President’s Message: Getting practical about preparing lawyers for practice
17 September 2026
Being a lawyer is a great privilege. But it carries weighty responsibilities too. Understanding our role, meeting our ethical and professional obligations, and being ready to serve our clients and the community to the best of our ability demands rigorous education and training.
Equipping lawyers for practice has a long and storied history, dating back to the 14th century when institutional training in the common law was undertaken in England through the Inns of Court and Chancery.
Naturally, the way we train our profession has evolved considerably since then.
In Australia, rules for entry into the profession in Australia were established in 1825, requiring five years’ service as an articled clerk to a qualified practitioner before admission.
This system of admission and legal training endured – despite significant flaws – well into the early 20th century.
By the 1960s, a new approach was emerging: one in which practical experience followed a period of formal education.
The Martin Report on the future of tertiary education in Australia, released in 1964, put it well: “By shaping their courses towards the inculcation of skills as well as towards the acquisition of knowledge, by providing practical exercises through moot court work and legal aid clinics, law schools can introduce their students to law as the mastery of an art as well as to law as a body of knowledge.
“…the study of law involves the acquisition of skills as well as of knowledge. That is so because the law, insofar as it is a science, is an applied science. lts rules “live” only in their application. For this and other reasons university law schools, so long at least as their work is thought of at all as education for the legal profession, must be concerned with the inculcation of skills to some extent.”
The 1970s heralded a shift from the articled clerkship model to practical legal training (PLT) as we know it today.
That shift produced a more equitable system for preparing lawyers for practice. But no system is perfect, and none should be immune from regular evaluation and renewal.
That is why a review of PLT — led by the Legal Services Council (LSC) Admission Committee and Law Admissions Consultative Committee (the Committees) — is now underway, responding to concerns about the length and cost of PLT, and whether it properly prepares graduates for legal practice.
The Law Council agrees that the time is right to consider reform of PLT’s design, delivery and regulation. But this is a complex undertaking, and one that demands careful consideration.
Any changes must improve quality, strengthen ethical competence and better align training with contemporary legal practice — while preserving accessibility to admission and protecting consumers of legal services. It is not an easy balance to strike.
In our submission, we set out five principles we believe should guide any reform. We continue to refine and test these as the review progresses.
Chief among them is this: broad national consistency is critical to the integrity of our national legal profession. A truly national profession depends on the mobility of graduates and lawyers and supports access to justice regardless of where people live. Without a broadly consistent approach to PLT, we risk disparities in training quality, regulatory expectations and admission criteria — undermining the coherent, nationally recognised legal profession we have worked so hard to build.
In principle, the Law Council supports many of the changes under consideration, including:
- better integration of practical skills into university law courses;
- a redesign of the skills and competency framework; and
- enhancement frameworks for workplace experience and supervised practice.
As a next step, the Committees will hold a National PLT Consultation Conference in November, bringing together stakeholders from across the legal profession, law schools, PLT providers, admitting authorities and regulators.
In the lead up, six LSC-led working groups have been convened to examine key policy issues and reform options ahead of the conference, covering:
- Mapping practical skills
- Potential changes to law courses
- Potential changes to PLT
- Introduction of post-admission legal training
- Supervision
- Possible models for reform.
The Law Council has nominated members of the profession to each working group, and I sit on two of them myself.
We are working closely with our Constituent bodies to further develop the views of the legal profession and ensure they are heard throughout this process.
The overarching goal must be to produce competent, skilled lawyers who are ready to represent their clients— and to serve the community with the judgment and integrity our profession demands.
Tania Wolff
President
Law Council of Australia
Last Updated on 17/09/2026