Jocelyn Milne and Georgia Hagias

The practice

Each year when a new cohort of students arrives at the Flinders University Law School Legal Advice Clinic, Jocelyn Milne notices a rapid change.

“The first weeks of every semester we have students come in and want to tell the client what the law is,” Ms Milne said.

“I don’t know any client who wants to know what the law is – they want to know what the solution is to their problem, and so we work with the students on how to best deal with a wide range of clients.”

The clinic is staffed by students from second to fifth year and supervised by qualified solicitors to ensure the advice imparted is as good as advice available from conventional commercial firms. The difference is the staff are student interns learning the ropes and the clients get free legal advice for all manner of issues.

Clinic manager, Ms Milne, said students were required to behave like a qualified lawyer – dressing like lawyers, keeping cases moving, maintaining time sheets and meeting clients’ needs.

“The disconnect between academic learning and practical experience is enormous in any field but certainly in law, so giving students the chance to develop practical legal skills as part of their degree is really important,” Ms Milne said.

Fifth year Law and International Studies student Georgia Hagias has completed an impressive range of internships, but said the experience at the clinic had still been a real eye opener.

“I’m really shocked and surprised by how much I’ve learned at the clinic,” Ms Hagias said.

“There are a lot of challenges in encountering things you have never come across before, but the skills I have learned will be really important for my next job.”