CHARU AGARWAL: My name is Charu Agarwal, and I studied the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice at QUT.

The lecturers, I’d probably say, are the best part about the course.

They are really determined and really good lecturers, and the good thing is they are always available for you when you need help, and because there’s so much contact with your lecturers, they sort of become more of your friends.

It’s not that distance that you have at undergraduate school, where, you know, you see them only during exams.

Here you see them on a daily basis, you actually get to know them on a personal level.

It’s a good balance between my work and study, because it’s a full time course we have to be here four days a week from 9 to 5, so I tend to work in a law firm that one day a week when I don’t have to be here. 

So it’s a good balance, because I can put the theory I’ve learnt into practice, and actually see it in practice.

No, you don’t have to have any industry experience to study this course, in fact, QUT provides you with a placement at the end of your course for four weeks at various firms across Brisbane, so you’ll get your industry experience.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ALLAN CHAY: My name’s Allan Chay, I’m the Director of Legal Practice here at the Faculty of Law at QUT.

Well, anyone who wants to be a lawyer in Australia has to complete a Law degree and then they have to do some form of practical legal training, and our course, the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, provides highly structured, good quality, practical legal training.

Do you have to be a lawyer to do this course? No, this course is for people who are Law graduates, so they’ve completed a Bachelor of Laws degree, or they’re just about to complete one; they may have one or two subjects left to complete their Bachelor of Laws, then they’re eligible to do our course.

The big advantage of our course is that once you’ve completed our course, and you’ve completed our Bachelor of Laws degree, then you are eligible to seek admission as a lawyer.

Our part time course is delivered to students through QUT Blackboard, which is a, what’s called, a learning management system, which means that in your workplace you can have a very sophisticated interactive course delivered to you over the internet, with that comes the tasks that you’ll need to work on to complete.

Each week over the internet you’ll get a briefing note, or tips from a lecturer about the tasks you’re about to do, you’ll find you’ll be able to access online discussion forums where you can talk about the work you’re doing each week with other students, or with lecturers back at QUT.

When you’re ready to submit work you submit it online and the work will be assessed and you’ll get feedback back online.

So it’s a very convenient way for busy professionals to do their practical legal training.

MICHAEL KELLY: My name’s Mike Kelly, and I’m a student in the Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice course at QUT.

The facilities here in the Graduate Diploma course are absolutely wonderful, I mean we’ve got all the normal sorts of office facilities you would expect to have if you were practising as a legal practitioner.

We have access to all the QUT facilities, the Law library here is first class, they’ve really set up the Graduate Diploma course as if you were operating in a decent sized law firm with all the normal sort of resources you would expect in such an environment.

If someone wants to do the Graduate Diploma course and they’ve got previous experience that they’re bringing with them , that’s certainly an advantage and there are some subjects within the Graduate Diploma course that a person can get exemptions for based on their previous experience, and I know I experienced that myself and it’s a very simple and straight forward process to make your application and then QUT will make a decision on it.