Final year Bachelor of Justice/Bachelor of Laws (Honours) student Christjan Corias completed a 10-week internship with the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) during his 2020 summer break. NAAJA offers volunteer and intern placements to law students and graduates looking to gain paralegal experience in their Criminal, Civil, and Law and Justice Project teams in office locations across the Territory.
NAAJA is one of the Northern Territory’s largest justice agencies, working together with Aboriginal communities and key government and non-government stakeholders, to manage the delivery of services in a professional, culturally proficient and community sensitive manner.
Christjan completed two rotations with the Civil Law team and the Community Legal Education Team (CLE) during the internship. “With the Civil Law team, I performed paralegal duties including drafting client correspondence, undertaking legal research and writing legal briefs to support the solicitors. In the CLE team I worked closely with NAAJA’s legal educators to develop engaging content to assist them to deliver legal education in remote communities. These topics ranged from rights with police to the basics of employment law.”
During his time with the CLE team, Christjan had the opportunity assist with drafting NAAJA’s law reform proposals. NAAJA is a major stakeholder in the Northern Territory and puts forward policy proposals and comments on proposed policies. “One of the major projects I worked on was a policy submission in relation to ensuring that Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) was properly considered in criminal justice policies.”
Christjan also had the opportunity to join a NAAJA legal educator on a trip to Wadeye, a remote Aboriginal community 420km south-west of Darwin. “This was one of the best memories from the internship. The drive from Darwin to Wadeye was spectacular. The purpose of the trip was for the legal educator to provide training in relation to how the Community Night Patrol Team in Wadeye could comply with their mandatory reporting responsibilities.” Community Night Patrol is responsible for a range of duties in the community, and are able to respond to situations when police are not able to arrive at the scene first.
Christjan highly encourages students to undertake an internship. “I cannot speak highly enough of the experience – it has left a strong impression of the kind of legal professional that I want to be. Previously, I had no intention to practice law and was very invested in policy and governance. Now, I have a strong interest in advocacy, particularly in health and elder law matters.”
“The experience also opened my eyes to the interconnectedness of criminal justice issues with civil law and access to justice issues.”
Christjan advises that students wanting to get experience should have an open mind and a sense of adventure. “I think it’s very important for law students to think outside the box, keep an open mind and not get pre-occupied with getting clerkships. There is so much practical experience to be gained beyond clerkships and commercial law.”
His work at NAAJA has led to further opportunities. Christjan is currently completing a different internship with Queensland South Native Title Services (QSNTS). “I was able to get an internship at QSNTS through the AURORA internship program. My supervisor recommended the AURORA program to me whilst I was working at NAAJA.” Christjan is assisting QSNTS to provide native title services as prescribed by the Native Title Act. He will also be enhancing the capability of Traditional Owners to attain self-determination through the exercise of native title rights and interests, and advocating for reform and improvement of the native title system.
QUT has a wide range of placement and work experience for law and justice students, you can find out more here.