawyer.

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Not just how it works, but also how it might affect the law, how it might

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affect practice, how it might affect your ethical

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obligations, what is the responsible use of

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technology. This is a major that students don’t have

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to enrol for in first year. They can make a decision to do it

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later in the degree and it has a very practical course, as well as

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being very cutting edge in the sense of looking at

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looking at opportunities for internship, and then doing capstone projects where

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students will work on specific projects, often again,

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problems that somewhere we’re working with,

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partnering with, might want addressed. And so, that’s a really deep dive into

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understanding the future of law and the technology

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around that. We i think, are probably still the only law school

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in Australia that has created a complete major

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around this, rather than just one or two subjects. I want to go on and talk

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about a little bit more about the faculty and

14:23

student collaboration that we have. A really key part of this is our

14:27

Brennan Justice and Leadership program. This is a faculty and student society

14:34

collaboration. It is wholly run in partnership with the

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faculty and with the students. There are two

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co-directors of the Brennan Justice and Leadership

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program, a student and an academic, and they make their

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decisions together. We don’t make decisions and

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then tell the students what the program is going to be doing.

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We make them in partnership, in essence

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it tries to look at two key areas. One is

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the notion of justice and so part of the program is

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reflections on justice. We do that in a whole variety of

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ways and of course this session we’ve been doing it online,

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as well, So we do things that are around, you know, it might be films ,it might

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be talks, it might be debates, really exploring the notion of justice.

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I have a very strong view that if you graduate as a lawyer, no matter

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how you practice, lawyers have an additional responsibility

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and it is a responsibility to see justice observed,

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and justice and to see the rule of law observed.

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It doesn’t matter whether you practice in a commercial law

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those or any type of practice, those are fundamental

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attributes and values that every lawyer should adhere to. T

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The Brennan program really sums that up.

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The other aspect of the Brennan Justice and Leadership program

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is the notion that leadership comes through service.

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That is leading professionals within the community,

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that our leadership is about service and so

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students do volunteer work both locally and

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internationally in order to to reflect that part of the program.

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We have a number of other possibilities, as you can

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see there we have a number of centers, all reflecting something that’s at the

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heart of this law faculty as well, and that is social justice that we

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believe in, in fairness and equality,

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and in justice. So we have a number of centers, Anti-slavery Australia, which

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looks at modern issues such as forced marriage,

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labor trafficking, and so forth. Australasian

17:09

Legal Information Institute, which seeks to bring about open access

17:13

to law, law health justice, and the Centre for Media Transition.

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Students have opportunities to do internships and voluntary work

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again at those centres as well as of course

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a whole variety of other opportunities. We also provide a lot of assistance

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to students both UTS and in the Law Faculty, to help you think

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about careers and particularly to give you opportunities to explore careers

17:44

that might not be front and center. It’s very easy as you’ll discover

17:48

when you’re doing a law degree to know the big law firms and you know

17:53

what the career path is for them,

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but other areas of law which are equally valuable, equally important and which

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students may be interested in is not always as easy to find the route

18:06

  1. Those careers, we try to create those opportunities

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through UTS careers, and I should say also, through our Law Student Society

18:15

they do a lot of really good work too in helping to support

18:19

students thinking about future careers. The other thing that I think is really

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important is that we have an incredibly amazing

18:30

faculty, The academics that you will be taught by

18:36

are leaders both perhaps through the legal profession

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or particular areas of law. Within the legal profession whether it’s labor law,

18:45

the way legal practice operates law and ethics,

18:49

and also in research. So a colleague there

18:52

Thalia Anthony does incredibly important research,

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again with a great deal of impact around Aboriginal communities and

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injustice facing Aboriginal communities.

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Just recently she led quite a lot of work,

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you might have seen some of this in the media

19:15

about the impact of the Covid virus

19:18

on prison communities. So we’re very lucky that

19:26

our academics here have a very rich academic and professional and practical

19:32

background, and they share that with our students,

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and very often there are research opportunities as well.

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I’m just now going to introduce

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one of our colleagues and that’s David Carter

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to just talk a little bit about how his study of law has led him to his

19:52

career and actually what what his research area

19:56

is about. And i should say that i taught David

20:00

corporate law when I still taught in the law faculty.

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So thank you David. Thank you Lesley, so yes, my name is David Carter

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and i’m a senior lecturer here at UTS in the Law Faculty.

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As Lesley said, I’m both a proud graduate of the law school

20:16

having completed my bachelor of laws here, which feels like a long time ago

20:21

and of course as Lesley says, I had the pleasure of having Lesley as my

20:25

tutor and lecturer in corporate law. In fact it was myself and my brother who

20:29

would sit at the back of the classroom trying our very best to impress, who I

20:34

didn’t know at the time, would become my future boss so I must have done

20:37

something right to be hired later on.

20:42

I suppose as an introduction to who Iam and how

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someone like me would fit into your time here at UTS.

20:48

If you were a student here, you would probably first meet me

20:51

in criminal law in your first year of the LLB,

20:55

or the JD for that matter. This is a core subject that everyone undertakes in a

20:59

law degree and you would sit in a classroom

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alongside you know 25 or so other students in a

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seminar with me and we would spend a couple of sessions

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of two hours together a week, so in four hours in total

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having a kind of intensive , small and interactive seminar

21:17

around criminal law and procedure, as we work through

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everything from homicide, through to fraud and business

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related, white collar crime as well as police powers to arrest. Later on you

21:30

might come across me in electives, we have a huge range of electives in

21:35

the faculty and my elective areas tend to be around

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health care, health law, public health law, quarantine

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law, so i’m very busy at the moment. And then later on elective theory

21:46

subjects on things like justice. So i’m one of the academics at UTS who

21:51

specializes in healthcare and health law. There’s a

21:55

pretty large group of us here and we’re probably one of the best places to study

21:59

anything to do with that in the country. My other area of expertise is criminal

22:03

law, and so i get to combine criminal law and health care law in new

22:07

and interesting ways. It means it’s a busy time at the moment,

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but also i hope it’s something that can make a big difference

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and that’s something that i think unites us all at UTS. A real desire to

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make a difference. There are three things that I wanted

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to say and only three things that I think are worth saying about

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studying law at UTS. The first is that it’s a really friendly

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and engaging and outward looking faculty, and that means both our faculty members,

22:33

our academics, as well as our students. The second is that as a faculty we are

22:39

really flexible. I think we really understand and

22:42

encourage our students to stretch themselves,

22:44

to take on new challenges, and I think we as a faculty understand that that

22:48

takes genuine support from our academics to help our students

22:52

go out into the world and to do great things. The third thing

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is the Law Faculty is interested and always involved in a

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wide and diverse way of being a lawyer. Both

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in a traditional way, as well as other ways too.

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So a couple of things to say about those, the first thing is if i start with

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the last point. The faculty is always interested in

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supporting its students to engage in a diverse

23:17

practice of law. As Lesley indicated, my own career is a bit like this.

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My degree at UTS meant that I was able to engage in a diverse set of workplaces

23:26

and work experiences. The skills i developed, the networks I

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built meant that I’ve been privileged to work in the healthcare sector where I

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spent most of my career, a little time in investment banking as

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well, and then some time in the not-for-profit sector leading

23:39

the Wayside Chapel in King’s Cross. These are really diverse

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workplaces, really diverse ways of working, but each of them

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relied on the education that I received here. My ability to work with people,

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to not be afraid of conflict, to be able to engage with that conflict and to

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resolve it. including sometimes very complex

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disputes in health care. but to also take on new areas of

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knowledge and just synthesize them really quickly for the benefit of all.

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This is something that is the core of a legal education regardless of whether or

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not you end up being a kind of traditional looking lawyer,

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a judge, or someone like me who runs private hospitals for a living.

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These are the things that at some point you develop in your degree and all of a

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sudden, you find when you’re in the workplace colleagues

24:22

from other disciplines sort of turning to you and saying

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“wow how did you do that” and you think oh that’s normal.

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But actually it’s something that we really work hard to try and build

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in each of our students. The second point I want to talk about and I think this is

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important particularly in today’s workplace is that

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UTS Law is flexible and that we genuinely want to encourage

24:43

our students to stretch themselves and to take on new challenges. I know for

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example just this week i’m working with one of my students that

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I first met three or four years ago when they studied

24:54

criminal law with me in their first year. I’m helping them to apply for an

24:58

internship, well it’s a online internship in these days of COVID, but I started to

25:03

help them understand how they can write their CV better and position

25:06

themselves for interesting adventures. Another student I started to

25:10

work with is starting to stretch themselves in new

25:13

ways, applying themselves to interesting legal challenges and legal research

25:17

about the use of public health powers to detain people during COVID. This is

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an area that I work on, is my specialty, and i spent the last couple of months

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working as part of UTS Law with hospitals around the country

25:30

to write and develop new policies and procedures for how we

25:33

deal with the possibility of an overstretched health system.

25:37

In short how do we best, in a just way allocate resources when we have to

25:41

choose between two people when we’ve only got one bed

25:44

and i’ve been able to bring this student in with me

25:46

to into some of those conversation. I’ve been able to bring them into this

25:50

really complex and new area of work and have been able to sort of

25:54

lead them through the policy and advising process as a lawyer and legal

25:58

academic and help them do legal research which is now

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making a real impact in the health system.

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The final point is that we are, I think a really friendly,

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a really engaging and very outward looking group of people.

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Our students and our faculty, I think if there’s something that

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marks a UTS student and someone who is going to do well here at UTS

26:19

is that they are outward looking and that they are a doer.

26:22

So many of our students are keen to make a difference keen to try their hand at

26:26

different types of work, keen to try their hands in different

26:29

industries, and so too are our academics. The people who will

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teach you and supervise you and guide you are interested in law

26:37

in the real world and interested in law in lots of different areas.

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I know that in my own team in criminal law, we have people for example who are

26:45

really global experts in offensive language law, people who are really

26:48

committed to reforming the way in, which we punish people for

26:52

swearing because it has such awful effects on young people,

26:55

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and people who are homeless, but

26:58

by the same token another colleague has just come back

27:01

from five years of working in Malawi in Africa where he led a very large legal

27:05

project to re-sentence all prisoners who were on death row

27:09

after constitutional reforms meant that we could we

27:11

could re-sentence them and hopefully take them off death row.

27:14

I mean these are amazing challenges, they are very diverse

27:17

right, but they just even exist just in criminal law and there are a whole bunch

27:21

of other areas that you might want to think about.

27:23

I suppose the point is that if you come here and you want to make a

27:26

difference and try new things, you’ll be surrounded by academics who

27:29

understand that, academics who want you to do that,

27:32

and academics who are going to make sure that when you put your hand up to try

27:34

something out you’re going to be flexible enough to

27:37

help you do that, and so get out into the world and make a difference.

27:40

Thanks Lesley. So i want to just also let you know that we have a lot of

27:46

global opportunities as well through internships and so forth

27:50

and I think this is something really important because it allows

27:55

you to really experience first of all, an understanding of law in

28:01

another country, but also to develop your own

28:05

sense of cultural awareness and being sensitive to the different ways in which

28:10

things are done. That comes through to the fore

28:13

particularly, I think when you are in a work situation

28:18

rather than simply as a tourist. So we have a lot of opportunities for

28:23

students to do that and I think that sense of building that cultural

28:27

awareness and also building your resilience, your ability to adapt

28:31

to new situations is something very important that many of the larger law

28:36

firms in particular are looking for, or if you’re going to

28:40

follow social justice path working for an NGO or something you

28:45

really have to have that kind of resilience and that

28:49

sensitivity to other cultures and other ways of

28:53

doing things. There are lots of scholarships are

28:57

available and you can certainly find more

29:00

information about those on our website. So first of all I’d like

29:05

to introduce Pia Gonzalez here is

29:11

a Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Business student

29:14

and she is in her fifth year so her final year

29:18

and I then want to introduce Jazz Oswald. Jazz is one of our

29:24

alumni and as you can see he’s working in

29:28

policy and operations assistant at Fintech Australia

29:32

and again i’ll i’ll come back so you can hear a bit more about

29:35

what Pia and Jazz have focused on in their

29:39

time at UTS. David Carter you’ve just met and I also wanted to introduce

29:45

our Associate Professor Maxine Evans our Associate Dean

29:49

for Education. So Pia, what what might be interesting for

29:55

students to know a little bit about is the law internship

30:01

subject and you took it with Resolution One Two Three,

30:06

so I wonder if you can tell us a little bit more about how you found that

30:09

opportunity, and

30:13

how that sort of helped you, and what’s important for you in terms of

30:17

that practical experience. Definitely, thank you so much Lesley.

30:22

So yes, hi everyone my name is Pia. Actually interestingly enough I did

30:27

participate in the internship at Resolution One

30:30

Two Three, which is actually an employment law firm who practiced new

30:34

law to provide quick affordable and simple advice for employees. B

30:41

Basically, i stumbled across the opportunity because I actually

30:46

had been working for a startup in the UTS

30:49

startups space and Resolution One Two Three,

30:53

as I’ve mentioned they practice new law, and they actually operate

30:57

out of the UTS startup space as well, and i happened to stumble across

31:01

someone, a solicitor at the firm who worked

31:04

there and I just took genuine interest and approached her

31:08

to see if they had any opportunities, whether they had any experience

31:12

opportunities and they actually told me that they were

31:14

in the process of developing a partnership with a Faculty of Law

31:18

to participate the internship subject. What that is,

31:23

is basically an elective that you can do as part of your Law degree at UTS,

31:29

and UTS basically has partnerships with various different

31:33

internship opportunities, whether it’s at large firms or in-house council

31:39

opportunities, and i decided to do the one at

31:42

Resolution One Two Three. I honestly think it’s it’s been

31:48

it’s like incredibly instrumental in my experience and just shaping

31:52

my understanding of the law and being able to be exposed

31:56

to the practical aspects of what it means to be a solicitor,

32:00

and also very interestingly in practicing new law,

32:05

which is basically just a fancy way of saying that we use technology

32:09

to really facilitate legal processes and things that can really be automated

32:15

to kind of focus more on delivering more value to clients.

32:21

Instead of, for example, we’re able to offer fixed

32:24

fee solutions and do task based fees rather than charging per

32:30

hour. So it’s doing things like that that

32:32

really make a difference and yeah it’s really been monumental

32:36

in shaping my experience, and also shaping

32:39

my career and where i want to head into the future.

32:42

Also luckily enough, I was asked to stay there as well. So being there

32:47

now has been a really interesting opportunity especially in light of

32:50

everything but it’s been really interesting to see.

32:53

As you were mentioning before Lesley, i think as well the really

32:57

crucial role that technology plays in the law,

33:00

especially in a time like now, to see how we’ve been able to pivot very easily

33:05

because we already were very used to working

33:08

remotely and working from different spaces

33:11

and really seeing that playing out and

33:14

obviously being able to do that as part of an internship subject

33:17

meant that I could also allow that opportunity to count towards my degree

33:22

as well, which is a huge bonus. So it’s a win-win across

33:25

the whole board for sure. That’s great Pia, and I might

33:30

mention that the founder of Resolution One Two Three, Carla Stebbing

33:34

is also an alumna of UTS Law and she’s done just you know done a

33:40

fabulous job, and I’ve noticed how active

33:43

she’s been during this period because of all the employment

33:46

issues that have come up for people during the virus.

33:50

How have you enjoyed your course and what are you planning on pursuing as a

33:54

career post university? Perhaps also in talking about how

33:59

you’ve enjoyed in your course, you might also talk about some of your

34:01

extracurricular activities with LSS and your role there.

34:06

Definitely, I think starting a law degree in itself obviously can be

34:12

very intimidating at the start but I’ve definitely enjoyed my

34:16

experience at UTS, and something I wanted to mention as well in terms of

34:20

being involved in extracurricular opportunities at UTS

34:24

it’s just the culture that i’ve noticed

34:27

at UTS is honestly so empowering. The community of law at UTS we’re

34:33

just we’re seeming to be very encouraging of

34:36

each other. I think that’s really been a big part of why

34:40

I’ve enjoyed my degree at UTS is that my participation

34:44

in extracurricular activities for example was encouraged

34:48

by friends that I had who said, “you know there are these opportunities why don’t

34:52

you come and join us” and they were a really big part of me

34:56

participating in and later being the vice president of social justice

34:59

at the UTS LSS which is our student law society and student-run law society at

35:04

UTS. I think really, the community

35:09

and the culture that we have at UTS Law

35:12

has been a huge factor in my enjoyment of the degree, let alone

35:17

so many other aspects. To be honest, as i mentioned, even being able to take

35:21

electives that are so practical and that go far beyond,

35:26

obviously you have your foundational skills of being able to write clearly

35:31

and communicate clearly, and learning really incredibly

35:35

interesting theoretical concepts of the law,

35:37

but then extending even beyond that, and having assignments that really test

35:41

our ability in ways that lawyers actually operate in the real world is a

35:48

huge factor and why i also enjoyed my degree

35:52

for sure. Great, thanks Pia. I might turn to Jazz now,

35:57

and Jazz, so you’ve finished

36:01

your law degree and you’re now working but when you did

36:04

your law degree you you did the Legal Futures and Technology major,

36:08

and i wondered if you might talk about why you did that

36:13

and how do you think that’s influenced your career.

36:17

Yeah so I took up the Legal Futures and Technology major because I just

36:22

have an interest in technology and how it intersects with the law.

36:26

I guess prior to that I had done several things with university that kind

36:31

of piqued that interest. I did some hackathons. I did a legal technology

36:36

moot. So for those of you that don’t know what

36:38

a moot is, it’s like a mock trial and it focused on legal technology

36:43

premises and that kind of snowballed and then

36:47

i saw that this major was on offer

36:51

and i took it. I thought you know it’ll be interesting, it’ll be i guess future

36:55

proofing my skill set for you know my career, and i found it

36:59

really enjoyable. It was definitely the most enjoyable units that i

37:03

undertook in my degree because

37:07

it was really what i was interested in. It wasn’t you know

37:11

something that like property law for example where it’s something that you

37:16

have to take, but it’s not necessarily something that you’ll enjoy.

37:18

You learn about AI, block-chain and coding.

37:26

So as Lesley was saying you kind of understand

37:29

how coding works from a fundamental standpoint so that you can communicate

37:33

with people that do the coding, and you can

37:37

effectively communicate in a commercial context. So I

37:41

found that all very helpful and then moving forward into my

37:44

career obviously that’s really helped me because after

37:48

I graduated I moved into a role at

37:52

King & Wood Mallesons, which is one of the top law firms in the country.

37:55

It’s one of the ones that was mentioned in prior

37:57

that we have a partnership with and in that law firm I was

38:05

doing a lot of stuff with blockchain, smart contracting,

38:08

derivatives, data and that kind of stuff, and my background definitely helped me

38:13

get into that area, get the experience that i needed to

38:16

sell myself to the firm as someone that would be effective

38:20

in that area in their firm. Then from there,

38:24

I worked there for about 14 months and now I’ve moved into a policy role at

38:29

Fintech Australia, so basically we are a industry body that

38:34

represents fin-tech companies so fin-tech is something like Afterpay.

38:37

As a financial technology company we advocate to the government policy

38:44

positions and those kinds of things. So I write a lot of policy submissions to

38:48

the treasury and those kinds of departments, so that’s really interesting.

38:52

I don’t think that I’d be able to get to where I am

38:55

without the support that the faculty gave me, without the breadth

39:00

of experience, and the your ability to look

39:03

at different areas of law outside of the

39:06

traditional Priestley eleven, and also opportunities like

39:11

internships where I had the opportunity to go

39:14

overseas to China. I was in Beijing a couple of years ago

39:17

and I worked at a legal technology company and I got to work with

39:21

the Australian embassy on a few things over there, that was pretty cool.

39:24

I think it’s a great opportunity, it’s a great

39:28

major, and it really does set you up to be different from other job applicants

39:33

and other students in the industry going forward.

39:39

Thanks Jazz, that’s great and also really interesting to hear that

39:45

your work has a policy focus as well and that just

39:48

shows the varieties of career options

39:53

for law. Law is a fabulous degree to take you

39:56

into other areas like that, still you know

39:59

needing an understanding of law but because law

40:02

a law degree really does help you to think

40:06

in very analytical ways, to think about process and so forth. So

40:11

that’s great. Now here’s a good one for Pia.

40:15

I have heard that there is a lot of reading within law is this true?

40:19

Oh gosh it’s the age old stereotype isn’t it for the law

40:25

degree. Look of course there is reading in a

40:28

law degree but as i mentioned before i think

40:33

that the readings that you’re given

40:38

at UTS really aims to build your skills

40:43

in many different ways, whether it’s patience or tenacity and perseverance,

40:48

and also the practical skills so the readings that you do

40:52

obviously they’re always meaningful in some way. You’re not

40:55

getting readings just for the sake of it. It’s not some sort of punishment

40:59

and I think it’s really balanced out by the practical

41:03

assessments that we get. For example, I remember in administrative law

41:08

having to write a government submission for an assessment.

41:11

Just the different formats of assessments that you can get,

41:15

you really then see the value of the knowledge that you do get from the

41:19

readings and from doing the readings. I

41:22

think as well as i mentioned before the culture at UTS

41:24

and being able to share with your colleagues and

41:29

understanding and distributing workloads and having work

41:32

or group study sessions together really helps as well.

41:36

UTS always have really great support systems as well as.

41:41

The UTS LSS offer different buddy programs and mentorships

41:47

that you would definitely benefit from and understand the best way to

41:50

navigate those readings and do them in the best way possible, in the most

41:54

efficient way, so don’t be scared of the readings. It’s all

41:57

going to be fine. Maxine, what might be the pathways

42:02

available if a student received an ATAR lower than the selection rank?

42:08

That’s a great question, thank you very much Lesley and welcome everyone to UTS.

42:12

I have several pathways at the university and i’ll just

42:16

briefly mention those. I would encourage all school leavers to talk to your

42:21

either careers counsellor or senior studies teachers about what

42:25

pathways are available to all students. UTS has

42:30

its own unique pathway called Inputs

42:34

and that’s available for students that have experienced some

42:37

degree of disadvantage and what that enables those students

42:41

to do if they receive an ATAR that is 10 marks less than the usual

42:47

ATAR each year, and that does vary, but for the

42:50

last couple of years the UTS Law ATAR has sat around 96.97,

42:56

so if you receive 10 marks lower than that, through the Input scheme you’ll be

43:00

offered a place into a Law degree. The other scheme that

43:05

is also associated with schools and we will have information at your schools

43:09

about this scheme is the schools

43:11

recommendation scheme, and that scheme is available for

43:15

students who have experienced quite severe hardship,

43:20

or exceptional circumstances that has meant that they can’t achieve their full

43:25

potential. For law if a student is eligible for a place

43:30

through the SRS as it’s called, you need to achieve an ATAR of 80 to be

43:36

offered a place in the law degree. For any elite athletes

43:41

out there this evening, you may also come through the elite athletes

43:45

program and there is information about that program

43:49

on the website and then most or very importantly not most importantly

43:53

but very importantly we have another scheme through the

43:57

Indigenous students pathway scheme. So if you are an

44:00

Indigenous student you have uh the opportunity to come

44:04

through that’s managed by Jumbanna, which is our Indigenous

44:08

center for learning and research at UTS, and there’s a direct

44:12

entry pathway through there. There are several other pathways and I’ll again,

44:17

I’ll just mention them briefly, you will find

44:19

information on the website. I know many of our students and indeed

44:24

several of our students didn’t start with us at UTS, they had always wanted to

44:28

come to UTS, they had heard about the law degree that they believed really

44:32

suited them, they might have had friends or siblings that had studied

44:36

with us at UTS, so my advice to those students

44:39

is to commence your Law degree somewhere else if you really want to do law

44:44

and study hard in your first your first year of law at another

44:49

university and then apply through UAC to come to us. Subjects will be assessed

44:56

and most students will receive some credit recognition, so you don’t need to

45:01

repeat all your subjects, obviously that depends at

45:04

the law school you study at. The other pathway you can think about is

45:08

starting with us at UTS, but not in a law degree. Let’s say as as the Dean

45:12

indicated, most of our students are doing a double degree,

45:16

so you could start for example in business, or in communications

45:20

because you don’t achieve the ATAR at first instance to get into law.

45:24

Do a year in business, communication, science, wherever,

45:28

do well, study hard, do well and you get lots of

45:32

instructions support, assessments talked about throughout your course

45:38

so it’s a matter of really studying hard, but with that

45:42

guidance that really makes it a much easier for you to

45:46

know how you’re going with your study. Do well in your first year, again apply

45:51

through UAC to come into a combined

45:55

law and the other discipline, you’ve already got one year done that gives you

45:58

the opportunity to, it’ll still take a little bit longer,

46:02

but depending again on how your subjects are organized it could take you between

46:06

six months or one year longer, and then another pathway which

46:11

i’ll just mention it just would seem like to you

46:14

as you year 10, 11, and 12 students a long way off but it is a popular pathway

46:21

for students who either wanted to do law and for several reasons haven’t been

46:25

able to do law. They do a degree in another discipline

46:28

and then they join us as a Juris Doctor or a JD

46:33

student that’s a postgraduate law degree. So the entry to that degree is having an

46:38

undergraduate degree in another discipline. You then undertake your JD

46:43

and you’re in the same position in terms of your academic qualifications as an

46:47

undergraduate degree. And if i can just mention one thing that

46:50

you might not be aware of, because again it’s a bit in the future,

46:54

is to be admitted as a legal practitioner and the dean has spoken

46:57

about the number of our graduates that do

47:00

become admitted as legal practitioners and some

47:03

may not go into practice, you need to do the academic qualification which is your

47:07

LLB or your JD, you also need to do practical qualification which is a

47:13

practical legal training course, and we’re very fortunate here at UTS to

47:17

have a very long established practical legal training course. So

47:21

here at UTS you can do both your academic qualification

47:25

and your practical qualification and then can apply

47:28

to the New South Wales supreme court to be admitted to practice.

47:32

What does legal technology mean in a practical sense?

47:36

So legal technology can mean several things.

47:39

Firstly, it could be the application of technology

47:43

in a professional legal context such as document management

47:47

or maybe using AI to comb through contracts

47:51

or to look through documents during the discovery process for when you’re

47:56

looking for evidence during a trial. The other

47:59

which it can refer to is

48:02

through the interaction of the law and new technologies. For example

48:08

smart contracts, and whether or not these can be real contracts, and are

48:12

legally enforceable in a court of law. Another example, you know who’s liable when a

48:17

autonomous vehicle hits someone, is the manufacturer, is the driver, is

48:21

it the owner of the car and you know things like of this

48:26

nature. So it really is it’s a bit of a contextual question

48:29

but those are the things that you look at in

48:32

the Legal Tech major. Moving forward in the legal

48:35

profession and especially with the things that I do,

48:38

I look at the the legal consequences of like what

48:43

laws apply to this technology, what rights do you have

48:46

if you hold bitcoin, or if you hold some kind of cryptocurrency.

48:51

Thanks Jazz, and well well done, and

48:57

again there’s quite a lot on our website that you can read about that and the

49:01

nature of the major. Thank you very much for

49:05

joining us tonight. One of the nice things when you do come

49:09

on to campus for these evenings is we actually get to

49:13

talk to you face to face and to meet you and to hear a bit more about you.

 

 

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