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
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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
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things, don’t get me wrong I think tradition is
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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
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be more flexible, and to make changes, and to respond to
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changing circumstances, and to be willing to share
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old practices. For the Law Faculty we have a very
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strong commitment to education, and to teaching, and to research
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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,
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from the way in which law is practiced, the
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way in which law develops, and we make sure that the assessments
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and the way in which you’re taught all help you to apply that law in a very
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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
04:48
does that work in the real world, what does it look like, how does it have
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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
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being one of our sessional teachers, or whether it’s coming in doing guest
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lectures, or in some other way engaged with our
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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
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knowledge, but in that practical sense
05:44
of focusing on skills as well, so that we in all subjects think about
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
09:49
come through a formal curriculum. What you do in the
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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.
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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
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itself. What we have done is create a major. Now it says there as you
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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
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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
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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
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Legal Information Institute, which seeks to bring about open access
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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
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that might not be front and center. It’s very easy as you’ll discover
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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
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- 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
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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
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faculty, The academics that you will be taught by
18:36
are leaders both perhaps through the legal profession
18:40
or particular areas of law. Within the legal profession whether it’s labor law,
18:45
the way legal practice operates law and ethics,
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and also in research. So a colleague there
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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
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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
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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.
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If you were a student here, you would probably first meet me
20:51
in criminal law in your first year of the LLB,
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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
21:06
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
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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
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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
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specializes in healthcare and health law. There’s a
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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
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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
22:29
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
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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
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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,
23:51
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
25:26
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
26:01
making a real impact in the health system.
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The final point is that we are, I think a really friendly,
26:07
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
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is that they are outward looking and that they are a doer.
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So many of our students are keen to make a difference keen to try their hand at
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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.
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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,
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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.