Bachelor of Laws (Honours), Bachelor of Psychology

This is a five-year double degree that puts two demanding disciplines side by side. You study the full law curriculum, contracts, torts, criminal law, constitutional law, property, equity, evidence, administrative law and procedure, and the full psychology sequence, which covers brain and behaviour, developmental and social psychology, personality, research methods and statistics, and the psychology of mental health. Because it is an honours degree, you finish with a research component in both halves: a law honours thesis and a psychology research project, each supervised by an academic in the relevant school.

Australian bachelor honours degrees normally run four years, but a double degree stretches the load across five. The year is split into semesters, and you enrol in units of study, each worth a set number of credit points. You need a set total of credit points to graduate, and the two degrees are interleaved rather than done one after the other, so you are taking law and psychology units in the same years. The final year is where the honours work sits: a substantial research thesis in law and a psychology research project, usually empirical, run through the school's research methods training.

The law side of the degree is built around the subjects the profession requires for admission. In Australia, that means the Priestley 11 areas of legal knowledge, and law schools also build in practical legal training or clinical work, community legal centres, court placements, legal aid, or industry placements with firms and government agencies. The psychology side gives you the scientific grounding in human behaviour that sits behind legal work: how memory actually works, how witnesses can be wrong, how people make decisions under pressure, how mental state is assessed. You also learn to run and read research, which is what the honours thesis tests. Work-integrated learning is a normal part of both halves, and the psychology degree is structured so that graduates can apply for provisional registration as a psychologist if they continue into further accredited study.

This degree suits someone who wants to practise law but is genuinely interested in why people do what they do, criminal law, family law, mental health law, policy, advocacy, or research on legal decision-making. It also suits students who want options: the psychology half opens paths into clinical or organisational psychology, and the law half opens the path to legal practice. Entry is competitive, and the workload is heavy across five years, so it rewards people who can handle two reading-heavy disciplines at once. International applicants need to meet the university's English requirement, and law sits at the higher end of the published range, so check the current requirement for this course before applying. The Student visa also has its own English threshold set by the Department of Home Affairs, separate from the university's. Tuition is published on the CRICOS register under course code 117412H. Confirm the full details, entry requirements, credit points, placement arrangements and fees, on the official course page.

• Solicitor or barrister, after completing the degree and the practical legal training required for admission in an Australian state or territory.
• Criminal law and prosecution, working with legal aid commissions, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, or criminal defence firms.
• Family law, a field where an understanding of psychology, family dynamics and mental health is directly useful.
• Mental health and disability law, advocacy and legal work involving guardianship, capacity, and treatment decisions.
• Policy and government, state and federal departments, law reform bodies, and human rights or anti-discrimination agencies.
• Psychology, graduates can apply for provisional registration and, after further accredited study and supervised practice, work as a registered psychologist in clinical, forensic, organisational or educational settings.
• Research, universities, research institutes and policy bodies that study legal decision-making, eyewitness memory, and the intersection of law and behaviour.
• Compliance, mediation and dispute resolution, banks, insurers, regulators and private mediation practices.

Graduates of Australian bachelor degrees may be eligible for the Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) post-study work stream, which allows temporary work in Australia after graduation. While studying, a Student visa generally allows work of up to 48 hours per fortnight during term. Check current visa conditions with the Department of Home Affairs.