Legal Professional and Community Service Experience

Rachel SpencerDirector of Professional Programs

School of Law, UniSA

• Do one thing every day that scares you.

• Eleanor Roosevelt

LAWS 4007

• An elective course• Pre-requisite = Professional Conduct• Offered every term

• The course includes a placement of 1 day per week for 10 weeks

• OR as agreed with course co-ordinator

Why do a Placement? Experience

• Develop professional skills and values• Learn from experience• Challenge yourself• Think about the role of lawyers in society• Supportive environment

• Maximise the experience by discussing and reflecting in class.

Aim of the course

• Students will develop a critical perspective on:– legal ethics– professionalism– justice access– the role of law (and lawyers) in society.

Aims of the Placement• Develop your own professional goals.

• Develop an awareness of the diverse role(s) of law and lawyers in society.

• Develop a critical approach to legal ethics and access to justice.

• Develop yourself as a reflective practitioner.

• Goals help focus you on areas in both your personal and professional life that are important and meaningful, rather than being guided by what other people want you to be, do, or accomplish.

• Catherine Pulsifer

• Active involvement in an organisation+• Feedback on their activities=Students learn from their own performance. - an ability which will continue to develop and

benefit students throughout their careers.

Self-awareness

• Ability to identify strengths and weaknesses.• What am I good at?• What do I need to improve?• Take responsibility for how you conduct

yourself in practice.

Adaptability

• Highly sought after quality due to globalisation and the rapid, ongoing evolution of technology and workplace structures and practices.

• Chance to turn disastrous events into unique learning opportunities.

• Exercise patience and reflective thinking.• Staying cool in a crisis.

Learning in a Workplace Context

Learning in Workplace Contexts

• There are major differences between workplace and classroom learning.

Student status in the overall scheme is different

• University: student is the central concern

• Workplace: multiple and competing interests

Contrasts between:• Classroom learning

• Predictable • Simplified and orderly• Sustained• Intentional • Central interest is

student

• Workplace learning

• Unpredictable• Complex, messy• Immediate, transient• Opportunistic• Competing interests

• Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction.

• Author Unknown

• Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do.

• Anonymous

There is no experience from which you can’t learn something. The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly without fear for newer and richer experience. You can only do that if you have curiosity and an unquenchable spirit of adventure.

Eleanor Roosevelt, 1960

Some placement options:• Guardianship Board• Edmund Rice Camps• Argent Chambers, London• Office of the Ombudsman (SA)• Elder Care• ERD Court• Helping Hand Aged Care• Justice Net• Legal Advice Clinic• Find your own (must be approved by course co-ordinator)

Timing of placement

• 1 day per week for 1 term (10 weeks)

OR

• A block of time (eg 2 weeks full time) during the term

OR

• A block of time after completing the course

Contact me:

Rachel SpencerDirector of Professional Programs

School of Law, UniSArachel.spencer@unisa.edu.au

Telephone: 8302 7946

Speakers

• Matthew Atkinson, Legal Advice Clinic, UniSA• Jason Fernandis, Tips for Final Year Law Students• Glenn Carrasco, Argent Chambers, London• Melissa Baxter, A Placement in London• Skye Bennett, Global Experience Program• Isobel Bailey, Placement in San Francisco• Jasmine Schwarz-Hoog, From Placement to

Employment• Megan Philpot, Office of the Ombudsman SA