Bachelor of Laws

The Bachelor of Laws at the University of Tasmania is a 3.5-year degree that gets you to the point where you can apply for admission as a legal practitioner in Australia. It's an undergraduate law degree, so you can enter straight from Year 12 or after some tertiary study. The extra half-year compared with a standard three-year bachelor is common for law, there's more to fit in, and the degree is structured around the subjects the profession requires.

How the degree is structured

Australian law degrees are built from units of study, each carrying a set number of credit points. You accumulate credit points across semesters until you meet the requirements for the award. At UTAS the law faculty runs on a semester calendar, with most units taught at the Sandy Bay campus in Hobart and some available at the Newnham campus in Launceston or by distance. The core covers the areas every Australian law graduate needs: contracts, torts, criminal law and procedure, property, equity, constitutional law, administrative law, evidence, civil procedure, corporations law and legal ethics. You then choose electives from areas like family law, environmental law, international law, human rights, commercial law or criminology, depending on what the faculty offers in a given year.

Practical legal training and the capstone

Law is a field where work-integrated learning matters, and UTAS builds it into the degree. You'll typically complete a legal practice or professional experience unit that places you with a law firm, community legal centre, government department or in-house legal team. That placement is where you find out what solicitors actually do all day, client interviews, file notes, research memos, court lists. Many students also take part in the mooting programme and the university's community legal education clinics. The degree usually finishes with a capstone unit that pulls together the doctrinal, ethical and practical threads of the course, often through a substantial research or advocacy project.

Skills you build

You learn to read a case and work out what it actually decides. You learn to find the relevant statute, check whether it's in force, and apply it to facts that don't fit neatly. You write advice that a client or a partner can act on. You argue a position and then argue the other side. You manage a file, meet a deadline, and keep your professional obligations straight. Those skills transfer well beyond legal practice, into policy, compliance, industrial relations, journalism and business.

Who it suits

This degree suits school leavers with strong reading and writing habits, and mature-age students changing careers. It also suits people who want to practise in Tasmania or regional Australia, where the profession is smaller and graduates often get court exposure early. If you're an international student, note that the English requirement for law is higher than for most undergraduate degrees, IELTS Academic 7.0 to 7.5 overall is the usual standard for law at Australian universities, with TOEFL iBT, PTE Academic and Cambridge C1 Advanced accepted as equivalents. The Department of Home Affairs also sets its own English threshold for the Student visa, which is separate from the university's. While you study you can work up to 48 hours per fortnight once your course has started, and after you finish you may be eligible for the Temporary Graduate visa (subclass 485) post-study work stream. Check the official UTAS course page and the CRICOS register for current details on units, fees and intake dates.

• Solicitor, in private firms, community legal centres or government legal offices across Australia; graduates complete practical legal training and apply for admission to the Supreme Court of the relevant state or territory.
• Barrister, after further study and reading with a senior barrister; the independent bar handles advocacy in courts and tribunals.
• In-house counsel or legal officer, banks, insurers, mining and energy companies, hospitals, universities and local councils all employ law graduates to manage contracts, compliance and disputes.
• Policy adviser, in federal and state public service departments, where legal training is valued for statutory interpretation and regulatory design.
• Industrial relations or human resources adviser, handling enterprise agreements, unfair dismissal claims and workplace investigations.
• Compliance and risk analyst, in financial services, aged care, education and the public sector, where regulators expect detailed knowledge of the law.
• Legal researcher or associate, supporting judges, royal commissions, law reform bodies and parliamentary committees.
• Journalist or editor, legal affairs reporting and specialist publishing draw on the same skills of research, analysis and clear writing.