JOSHUA CAREY: My name is Joshua Carey, I work at Clayton Utz and I’m studying a Bachelor of Law.

The practical legal training involves primarily real world experience of filing documents, writing documents and the procedures to get there, it’s not necessarily about the Law, it’s about the real world application of the Law.

Working at Clayton Utz and doing the course is a challenge, there are obviously time constraints and you’ve got deadlines both for the course itself and for your commitments at the office, so in terms of the balance it really comes down to a matter of organisation.

I’ve managed to do two undergraduate subjects, whilst doing six post graduate subjects in a course and working full time.

It’s certainly been a challenge, but it’s manageable, you’ve just got to use your time wisely.

MELISSA CABLE: My name is Melissa Cable, I graduated in December of last year and I’m currently working as a family lawyer.

I actually enrolled in the Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice at the same time as the same time as completing my final two elective units with my undergrad.

I chose to complete the Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice because it offered me the option to complete it at the same time as the final elective units to just speed things up really.

As long as you’ve completed your core units, if you’ve only got elective units to do, you can try and balance the study between the two of them and complete it at the same time.

You are essentially in mock firms with a bunch of three or four other students, which you come here nine to five, you dress as if you’re coming to work, you do sort of mock tasks during the day that helps prepare you for what real practice is meant to be about, so it really, I think, it sets you up quite well to make that transition into the work force, because you do come here, and you are with colleagues, and you do have the demands on you each day.

I graduated in December of last year and was in line to be admitted on the first of February this year.

I obviously went and got admitted and I started work two weeks after admission.

MARK METZELING: Hi, I’m Mark Metzeling and I completed the Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice at QUT.

After the Diploma of Legal Practice, within two weeks, I was employed as a fulltime solicitor in a Law firm.

The way it worked was in the last month or so of doing the diploma you actually applied for jobs and you did legal work experience through the course, so you got placed into legal employment and you had to prove yourself in the legal arena.

While you weren’t getting paid for that experience, it was great experience of real-life, on-the-job training, and you had the skill sets behind you, so you were actually doing proper legal work, you weren’t filing papers you know, and doing administrative tasks, you were straight in there dealing with clients and enhancing your skills which you’d learned over the previous six months.

When conducting the legal practice course we got put into teams of Law firms in fact, so you know, so we’d have our own mock law firms and we’d have four or five students in each Law firm working together and as individuals to solve real issues, and then also to enter into moots and other negotiations and discussions the opposition Law firms and the other Law firms inside the legal practice arena.

We occupied one floor of C Block building and there was probably about 15 to 20 offices there and each office was a separate Law firm where you sat with your fellow students and the four or five of you would work together.