S1 E1 Exploring A New Defamation Defence Edelman_S Annoyed And Reflections On Law School Thus Far

Hello everyone, this is the Australian Law Student Podcast, the first iteration of hopefully a very long series of podcasts.

My name's Oliver, I'm one of the co-founders of the Australian Law Student here with Alex, my good friend, and recently welcomed us into the partnership.

Yeah, the AusLaw Student is run by law students for law students, and so we started a podcast, and basically the entire idea of the podcast is going to be

firstly, there's going to be a segment on legal news over the week, and so hopefully that's accessible for you law students to know what's going on around Australia in terms of legal news.

And then after that, we will do a special topic each podcast, and that will be kind of the main meat of the podcast this first episode.

Alex and I thought that we'd just do some quick reflections on law school, and so, yeah, I mean, Alex, you want to say hello to everyone watching?

Hello everyone, I'm Alex.

Thank you very much, Ollie, for having me, and it's a pleasure to be here.

It's very exciting that we might have a chance to really present something to law students that is relatable to law students, is accessible to law students, and can hopefully improve their learnings and give them a bit of insight and inspiration outside of law school.

Absolutely, man.

All right, so, well, on that note, we will jump straight into the legal news for last week.

So we'll give you last week's legal news.

And Alex, do you want to start us off?

Yeah, so we're going to start this podcast at least at the start with a bit of legal news at the start, which is always very exciting, Ollie.

So to get straight into it, actually quite an eventful week in legal news.

We had the first ever test of the new public interest defence in defamation law in New South Wales, Section 29A of the Defamation Act, a very exciting act.

This particular defence has been in English common law since 1999.

And was introduced to English statute law in 2013.

Okay.

And then, I believe, into Australia, or New South Wales, rather, law through amendments in 2021.

Okay, okay.

So a little bit behind the ball, New South Wales was, I guess, compared to England, but still on top of it.

So the idea with this defence is the first time that it's been used, and the case was Russell and Australian Broadcasting Company No. 3 in the Federal Court.

Yep.

And the idea that...

Some people have, and I guess it was in the second reading speech as well, was that the English precedent was going to very much inform the Australian and New South Wales use of it.

Yep.

So essentially, in this case, Heston Russell was a former major and commando officer in the ADF, and he initiated proceedings against the ABC.

Yep.

So with the defence, there's two limbs.

There's a subjective limb and an objective limb.

Firstly, the objective.

Okay.

So...

For the defence to be raised, the matter must concern an issue of public interest.

Yeah, yeah.

And then secondly, subjectively, the defendant, in this case ABC, must reasonably believe that the publication of the matter is in the public interest.

Okay.

And so the outcome...

It was deemed that the matter was in the public interest, or rather, the ABC reasonably believed, not reasonably believed, but actually believed that it was in public interest.

Yeah.

So it was with an Australian Defence Force member, or a former member.

Is it sort of along the sort of mainstream, the sort of the main string of Defence Force matters?

Was it having to do with war crimes over...

It was, and the ABC, as we all know, was involved in the Ben Roberts Smith ABC, but Australian media was involved in the Ben Roberts Smith case.

Yeah.

I believe that was Channel 7.

Okay, okay.

And so it was an issue that had been in the spotlight recently.

Yeah.

But this was, I guess, on a separate string to that main Ben Roberts Smith case.

It wasn't adjoined to it at all.

Yeah.

And it was on a different ground of appeal, or ground of defence, really.

Yeah, okay.

Section 29A.

Okay.

So Justice Lee found that although the ABC did believe that it was in the public interest to present this, it was not a reasonable belief.

And so Justice Lee applied the English precedent in deciding that...

Okay.

We need to weigh up the benefits and the cons of really having...

So, in the story that was published.

Yeah, exactly.

And so we have to...

We don't want to place an unreasonable limit on freedom of expression, but we also don't want to...

We also want to encourage publications on issues of public importance.

And so that is something that had to be weighed up, and ultimately the ABC failed, the defence failed,

because...

Because it was not a reasonable belief of the ABC.

Subjectively...

Subjective belief was there, but the objective reasonable person's test was not satisfying.

Oh, okay, okay.

And so it was found that the ABC were found to be liable for defamation.

Yeah.

And damages were made to Heston Russell.

Okay.

Oh, interesting.

Well, moving away from defamation now, Alex...

I will have you know, and you probably already do know, that in Vanderstock and Victoria, a High Court case,

handed down, I think, two weeks ago, the judgement was,

Section 90 of the Constitution was explored for the first time in, I think, 20 years, at least.

Yeah, right.

Not to say that there's not a lot of precedent on it.

But your constitutional juice is flowing.

Yes, I know.

There is a lot of case law on it, but not in the last 20 years.

And a very interesting way it's come up.

So, people, when they buy petrol, may not know that 48.8 cents in every litre of petrol actually goes straight to the government,

in the form of an excise.

Okay.

And an excise is a duty on consumption, we can think of it as.

Yeah, okay.

And so, just for the viewers, the difference between a duty and like a tax, for example,

in my mind, I view a tax as like an obligation.

So, like, obviously you fill out your tax return, right?

And you're doing that yourself.

So, the onus is essentially on you to go and do that.

Whereas a duty, or in this case, a fuel excise, is essentially a fee.

I guess you could sort of think of it, it's priced into the good.

You cannot buy petrol without paying this duty.

Yeah, yeah, okay, sure, sure, sure.

So long as you're buying it from someone who, an authorised petrol seller.

Yeah.

So, government gets a lot of money, 48.8 cents in the litre.

Currently, say, petrol price is $2 a litre, which is a bit generous at the moment.

That's almost one quarter of your fuel tank goes to the government.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Now, in the last 10 years.

10 years, there's been an interesting development in motor vehicles, and they're called electric vehicles.

I did not know this.

They only, in case you didn't know, they don't use fuel.

Yeah.

Unless they're a hybrid, in which case they do use a bit of fuel.

Okay, okay, sure.

But, for example.

Electric vehicles, Teslas.

Yeah, Teslas, Cupras, they don't use any fuel.

And so, the government gets a bit of a, they don't draw a good deck.

They don't draw a good hand when someone buys an electric vehicle.

Yeah.

Because they're not getting fuel excise out of it.

Of course, of course, yeah.

And so, the Victorian government had an interesting way around that.

And essentially, Section 90 of the Constitution says that only the Commonwealth government can impose excises.

Yep, it's the state government, Victoria, have gone and tried.

So, obviously, so why do Victoria have an interest in excises?

Because the excises that are charged federally, they get redistributed to the states.

Okay, so Victorian, all Victorian fuel consumption and Victorian excises are given to Victoria.

The Victorian government.

Yeah.

Don't quote me on this, but I think it works in a similar way to GST.

Okay, yeah, sure.

Which is collected by the Commonwealth and then it's distributed to states.

Sure, sure, sure.

So, Victoria decided that they wanted to impose their own excise on electric vehicles based on kilometreage.

They call it mileage, but kilometreage, really.

At the rate of 2.8 cents per kilometre travelled by electric vehicles.

So, every kilometre travelled by a Tesla, a Cupra, a BMW i8.

Yeah.

Would have to pay 2.8 cents in the kilometre in the form of an excise.

Okay, okay, sure.

And in a 4 to 3 majority decision, it was ruled that this excise was not constitutional.

Controversial.

It was struck down.

Yeah, okay.

And this overturned some significant precedent.

Sure.

On the issue.

And the length of that precedent and how far back that precedent goes was duly pointed

out by our favourite Justice Edelman.

Yeah, Justice Edelman.

For those who don't know.

If you don't know James Edelman, we like a bit of James Edelman.

He's a young gun.

We'll go into him in some depth at a later stage.

But if you don't know James Edelman, definitely look him up.

He's a good judge.

Yeah.

It depends who you ask.

No, no, no.

Yes, seriously.

He will likely be a Chief Justice one day.

I mean, he's the youngest on the bench at the moment.

He was the youngest appointed, I think, since Owen Dixon.

So, yeah, he's going to be there for a long time.

But anyway, so go on about his decision.

Speaking of Owen Dixon, so in his dissenting judgement, Justice Edelman points out that,

he points out, Justice Edelman dissented and basically said that it was constitutional.

Okay, okay.

And he followed 21 justices.

He named 21 justices.

He did.

And 21 instances of times in precedent where such a case was decided the other way.

And Dixon was noted twice, both as Justice and Chief Justice.

So, and that quote from Justice Edelman, I won't read it all out because in the interest

of time.

He says,

This just goes on and on.

And it goes on.

And he says,

So, very interesting approach.

Is he having a bit of a laugh?

He's having a bit of a laugh.

And I think he's...

He's probably a little bit pissed off at the other justices as well.

Well, it was a monster judgement.

It was a monster judgement.

I mean, this is paragraph 651 and my computer says I'm halfway down.

How many footnotes were there?

We're in the 1500s already.

Yeah.

It was a crazy long judgement.

And I saw something on LinkedIn.

I'm sorry.

I can't remember who it was.

But someone said, I'm sure Justice Edelman's associate had a great time putting this together.

I mean, for those who don't know, the justices' associates, they have to get like a HDWAM

and everything.

Especially the high court level.

Yeah, especially the high court level.

Yeah, they have to be pretty crazy students.

And I mean, they're getting there.

They're definitely putting their work in for...

Oh, yeah.

They're earning their money.

At least a $50 footnote judgement.

Yeah.

Oh, well.

Okay.

Well, very interesting.

But...

Thank you.

Yeah.

So, just touching back on Victoria.

So, Victoria, in essence, would have...

It would have been worse off for an EV driver in Victoria.

Well, I guess this is a matter of economics.

Would you use your car more?

Petrol car, 48.8 cents in the litre.

Yeah.

Or would you use your electric car more?

Yeah.

Electric vehicle more, 2.8 cents in the kilometre.

So look, I'm not gonna do the maths now and try to add that up.

I'm sure there are probably arguments that you would end up worse off in the long run.

Sure.

But if you had a car, if you had an electric car in New South Wales, you wouldn't pay that?

Oh, well, yes.

As compared to other jurisdictions, yes.

No.

And that's a part of the reason.

That's really interesting.

And so, I mean, obviously, there's talk about sort of electric vehicles being sort of like

the new way for climate change and that sort of thing.

I mean, not, I mean, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

The sort of new, yeah.

Wave forward.

Yeah.

forward um wouldn't that essentially dissuade that i mean especially from other jurisdictions

i mean it's a bit yeah it is that is a policy consideration and if a policy like this is to be

is to be put in i don't i rightly think it should be the commonwealth to to do something like this

it's a commonwealth issue i mean per section 90 of the constitution okay and you go back

matter of my opinion yeah sure sure what the politicians do with the politics eh

all right well speaking of victoria we're gonna go and and stay with them um court service victoria

has been fined for just under three hundred and eighty thousand dollars um for what was described

as rampant misconduct within the coroner's court um yeah a bench essentially the the the the work

um place conditions were just awful um workers said that they were subject to bullying favoritism

verbal abuse derogatory comments intimidation invasion of privacy and perceived threats to

their career progression um and this investigation came after tragically

a worker actually committed um suicide um and so look it it has to be said that that this um seems

like a a good decision um that they've been fined um and it shows you that if um the law in some

areas is still um i suppose of the of the old world um victoria um i'm from victoria for those

who don't know um a state i think that is kind of um champion for their sort of work um place

regulations i think and and and sort of emphasis on on um on the on the um people on the workplace

and the employee and um i mean it's good that it's been found out obviously i mean who knows

what's happening in new south wales but um yeah i think um overall it's a it's it's obviously a

good a good a good finding but yeah it's it's still tragic that this stuff is still going on

um this sort of um overworking it's a it's a topical point in the legal industry um i

read an article uh probably a month maybe two months ago now from jane jaggo the high court

justice um talking about workplace culture in law and giving some tips to employers about how

to improve workplace culture maybe this is something we can talk about in another episode

yeah um but she very esteemed lawyer obviously um she she outlined some pretty horrific experiences

she had both experienced herself yeah um and seeing others perpetuate onto younger solicitors

because

i think there is some sort of sense amongst some cultures um that well i experienced it

you should have to go through it too yeah um uh but yeah very interesting read and i would

encourage maybe we can put it in the link this video but we should encourage um our listeners

to have a read of that article very interesting yeah yeah absolutely and i think it um i think

it just highlights that it's um it's it there is a balance i mean obviously as as law students you

you've got to have some acceptance you're going to be working hard yeah and you are going you're

you're going into an occupation that is that is pretty 24 7 you know around the clock um and i mean

you'll understand that in law school with the sort of assessments that you're doing and the

amount of pressure that's going on um however there is a line and i think that that line um

is is thank goodness more and more being drawn in the sand um where yes there is that level of

competitiveness and um high pressure and um high performance but there needs to be that

balance where that doesn't turn into workplace abuse and um yeah it doesn't turn into really bad

practices where you don't have a sense of community in your law firms and so yeah just be i suppose

wary of that and i think um that goes on to our final yeah news topic um so hwl hwl ebsworth um

law firm that we've actually covered in our tiktok and instagram um very notable law firm um in back

and we've been hearing about data breaches left right and center from governments to companies

and that sort of thing um and so i've done a little bit of research into the data breach they

lost over 2.5 million documents in this documents they lost or well there's also yeah they were

breached they were breached they didn't lose them yeah um they're slowly still there but yes they

were breached and so um it's um now but what what's why this is sort of more relevant is that

um the um australian um federal police have released something saying that um

um there's some highly sensitive information on 16 afp offices that um yeah apparently it's quite

compromising information i haven't gone looked it up it's a dark web or something but um yeah i mean

and and so what's interesting is the the hacking group um black cat or um noberius also is what

they're called um you know for all intents and purposes they sound like a very bad crew but

they've got a cool name um they've hacked into companies like swissport reddit mgm resort solar

industries india florida university um i don't know

they apparently hacked the entire city of alexandria in greece yeah right so i don't

know how they've done that what a city target yeah i know i know very very interesting but um

they essentially attack companies and they steal well they breach their data and say that um if you

don't pay us we'll um release your data onto the dark web and so it's it's what's called ransomware

um and i've essentially called them internet terrorists i don't know they're taking

essentially taking information as hostage and then i'm demanding money

it's only an issue that's going to become bigger yeah exactly in the future we saw it last year with

optus which is massive yeah optus is a big one um there needs to be more onus on companies yeah to

ensure that their data is safe yeah i mean the instance of optus there was some significant

concerns as to how safe that data actually was um there there needs to be a bit more uh i think

needs to be a bit more regulation in this space yeah and i think the government's going to have to do that

i think the government is working on it yeah um and it will take time to get it right but you also

have to remember not many people understand this stuff i don't understand it yeah i'm assuming you

ollie don't understand a little bit you understand a little bit well you're a smart man to me because

i don't understand it at all um and so we we really need expert um opinions and expert input

on this because i'm i can guarantee you most of the people sitting in parliament probably don't

have much experience yeah i mean the the digital the digital side of things is really important i

think i think what we're seeing is kind of i mean suppose back in the early 1900s and stuff

you've got these drug smugglers and other criminals which are sort of making a lot of money and then

slowly but surely the government's starting to regulate it and stamp it out i mean you've got

this sort of um internet form of crime where you've got things like information and stuff like

that being hacked into and leaked and people's passwords and email addresses and locations and

all that sort of stuff and so um yeah it's only going to become more and more relevant but um

yeah i think that's all the news for today yeah

i think um yeah i think we're gonna move on move on um but just before that we're gonna have a quick

break thank you for listening to the australian law student podcast if you could support us by

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to our website to see more of our content now back to your host ollie and alex all right and we're

back for the second segment of the australian law students debut podcast uh the special topic and

we're doing reflections on law school we thought that'd be a good topic to just get started in

um yeah i think um alex tell us a bit about your background you went to high school in sydney

yes i'm from sydney originally uh from the city i'm like ollie so a bit of a city slicker ollie

will have you know uh i didn't always know that i wanted to do law it wasn't until late in year 12

that i that i realized i i want to do law and even then i wasn't 100 sure uh the first term my first

term of law i wasn't a massive fan of after my first term and you do hear a lot about the rate

of dropouts in law it's very high especially after the first term um i did consider i thought

is this for me could i do another degree because i had interests in other in other fields that i

wasn't studying um and i thought i'll stick it out for one more term and i'm glad i did because that

term we did torts yeah and i really enjoyed torts um it felt like i was doing real law um and it it

felt like more like what i had expected it to be it felt more tangible so would you say um so for

the law students are listening or perhaps new students getting into it so would you say that

the first term for you because it's sort of introductory courses that didn't really feel

like um sort of real tangible stuff like yeah and everyone has different opinions on this a lot of

people prefer a lot of the um theoretical side of law other people prefer the tangible application

of the law

um i am one who prefers to apply the law rather than uh read about theories of the law but

completely understandable the opposite perspective yeah um and every uni does it differently so at

least at our uni uh we had an introductory lesson into law i'm sorry subject into law for the first

term but for example i have a friend at western sydney university uh and he has studied in his

first term he studied multiple subjects um that are real um priestly 11 subjects yeah i don't know

contracts was one of them probably not in the first term but he's at least on contracts whereas

we ollie and i uh we'll be going to our third year and we'll only be doing contracts in our third year

we had a course that had private law and contracts a part of it but in terms of the sole study of

contracts we're only doing that next year yeah and so did you want to talk about um the priestly 11

for those who don't know yeah so or if you ask me to name every subject i'm not going to be able to

but the priestly 11 at the core 11 subjects that every law student in australia must complete in

to be qualified essentially to have a qualified law degree okay so every law student every rather

law school in australia will offer the priestly and so they're essentially the base for um good

legal understanding to be a good lawyer you've got to know it's sort of basic contracts contracts

criminal war you know yeah yeah yeah so contracts criminal law torts ethics uh federal constitutional

law equities and trust i mean we can admin equity and then civil procedure yeah yeah yeah so yeah

the core 11 um and so when when you started that and you thought yeah this is it like this is when

i was a lot better yeah when i studied torts i felt that i was more comfortable in my decision

and i'm glad i stuck with it but that's a part of the experience for law students yeah and that's a

part of the experience in really any degree um you might not love it to start with and depending on

who you are you might you might want to jump out of it then yeah um but for other people who want

to stick with it um it can be quite rewarding and if if you know it's not for you then there's no

you're not passionate about writing reading understanding reasoning yep uh it's probably

not for you and it is hard it's a very hard degree to get through if you're not passionate about it

do you think though that um i mean we we have friends that um do sort of commerce um and other

degrees um people who want to get into politics um people want to go into yeah big business and

that sort of thing they perhaps won't utilize their law degree to the best of it to be a lawyer

there's still some real benefit i suppose in doing a law degree in those instances

i mean do you think that um those people um kind of view law as just the sort of secondary degree

that they need to get through is that how you do it i don't think people i don't people i don't

think people view it that way i think the amount of work that you have to put into a law degree

necessitates that you don't view it as a as a second degree or um something that you just do it

has to be something that you um it takes up a big part of your life yeah um for people who don't want

um there are plenty of great options outside of the law that a law degree can help you get into

i mean so with that we we both go to unsw um and it's with it's common amongst most of the um go8

unis and and across australia uh it's usually compulsory to do a double degree with your

bachelor's if you're doing an llb um with law um and so yeah with that in mind i think people um

it gives you more

sort of breadth um to do um or to be ready for another um career and i think that that's a really

important thing and the law um in in a lot of ways is really the perfect medium for um it really

underpins a lot of things i mean you i know people who do law and psych law and engineering and you

think that like i remember hearing that in first term i was like law and engineering far out but

you'd be surprised because these law and engineering guys and girls they can become

consultants they can yeah um

become advisory to government and and i think that's a really um important thing that's overlooked

um and so you can actually pair it with degrees you wouldn't think and so so you would say

obviously most law students would study either arts or commerce as their second degree yeah

would you would you say that there's not necessarily any best or worst degree to

pair with it would you say that all degrees have their merits because i i believe that

this is this is my ollie's opinion i think personally for me i really enjoy coming here

commerce and commerce or business if your law school offers commerce or business that's really

good and i think if you're looking to get into law per se you should really take a look at doing

commerce or business even if you don't have a math background i don't have a math background

or anything like that but i think that it rounds you really well to understand the sort of

practicalities of law and i think obviously though the arts law i mean we don't have any

arts law students um right here right now so i'm sorry sorry they're not here to defend themselves

but um for me i i think i think if you're looking to do arts law you um you do become an expert i

think in being able to articulate yourself probably better you can probably understand

legal reasoning and legal rationale um better um but i think with business it's really good

because i i enjoy applying it and i enjoy taking the legal theory from law

um and then looking at business and then being kind of um like oh yeah like the law subject that

i did whether it be contracts or whatever you can see that the transactions occurring in this

in this commercial subject and so there's a lot of overlap where i think the overlap is less

it per se in in in law yeah i would i would question that wally does that really even matter

the overlap because well well you know when you ask you i mean you asked what um what is the best

i mean the metric that i'm using is perhaps overlap and applicability i think i think war

and business is probably the most applicable to each other um that said if it also depends on

the lecture and the course i mean i'm doing a course right now that's that's really theory heavy

um and the law and arts and law and um politics philosophy and economics that those uh that crew

is just like flying because um yeah we're writing research essay and stuff like that you don't

have to be in commerce which i which i imagine doing essays most of the time um but also i like

breaking it up with commerce i think that if i was writing essays all the time for all my subjects

i'd be yeah pretty strong um but yeah interesting ollie uh you you disagree oh i don't disagree but

i will say the new justice of the high court who will be taking his appointment uh just in a few

days really robert beach jones he is a maths i won't say genius because that's a pretty big

word to throw around but he's a maths enjoyer he's a maths lover i don't know if he studied

maths for his degree i assume he may have yeah and many profound judges actually have a background

in maths or science they're right um and i guess it it's the link between the reasoning the

mathematical and logical reasoning skills that apply to law yeah but i think it also just means

it doesn't necessarily matter i mean what degree you do for your other degree so long as you enjoy

it yeah yeah um

because if you have a view of being a lawyer it's not going to matter whether you did commerce or

law maybe it depends on what type of law but you could do commerce and law you could do chemistry

and law still become a lawyer yeah yeah but if you if you have no interest in chemistry you

wouldn't want to study it as a commerce student or vice versa yeah yeah so i think when you're

doing a double degree i think it is very important that you enjoy your other degree so it can be a

bit yeah i mean absolutely you you should absolutely enjoy it um if you're looking into

criminal law and that's the thing that you said i don't know people that do criminal law

criminology and law or psychology and law that's another really important um um distinction there i

mean just do what you want like i know that um the way that i like um to view things at least the way

that the australian law student is somewhat geared um is the corporate side and and the

business side and i think that that's um um best suited for largely with commerce um obviously an

art student can can obviously adapt and be flexible with that but i think um you are probably

just a little bit ahead of the race in terms of job stuff ollie your favorite law subject yeah why

so far so far or in the future so far my favorite law subject um has probably been

crim one okay with yours truly so me and alex took a crim class together crim one

i had an amazing lecturer for that um a criminal procedure it's probably for

for other universities yeah yeah yeah so i mean we had an amazing lecturer he was um

a senior crown prosecutor i think with the um he was with the uh at least was the odp i don't i

think it might have been the state um was the state was the federal i thought it was federal

he did tax matters oh not too sure okay but yeah anyway he was a very very like smart like guy and

he loved to articulate himself and um he spoke very fluently and just did so much um to help us

i think just in general and me and alex um were bouncing ideas off each other there was a there

were alex called uh someone stupid i did not what did you say i can't i don't know what you're

talking about do you remember you stood i think you either stood up or like you were like i'd

politely i'd just i disagree with that person disagree yeah politely but you said in a way

which is very just yeah perhaps but that is a part of being a law student and you have to disagree

with people because not everyone is the same point of view yeah exactly i mean and a lot of it is

quite subjective it's kind of like intellectual jousting like in in a law class like it's

it's um some people will say things that um you can find holes in and i think that that's

important i think um don't feel bad and don't feel sorry because i mean in a normal class right in

high school any other class really if someone said something like a little bit you know they're like

like you wouldn't perhaps want to correct them but i think in law it does it does because i want

that the same to be to be done to me i mean just the other week i was talking and yeah i've been

in class and um they're going through judges and stuff like oh which judge do you agree with and i

agree with um and i think that's important because i think that's important because i think that's

one judge and this other person went and said look politely i just disagree and gave me a list

of reasons and i was like oh we should go get coffee afterwards and then so i went and talked

to them and pushed their ideas and you know you both come away with a lot um it's very interesting

i mean barristers in court can go at each other's throats not not personally but in a legal sense

yeah and still have dinner together afterwards yeah yeah or they're good mates or good good

friends outside yeah um which is part of the beauty of the yeah yeah i think it's the i think

it's with any any sport i don't want to say sport but it is kind of a sport i mean there is a level

of sort of competitive environment yeah yeah competitive environment i mean you look at sort

of um sports players and stuff some of them they can be on opposing teams during the match and

then afterwards they're they're um friends again so yeah i mean that's part of it um yeah so so

crim one i think for me was a really good experience uh my i've got just turning over

my worst was probably torts i remember torts was pretty grim i had a bunch there was a bunch of

the lecturer was pretty was pretty bad i mean look you in law school you really do appreciate

your lecturers and a great lecturer or a good lecturer even will just make your life so much

easier and i think that um if you get one that you connect with um try and find when they're doing

their classes it's like um the crim lecturer that we had he did um criminal procedure and

then substantive um criminal law um he was also teaching but he didn't teach at a later

did he well he did yeah he did teach a former term but everyone knew that he was a good teacher

and so everyone tried to get into his class and there was no slots so anyway ollie if you if you

could tell yourself three things on your first day of law school last year as a fresh student

from warden bull yeah who had never studied the law what are the three tips that you would give

to yourself or any incoming law student for next year yeah or first year law student now or even

second year student or third um i'd say take it slow take um

some time to adapt um realize that this is probably one of the most competitive environments that

you'll ever be in um it is super hyper competitive i think a lot of law students it's the same with a

lot of the very um the very sort of high um bar degrees like med as well often they're like in

those in the engineering even um some of the time most of the time the people like who are

close to um and so i mean i wasn't that and so it um yeah it definitely can take a toll on you if

you're if you're really worried about that and that sort of thing but just take your time um work

as hard as you can and um just see how you get with your marks and you know you you'll you might

surprise yourself and i think that's what happened me and i was pleasantly surprised and so um you

find out more and more that even though it's a really really hyper competitive environment

um you can do um really really well and i think that's what happened to me and i think that's what

if um you just take your time you work hard so that's my first tip take your time

and just work hard second tip um would be sleep i like very underrated but my first year yeah my

first year i didn't um really sleep that well until about halfway through and then i got like

a sleep app um um and like i started to like really track my sleep and try and get like my

eight hours um a night and the difference was just amazing i could wake up in the mornings

and i could do readings and i could do assessments and stuff like that where

um yeah and i don't do coffee or anything so it's um it's a pretty yeah it was pretty it's a pretty

vital thing um and especially if you're going to be a law student you you obviously you know have

some fun on the weekends and whatever else but if you're going to do that and if you're going to um

really perform a really high level you've got to look after yourself you've got to make sure you're

you know you're rested well rested and so that's more like um that's my second tip uh my third tip

my third tip would be

um find some good friends i think that's a cop out yeah hey that's a cop out of it no it is it is

i think it's a good i think it's a good opinion i think a lot of the time as well i mean you come

into law school i think people would come into law school thinking okay you know you you get this

sort of idea of being sort of solo being the sort of i don't know corporate hot shot of a criminal

lawyer who's you know going you know solo and oh the politician or whatever um law school is um is

it is individual i think i think that's really important we've all got to support each other

um i mean these are the people they're going to be in your industry for the next you know 30 40 50

years um and so it's good to get to know people um you can learn a lot from your own weaknesses

by other people because other people might have them as strengths and vice versa and so it is

collaborative i mean obviously don't you know do academic misconduct and share your assessments

um you know find a good group of people to do classes with yeah um you know you'll all benefit

because you're all comfortable talking to each other during you know group work and um you'll

be more comfortable to put your hand up and you know you can bounce ideas off each other and if

one of you have missed the readings that week you can you know go back and um you you can perhaps

rely on the others i mean yeah so i think that's really important find people that you gel with

um um but don't force it either like take your time if you're not

um you know gelling people um really quickly um that's that that's completely fine um yeah you'll

find people along the way just put yourself out there as well you know if you're sitting next to

someone in a class you don't really know so high you know perhaps you know start a conversation

and see where it goes so those are my three tips great ollie and i think i think we might leave it

here but i will finish with one maybe not tip but note of my own yeah and i think the biggest

adjustment for me going into law school was

the writing the writing style yeah um it takes a lot of adjusting to because it's very

concise and it's not the way most year 12s or high school leavers would expect legal writing

to be uh there's no flowery language or at least there shouldn't be

um and so learning the writing style can take a year or two to get to get to get right yeah um so

if you get your first assessment back or your first midterm back or anything yeah

uh and you're not happy with your mark and you see you've been critiqued for your writing style

um you're not concise enough you're struggling with a word count which is something everyone

struggles with yeah don't be disheartened by that because everyone struggles with it and it is one

of the biggest learning curves if not the biggest learning curve of law school yeah and mastering

that is once you get once you get comfortable with it and familiar with it you'll be well on

your way yeah yeah and so you i think you had one q a question as well oh yes so we have one question

yes okay so uh we received a great q a question from eliza thank you eliza i hope i'm saying that

right uh and she oh sorry we can cut it back

hello hello are you sorry it's going over we're almost done

you can't take a seat in the chair you like come listen yeah come listen

we're answering a question lizzy not you're not you came because i had to remember the question was

the difference between JD and LLB

yeah

you can go sit there

hello

how are you

what

oh the hair

yeah

what does that mean

no it's

not what I thought

you made it sound a little worse

you can sit down

alright we're

alright

three

two

one

so yes Eliza

no no no

okay

we'll just give you

a different

okay and so

we've also got a Q&A question

I think

someone sent us

a DM

yes

Eliza

her name was

thank you very much Eliza

I hope I'm saying that right

yes

but Eliza asks

she asks

a little bit differently

but I think

for the purpose of our audience

it's probably the best way

to talk about it

what is the difference

between an LLB and a JD

yeah

because it is not something

that the UK

or the US

really has that difference

the UK really just has

the LLB

yeah

and the US just has the JD

whereas Australia is a little

bit of a fusion

yeah yeah

a bit of fusion

I mean

the JD

is one of the

the JD is one of the

reasons that I actually

came to Sydney

well the fact that

is is that

so the JD

is your postgraduate

qualification for law

your bachelor's

your LLB

is your bachelor

qualification for law

your undergraduate

qualification for law

so the difference is

is that you can essentially

do an LLB

straight out of high school

and you can be qualified

whereas with your JD

you have to do

a bachelor's degree

beforehand

whether that be

arts or business

or psych or whatever

some type of graduate degree

yeah

undergraduate degree

sorry

and then so

in Victoria

the University of Melbourne

only offer

a JD

at the moment

and so

that was one of the main reasons

that I came up

from there

to Sydney

I knew that

yeah

I wanted to do

a bachelor's program

straight out of high school

and so yeah

landed in Sydney

and so that's the main difference

I think

and

they both have

their pros and cons

I mean

if you've already done

an undergraduate degree

go and do a JD

yeah

there's no point doing it

at LLB

but if you're straight out

of high school

and you know you want to do law

go and do

a bachelor's degree

yeah

and so

yeah I think that's the main thing

there is one important thing

to note though

and it's

a point of confusion

are you qualified the same

do you have the same opportunities

and the answer is

in Australia

absolutely yes

in Australia

there are equivalent degrees

just done at different times

in your

tertiary studies

yeah

in America

if you have an

LLB in Australia

it may be hard

to get recognition for that

it may be hard

to get across to them

that you have an equivalent

degree to a JD

so if that is a goal of yours

then that's maybe something

to keep in the very back

of your mind

but it's really

I wouldn't call it

a primary concern

yeah okay

yeah sure sure

and so

yeah I think

one of the other things

I've noticed

is that JD students

because they've had

that extra couple of years

in uni

they're usually

pretty well rounded

yeah

yeah I mean

with the Australian law student

we've had

two undergrads

and two JD students

yeah

part of our team

and yeah

the JD students

usually produce

probably

just from what I've seen

sort of a higher quality

of work

just because

they're used to university

they know how to research

they know how to write

they know how to cite

they know how to

what the lecturers

are looking for

and the assessment criteria

and know how to

hit that on the head

a lot better

and so

I think

when it comes to

employability

you're right

I think in a sense

that in Australia

it's pretty

level

it's a pretty level

playing field

but I think

JD students

can be

more attractive

if they have

just because

if they're able

to score high marks

and have an

undergraduate degree

that the partner's

really well

and because they're older

they're seen as more

more

sort of

perhaps well rounded

I think

but obviously

the trade off is

that you're

spending an extra

three years in uni

or whatever

and so

the LLB

students

they can go straight

out of uni

and then get a job

and start earning

money and start

you know

climbing that

loyal ladder

so

yeah I think

that's the main

difference

with that one

and I think

that's

the last question

I think that's it

so Alex

thank you very much

we will be looking

to make this a weekly thing

so stay tuned

if we get more than

ten listeners

we'll come back

yeah yeah

of course of course

I mean

yeah so if you have

any more questions

if anyone has any more

questions send them in

to us

and we'll look

to answer them

potentially next week

and on that note

we'll see you later

thank you

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