Jaqquline Lawrie, 15 November, 2022
Here at QUT, we prepare our law students for the modern world of law by providing opportunities to apply what they have learnt in the real world through a variety of practical experiences.
As part of the QUT Bachelor of Laws (Honours) degree, our students will experience real-world professional legal environments through work-integrated learning (WIL) electives that are made up of internships, professional placements, and industry projects. These opportunities enable students to encounter real workplaces and gain important practical experience while earning credit towards their degree.
WIL opportunities offer many benefits to students, industry, and educators. In this article, we sat down with a QUT Law student, a QUT Law academic, and one of our longstanding industry partners to find out how WIL opportunities kickstart students' careers and help industry partner organisations flourish.
Professional practice in your chosen industry
The QUT School of Law is well-known for its strong links to industry and government, and with over 600 industry partners, our law students can secure work placements in their chosen field of law.
Past students have worked at Aged and Disability Advocacy Australia, the Crime and Corruption Commission, the Fair Work Commission, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, the Environmental Defenders Office, and the Bhutan National Legal Institute, to name a few.
Elise Dorsa, a QUT Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Justice student, recently completed her professional law placement at the organisation of her choice.
“I chose to do my WIL placement at the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) as I was interested in environmental law,” said Elise.
"When selecting my industry placement, I got to look at many community legal centres and review their projects and purpose.
“I then applied for my preferred placement, and QUT organised the rest”.
"There are many opportunities available for students wanting to gain practical experience in their chosen field of law.”
Partnering students with organisations in their preferred area of law connects students with industry, develops their specialised knowledge and gives them valuable industry experience they might not have had the opportunity to otherwise.
Elise said her professional practice experience helped prepare her to enter the workforce confidently.
"I think professional practice experiences are really important for students because if you don't have prior experience and exposure, you don't know what to expect when you enter the workplace," she said.
"My WIL placement at the EDO exposed me to the world of law and showed me firsthand how the courts worked and how cases played out.
"All of this exposure helped prepare me to enter the workforce confidently and begin my career as a Junior Legal Assistant."
Developing in-demand transferable skills
Industry needs to inform our law courses, and according to industry, transferable skills are highly sought after in today's job market. Employers want graduates that have developed an array of transferable skills to accompany the technical skills obtained throughout their studies.
To ensure our students graduate work-ready, we offer several WIL opportunities spanning clinics, community justice projects and internships. Through these WIL electives, students are able to put theory into practice and develop in-demand transferable skills firsthand at industry-leading organisations and workplaces.
Associate Lecturer at QUT's School of Law, Samuel Roach, believes QUT's practical approach to learning is what sets QUT law graduates apart from other candidates in the job market.
"Many law firms and community legal centres hold QUT in high opinion, and they do that because we have many WIL-focused units," says Samuel.
"What's beneficial about our WIL electives is that our students are able to not only learn the law firsthand, but also develop critical legal skills too.
"So much of a law degree is spent teaching students about the law, and of course, that's important; you have to understand the law to become a lawyer.
“However, the learning shouldn’t stop in the classroom; students still need to learn practical legal skills as well, and that’s what we focus on in our WIL electives.”
Elise said the experience at her EDO professional placement helped her build the transferrable skills she needed to enter the real world confidently.
“Developing transferrable skills was really important in my professional placement, as I had to speak to both clients and other legal professionals,” said Elise.
“I’ve never done anything like that before, so that experience helped me build important skills like interpersonal communication, relationship-building, technical writing, and teamwork.
“I now feel confident entering the real world, knowing I have the necessary skills and experience.”
Working with industry partners
Professional placements are just as valuable for our industry partners as they are for our students. By getting involved in WIL programs, industry partners can build relationships with our academics and students, explore new ideas and projects, and build their workforce of the future.
Revel Pointon, the Managing Lawyer at the EDO for Southern and Central Queensland, said EDO’s partnership with QUT has been extremely valuable.
"We've been partnering with QUT's Community Justice Project for a few years now, and we've had about ten students come through," said Revel.
"Having the support of students through QUT's Community Justice Project has been invaluable for us because we can't otherwise meet the great need for EDO services.
"There are so many people out there that require our services, and like any Community Legal Centre, the demand far outweighs the ability of our resources to meet that community legal centre's needs.
"By having the students come through the Community Justice Project, we actually get the assistance of the background research and other tasks that really help us maximize the amount of resources we can offer the community and meet the need for our services."
To find out more about the professional placement opportunities made available to QUT's Bachelor of Laws (Honours) students, please click here.
