By Elisha Rose
Imagine trying to practise law today using a mobile phone from the 1990s. Technically, it still makes calls. But it cannot handle email, it cannot run the apps you need and it certainly cannot keep up with the demands of a modern workplace. You would be clinging to a tool that once worked but is now hopelessly out of step with reality.
That, in essence, is the problem with Practical Legal Training (PLT) in Australia. The rules that govern it were drafted in the 1990s according to some academics, lightly revised in 2017 and have barely shifted since. Providers like Piddington are bound to them. They dictate what must be taught, how it must be assessed and when it can be delivered. On paper it looks like a comprehensive framework. In practice, it is a straitjacket.
The result is a one-size-fits-all model that forces every graduate, regardless of their experience or career path, through the same hoops. A graduate with years of paralegal experience must still clock up mandatory “work experience” hours. Everyone must spend months of requirements that may have little to do with the roles they are about to step into. PLT should not be an expensive and time-draining hoop to jump through, it should be the bridge that takes graduates into practice with confidence, competence and collegiality.
Day-one capability is not something that magically appears when a graduate is admitted. The irony is that graduates today need more support, not less. They are entering a profession that is more complex, more technological and more demanding than the one their law lecturers were admitted into, if they were ever admitted that is. Clients expect instant access and empathy. Workplaces expect new lawyers to contribute from day one. The old model, where the rules assume sameness, freeze content and measure competence in classroom hours, gives them neither the support nor the skills they actually need.
PLT providers have been increasingly in the spotlight with the calls for reform now coming from one of the most senior Judges in Australia. More recently, an eye watering 179-page Discussion Paper has been released by the Legal Profession Admission Board of New South Wales proposing various pathways for PLT.
Criticism of PLT is not new. Graduates call it repetitive and expensive. Employers grumble that it doesn’t prepare juniors for the realities of practice. Judges worry that ethical foundations are being lost. But the problem is not simply with providers; it is the regulatory architecture itself. The Law Admissions Consultative Committee Competency Standards are enforced as immovable, with little scope for updating or flexibility. Providers are locked into delivering the same content, in the same way, decade after decade.
Other jurisdictions have shown there are other ways. The UK’s Solicitors Qualifying Examination allows competence to be demonstrated more flexibly (but it costs over $9,000 AUD to do the exam and the preparation courses range from $14,000 to $37,000 AUD). New Zealand’s Professional Legal Studies course integrates practical skills such as negotiation, mediation and office management in ways that reflect the actual practice of law. These frameworks are far from perfect, but they demonstrate a regulatory mindset that accepts training must evolve. By contrast, Australia’s rules are frozen, with graduates and clients, paying the price.
Western Australia has the chance to do better. Reform is not about making life easier for students. It is about making the profession stronger by giving graduates the right support at the right time. That means a regulatory architecture that is modern, flexible and reviewed regularly, such as every five years, just as the PLT providers are, so it keeps pace with practice. It means letting providers update courses responsively without a need for re-accrediting their whole program. It means trusting providers to build on the minimum standards, not just tick them off.
Rigour matters. But rigour should mean relevance, not rigidity. A graduate who has been mentored, taught practical skills by practitioners and supported in building confidence is far more valuable to a workplace than one who has merely logged the prescribed hours.
The role of regulation should be to guarantee quality, not to lock the profession into yesterday’s template. Fortunately, the LACC have set a strategic plan for 2025-2026 to review PLT, specifically the “accreditation, competencies and skills and will incorporate issues of cost and quality”. Change appears to be on the horizon at last.
At Piddington, we have always included more in our course delivery; adding pastoral care, mentoring and justice projects that go well beyond the minimum content of the rules. We do this because we know graduates need practical, ethical and personal support to make the leap into practice. But there is only so much any provider can do when the framework itself is static.
The next generation of lawyers deserves a system that recognises the reality they face. More pressures, more complexity, more responsibility earlier in their careers. They need more support, not less. And if the rules prevent us from giving it, then the rules need to change.
We want to ensure new lawyers are the best they can be. A modern regulatory environment is essential for that.
