Hello everyone and welcome back to the Australian Law Student Podcast. I'm your host Oliver Hammond
and on today's episode we have something a little bit different for everyone.
It's the second last episode of season one for 2024 if you've been counting and so what a season
it's been and just before our grand finale in which we have a very notable guest I thought
it would be good to sit down with my co-founder Nick Hodgkinson and the main host of the Law
and Fore podcast and I suppose go through the term and sort of talk about where the Australian
Law Student is headed and perhaps reflect a little bit on the guests that we've had along the way
and what you can expect to see in the future. So Nick how are you? Good thanks Ollie,
thanks for having me on. That's all right, that's all right. We're definitely heading
for big things I think for the rest of the year and looking to plan for the next year as well.
One of the things that I think has been really notable at the moment is the I think quality of
guests that we've been able to have on. I mean last year we trialled with guests, thankfully
James Dappergy most notably was able to come on and he was great and also Tyson Manicolo,
a bit of a funny guest there but yeah I mean this term we've had a wide array of guests,
two university professors Joanne Kinslaw and Bronwyn Morgan.
A lawyer in pro bono work at the Redford Legal, Sam Lee,
Hall & Wilcox graduate, obviously the Hall & Wilcox sponsor was a big thing
and it was mainly one of our other team members Jason who really helped land that and Hall &
Wilcox have been really good to us I think overall, really have high things to say about them so
definitely check them out if you have time. It's a really great law firm, I mean they welcomed us
into their offices and we've had a lot of great conversations with them and I think that's really
important for the stuff that you guys do so yeah yeah that's a great story.
Nick was lovely to sit down and um Lorice Aziz the person I interviewed was also really lovely so
that was good. But yeah I mean um Nick and I went to Redfern um to interview Sam Lee I think, how
did we get Sam Lee like in terms of guest acquisition, like with her was that just
a LinkedIn, do you message on LinkedIn?
Yeah I reached out to Sam on LinkedIn, but she was lovely and that was a an insightful description.
Oh, as far as what she thought about her experience with law firms what were some of the things that were most helpful to her especially on LinkedIn?
an insightful discussion for both of us i think yeah definitely i mean redfern town hall yeah yeah
yeah that was that was that was really interesting as well like i suppose with pro bono it's um very
different environment um different clients and um yeah checking out into redfern in the rain that
one morning i remember so yeah like we've definitely had like a lot of good memories
on things daphne fong it was a great law student um as well at unsw um just reaching out to her
um to be honest i think that our range of guests differs um and and the person who brings in the
guest differs i mean you've brought in a couple sam um uh there was our talks about getting um
the professor from unsw what was his name um do you remember his name first from usw what
was his name um he's a very smart guy young guy i can't remember no
yeah well we reached out to him i think uh but it was just so busy and at the point in time like
because um yeah we're doing interviews with people obviously at their chosen location you know we
don't have a podcast or anything like that so i'm transporting podcasts here so yeah i obviously can
sort of overlap but then we've also had um people notable people in the legal community as well mel
story she wrote reached out to us she's very popular um i think she was in sydney um sometime
in may so um that might be teed up for the next season um politicians as well i mean that's just
i suppose the networks that we have um yeah i suppose um nick and i both being interstate
we've had to be very sort of guerrilla um uh usually sort of guerrilla tactics in terms of
being able to build up our network um yeah i don't i don't have any family in sydney and i don't think
nick does no and so um definitely like putting yourself out there i think has been a really
big part of it um and just trying to find some sort of community um i think for um myself i
um befriended a couple of um older um people i suppose and also just applying for jobs and stuff
like that i mean my first job i um uh which i've now since left to join a bit of a bigger firm
um i still i caught up with my old boss and um you know just sort of had a bit of a mentor chat
um around that so definitely like catching up i mean i know you worked you actually worked
interestingly though you're strange in that you worked in a law firm before doing law so you're
paralegal in perth yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
so my undergraduate degree a bachelor of science i then worked full-time as a paralegal at a global
law firm for a year moved to sydney to start the jd at new south uh continued with that firm for
a few months and then jumped ship to a national insurance firm
i worked there for six months or thereabouts and now i'm working as a research assistant to a
new south wales bar so some varied experience but good i think as a law student to um say yes always
and uh don't be afraid to try something that um at the first instance you might be
uncomfortable doing because um you know some some really good advice given to me was that
you know in order to be a good specialist you first need to be a good generalist and so
it's really important for law students and law graduates and and
i suppose anyone interested in building out their practice
to speak to as many people as they can in as many different practice groups
and stick with it even if you're not enjoying it yeah
and that's something that we've learned through the podcast and the business
more generally i think is you know um sometimes the opportunities that you enjoy the most
are those that at first you um you know were rough um and yeah you can't always expect i think to
um have it as all sunshine and rainbows i mean look i think that's a
it's obviously a fact that i think the old cliche that everyone's heard but um in law especially
it's like you really do it's it's a lot of work to be able to do it in the right way and then you're
it's an industry which is um for better for worse still very hierarchical and so
you do you do have to do your time in the trenches before you can um i suppose really get out there
and and um uh get the sort of glittery glittery work um but i think yeah again like putting
yourself out there is probably the best piece of advice i mean with the the australian law
student more broadly it's like with us we've just tried to get a broad array of guests
you know some of them have been ex-lecturers that we've had um yeah the politicians and stuff like
that that's just literally messaging their electoral offices and and seeing um what happens
there um and um it's really interesting because you get um to be invited you'd be surprised how
many people are willing just to talk to you or willing to just have a chat i mean off i suppose
the mic um you have a lot of conversations um with with guests just about their day-to-day life and
in a way it's it's really eye-opening i suppose and i hope that the viewers are found eye-opening
and um yeah all the listeners are found i found it eye-opening um because it's been really um i think
beneficial from for myself and just understanding the broad array of law
um like yeah i mean but obviously it is varied like you do have professionals that contradict
each other i mean one of the i suppose more notable instances of that was um interviewing
steven mccauley a sort of general private practice practitioner who sort of spoke about how
lawyers specialize too young and to stay general and whatever else but um another guest i remember
talked about how to really gain expertise in your field you've got to find the area that you love
and really focus in on it so um i suppose in a way it's kind of like there's no one approach
i think and and just find the one that works for you if and um i don't know like is is is there an
approach do you think that that suits you or do you think there's an approach that that is like
universal or is it really that like unique and subjective no i don't think so i mean i've got
so many friends in the jd program who um have you know started their studies in law at um
really varied points in their life uh one of my good friends cale
moved over from perth like me he's got three children and you know studies full-time and
he's doing exceptionally well in his studies there are other people who um you know don't
take gap years and um start a combined undergraduate law degree straight from
high school so i think that's one of the good things about law school is that of course you know
you get some really bright people uh and some excellent and sometimes controversial ideas
going around but um there's there's no there's no one-size-fits-all approach to law school
and the way that you approach it um but i do think that i suppose a trait that i've noticed is
um which is fairly uniform across all students is either curiosity or um you know extroversion
and i think some of the best friends that i've made at law school
you know have have those traits in equal measure um and and they are i suppose um able to be learned
and i think they get to learn um and and get to have a box an you know robust 18 yearload I
mean you know we have seen that over the years that we've been able to fully dipping our
into law school for a few years now
yeah yeah yeah of the federal court yeah and so um but obviously he's very busy and then it was
actually funnily enough jason messaged emailed him and then from our team's email and then we
just get the email back it's like a one-line response saying hi jason really super busy
talk later like it was like really just like like shortened to the point um but it was amazing
though just to like even have the opportunity i suppose to to know people to get that email and
you know and um lo and behold like i remember looking through the afr at work like a month
later and seeing james also appointed to the high court in hong kong and i was like oh that makes
sense why he's so busy he's planning for an international movie i mean it's a very common
thing that australian judges go and become expats over in hong kong because of the sort of common
law roots but um yeah and then there was a a really well-known barrister um alan myers who
um reached out to and um
he was from victoria i mean obviously my victorian roots if people know about that i was from
victoria and so um i had a personal connection to him and i thought for sure that personal
connection was going to hit um but lo and behold it turns out he really doesn't like to do media
interviews so that just got completely bounced back and i was a bit disappointed obviously but
you sort of get up and um i know jason who's had a sort of experience in this space um jason one
of our team members he he sort of um gave good advice
you know you're gonna get knocked back a couple times you just got to get back on the horse um
and so that was really interesting um i suppose to look at it from from that perspective as well
to just keep going and keep going but i think um it's also surprising when you get a guest that you
didn't think you were going to i mean um the finale guest was definitely um one that that
goes along with that um and hopefully in season two and season three we're having guests that
we're surprised that we can even get on
so um that's that that's also an amazing part of it um yeah and i think with um our reception
more broadly i mean talking about some of the numbers how how have we gone there i mean um
i know that from our social media side of things um with our shorts um the the team that we have
is is quite small um and so uh and also i think there's mistakes that have been made along the way
but we're constantly adapting at the australian law school
we're getting better and we will continue to get better i mean with the sort of more short form
content on tiktok and instagram it has been very similar with the sort of clips and stuff like that
i know that we used to do like memes and like um rankings and that sort of stuff um now part of
that is obviously um um difficult because you know the sheer number of i mean we're all juggling
job work and degrees and personal lives and you know sport and you know all this sort of stuff
like all on top of that um so it can be really tricky to have even to have this sort of um yeah
this sort of platform on the side that you're running but um i know with tiktok we've just i
think we've just surpassed over 2 000 followers which is a really good achievement instagram is
sort of teetering around the 1k mark which is a bit frustrating i mean the growth um side of things
i think has definitely been a bit stunted just by the similarness of content and also like it's
also like all algorithmic like it's like there's apparently a certain
you've got to unlock with the algorithm that i haven't paid attention to but i randomly see
people like apparently like things like posting three times a week is more optimal than five times
a week so rather than once a day you're posting it three times a week that the algorithm likes that
so you know there's there's all these sort of different variables that go into play which is
like yeah you're probably not utilizing that as much um if you're not like someone that's really
invested i suppose like myself into like social media sort of the back end of social media and
how algorithms work and how to get the most likes and comments and engagement that sort of stuff
so um i mean we had that real
explosion of like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know like you know
at the start i think um but obviously things have have have um the sort of growth has sort of slowed
but um i think that'll pick up towards the middle and the end of the year especially that we're now
i think managing workflow a lot better um and so the engagement in terms of um like our social
media sort of short form is really good but yeah you you've basically been the the caretaker of the
linkedin and the linkedin's been doing really well yeah it's uh it's been interesting to see i i think
uh of course instagram and tiktok more popular than linkedin law students need to you guys need
to get off tiktok and start working on your midterm assignments uh but no linkedin's linkedin's
interesting you get this mix of professionals and law students who are putting themselves out
there looking for jobs um and it's great because we can track our engagement against law societies
against other pages yeah i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know
i think generally speaking we've left most of the law societies in the dust in terms of our
engagement statistics so i think at one point we were up 600 on the sydney uni law society yeah
which is just crazy for a page that you know started four months ago linkedin also really
useful because we can use it as a tool for networking and arranging you know coffee catch-ups
and lunches with people who we want to speak to
um you do just you know have to be careful with making sure that you're you know gaming it right
using the algorithm as you would on instagram and tiktok yeah yeah and that's the other thing
it's like be like each social media platform we're at round four on social media we've got
spotify linkedin tiktok instagram um all of them have different algorithms i mean like look i know
like social media influencers and stuff like know how to game it all the time so you know i'm not
having a cry about the algorithm but it is it is actually very hard to keep track and remember like
okay so like linkedin works best when you're doing things like polls and um tiktok works best when
you're posting a lot um instagram yeah works best when you're posting not as frequently so obviously
there's all these sorts of different um factors that come into play i suppose when managing that
social media side of things so that's definitely been something that yeah we've had to learn and
learn on the fly but um no it's been i think really um like i don't know i'm really proud of
it i suppose the growth and the amount of team work that we've we've had with
um linkedin and everything else i mean um another thing that we've been doing is um employing like
interns so like people basically um uh i mean we're not like on on paper we're like a company
and yes um we have someone sponsor us to pay for like and and they pay for like our subscription
costs but you know our us as as individuals do not make any money whatsoever um and so in fact
we've been doing that for a long time so we've been doing that for a long time so we've been doing
that for a long time so we've been doing that for a long time so we've been doing that for a long time
so um in terms of that it's like well okay how can we set up a mutual relationship between us
where we can i suppose have a little workload taken off us and younger law students first
years can gain really valuable experience so um you know i've got an intern i'm rucha rucha if
you're listening um you're doing doing great this is great work so she helps me with um things like
guests the creating questions for guests and doing bio and sort of doing looking up on sort of guests
videos and um that sort of thing um also got hazel that does sort of a bit of social media
stuff and you know these people that they work you know one hour a week if even um and um they
they just add um a little bit to us and hopefully we're able to help them and um you know i think
it's really interesting um to see that as well to see to see that growth i mean um usually i think
these um the market in terms of law students has all has been so dominated by law firms in
wanting that paralegal job and that sort of stuff but there's also such there's such great
experience elsewhere i mean like yes i think the australian law student brand itself is sort of a
bit of an alternative to law societies but um um if you're i suppose if you're listening to us
obviously get involved with us but if you have i don't know i suppose the people that aren't
listening to us um if they're a part of a law society it's a great opportunity i think to be
a part of um in terms of volunteering and and getting involved in that sort of stuff so just
um uh the social director for our college our residential college that was great experience so
there's so many other great experiences that you can get that law firms look so favorably upon
um in when it comes to it so yeah like that's that that's been really i think awesome we're
having the little um having a little intern program as well and um it's kind of weird like
you went in for an interview um for a job and they talked to you about um talked to you about
like oh they're employing like managing interns and stuff like that like it is very
i think for any any person really not just law students to have managerial skills um now i say
that like as if it's like a really big thing obviously it's like we conducted like little
interviews and that sort of stuff which is um which was tricky i suppose um asking the right
questions and you feel definitely feel a bit weird because it's like you're so used to being
on the other end of being the employee employee rather than the employer i suppose um in this
instance you're just sort of vetting um people like you know do they have um you know do they
understand the law um and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and
and that sort of stuff so um yeah i don't know that's been a really interesting experience as
well yeah the the interns have been great it's a it's a privilege to be able to interview and
take on the interns i think because they have a lot of license to contribute we're such a small
platform uh and they can really get out of it what they put in so uh we've got four interns at
the moment which is um
a little bit alarming because six months ago it was you and i working on this in
a residential college bedroom and now there's four um four partners a corporate sponsorship
and four interns yeah yeah uh so that all came about really quickly yeah uh but yes i when i was
interviewing with a firm they did ask me about the
um experience that we've had with our interns and you forget i think because we're all so busy
the um skills that we've developed yeah during this process from
uh posting the ad to vetting candidates interviewing uh of course by that point
you've decided on the kind of person you do or don't want to take on as an intern
uh onboarding them delegating work to them
settling their work letting them post their work
uh and then the whole cycle rinses and repeats of course you're checking in with
the other partners about um you know if their interns are at capacity or not how the interns
can work together at the moment hazel's helping me with
planning a social event so that will be announced soon we're excited about that
our um i suppose we're actually looking to sort of do in physical stuff like and that that's
definitely a big a big process part of it well that's where we're going i think i mean our
community now is fairly sizable yeah yeah so we're in a position uh where we can start to offer
in-person events uh and you know i should
think that by the end of you know this this year at least we will have had probably two
two events uh and hopefully something with one of our our partner firms um but that's going to be a
great way for our members to start leveraging the the community more i think uh of course the past
six months we've we've been online only um and uh that'll be where the
the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
rubber hits the road i think for um us because of course we are we operate on a different model to
the conventional law societies um law students from any university can um become a member and
access our services and so i should think that you know there there will be naturally more
opportunities for law students to network at our events um we're in sydney at the moment there's
no reason to think that
um you know we won't be expanding to i would assume first it would be melbourne and probably
um brisbane yeah yeah newcastle maybe uh but it won't just be you know sydney uni law students
are confined to the events that the sydney uni law society puts on um i think that's a bit outdated
um maybe that's just because we're new south sydney
students but uh we did have to update the rankings yeah yeah recently which is something that uh we
might get jason to talk about yeah yeah yeah i mean i suppose like to talking about that shift as well
it's just been real i mean just noticing that entire thing it's just so it is very surreal i
suppose like um there are i mean yeah look obviously we say as new south students and stuff
like that but um obviously we have friends at different law schools and um i think it's it's
really good um to really try and um you know i think it's it's really good um to really try and
i suppose break down the the traditional um law society model of only catering to your own
students um i think when you look at it why aren't we working together um and if the look i mean
it is hard because um i suppose with employers and and whatever else the employers will say
like we'll obviously look at different universities in different ways but
i mean like you said for example very traditional um uh university that has a reputation of academic
excellence and and a very robust education and whatever else but i think more and more like yes
those those views and stuff are still being held and whatever else but more and more that's slowly
starting to i think erode where um people you know you go into top law firms and you see a lot more
people from other unis a lot more people and from a from broad array of unis um especially in sydney
state people coming um over and stuff like that a lot more as well which is a bit a bit strange i
went to a i went to an event at a big law firm and um yeah people from canberra were there i was like
oh i completely forgot that if you want to do like corporate law in canberra you're probably
coming up to sydney um uh shout out to all the canberra fans we've got an intern from canberra
so yeah um yeah it's it's good it's good i think um to have that and just having these in-person
events like i don't know how we're gonna i suppose manage that um if in terms of i don't know how we're
going to get it done but we'll just have to see how it goes um but i think um you know we've got there's
been lots of opportunities that we've had in the other states and whatever else i mean look we'll
just play it by ear and we'll just take a look look at it um as opportunities present themselves
um yeah but i think right now nick and i have a couple of years left just yet in our law degree
so we're still australian law students um for the time being um and i suppose looking into the future
um yeah we're obviously looking on for for more people um to take on and to and to really um
truly make this a platform that people can use and people can use for the long term um you know
there are several predecessors i think um we've done like a little bit of i suppose market research
and looking at stuff like that um there are sort of old older um sort of australian law student
like platforms i think but i think um if we're able to um really focus on the younger generations
and and pass it on then um that would be a really good and amazing long-standing mark and
um yeah i think for us as well it's just about broadening um everyone else's horizons um you
know with daphne fong that she was able to put us in contact with some writers from the lawyers
weekly um um which is a publication service probably i reckon lawyers probably read the afr
the most and then uh lawyers week is probably up there is probably like the second or or um
definitely top five i think um so yeah i mean they sponsor all the law awards and whatever else but
yeah i think with on that note as well being able to contribute sort of um potentially writing an
article for them so potentially contributing into the into the wider sort of legal space as well
i think is just really really awesome um and so yeah it's just it's just been an amazing journey
thus far and um i think looking into the future there are big things yes we've got these
physical in-person events we've got growth on social media and podcasting we've got um
yeah hopefully bigger and better guests um what we do we do we do have bigger and better
guests coming out um obviously not that's um obviously i guess this this season as well has
just been amazing um you know it can't be any can't be any more grateful for their contributions
as well and being able to sit down and ask questions and really gain a valuable understanding
of how the law works so um yeah i suppose looking into the future there's there's great things on
the horizon so yeah do you have anything else to add nick closing remarks uh not other than keep
eyes peeled for the last podcast guest yeah yeah yeah it is a doozy it is an amazing podcast guest
um uh with humic dermot the other the well probably just bought it there but i was going to say with
the humic dermot i was um uh invited um very gratefully grateful for that invited to parliament
house in new south wales to do a conducting interview there and let's just say with this
one i was also invited back to parliament house um and i had got to sit in the lovely jubilee
room and interview a uh very very special guest so uh yeah stay tuned for that um next week and um
yeah thank you for listening to a bit of a different episode um and uh yeah we'll see you
um later and so nick um as i sign off with most of my guests um thank you for joining me and uh
best of luck for the rest of the year thanks ollie