Information for students

Law courses are administered by UTS: Law.

The information provided in this section is an introduction to the full range of information that is available and is not intended to be complete. Students are advised to visit UTS: Law and other UTS websites for more comprehensive information.

Location, contacts and inquiries

UTS: Law is located at City campus, Haymarket. Most academic and administrative staff are located in Building 5, City campus, Haymarket, although some staff are located at Mary Ann House, City campus, and at the Kuring-gai campus, Lindfield.

Detailed directions are available at:

Staff contact details are available from:

Postal address

Student inquiries and course information

UTS Student Centres provide information and assistance to students and the general public, and are the first point of call for all student and course related inquiries, including course progression, information and advice, and interpretation of University rules and regulations.

Faculty structure

The UTS: Law executive is led by the dean and is supported by two associate deans and the faculty manager.

UTS: Law is governed by the Faculty Board in Law which consists of ex officio members, nominated members, elected staff members and elected student members. The Faculty Board in Law meets quarterly and is the formal decision-making body of UTS: Law. A number of faculty committees report to the Faculty Board in Law.

In 2007, a new UTS: Law Executive Council was formed comprising faculty management and representatives from the legal profession, government and the community. The UTS: Law Executive Council is responsible for ensuring that the academic standard of UTS: Law is maintained, and it has the task of scrutinising all new programs and proposed initiatives as well as offering strategic advice and an external focus for UTS: Law.

Faculty policies and procedures

Progression and acceleration

Students may seek permission from the director of students (by way of e-request) to enrol in subjects totalling more than 28 credit points a semester if:

• there is no timetable clash
• maximum class size is not exceeded
• the student's academic record indicates that he or she is capable of performing satisfactorily with an increased workload, and
• the student can demonstrate that his or her work and other non-study commitments permit him or her to increase their workload without detriment to their studies.

Note: Students studying the accelerated Juris Doctor (C04236) program can enrol in a maximum of 30 credit points a semester without the permission of the director of students.

UTS: Law cannot guarantee avoidance of timetable and/or examination clashes where students do not follow the standard course progression.

Timetable

The current timetable is available at:

Class attendance

Law classes for full-time studies are generally timetabled during the day. Registrations in evening or other classes are subject to availability and UTS: Law does not provide any guarantees in securing preferences.

Study load and class attendance details are available in course duration and attendance in the general information section.

Guide to written communication

Essays and other written work should be prepared in accordance with the guidelines laid down in UTS: Law's Guide to Written Communication. Further information and the required assignment coversheet is available at:

All work submitted for assessment should bear a UTS: Law assignment coversheet.

If required by the lecturer the work must be typed. It must also be properly written with due regard to spelling, punctuation, grammar and syntax.

Unless otherwise instructed by the lecturer, all written work should include footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography in the manner set out in the Guide to Written Communication.

Any piece of written work which does not comply with these requirements may be:

• required to be rewritten in proper form
• penalised in marks, or
• rejected without assessment.

Assessment

Lodgment of assignments

Students are required to retain a copy of all assignments submitted. Students who are handing in written work must submit it, with an assignment coversheet attached, in the assignment box located adjacent to the UTS: Law reception (level 3, Building 5, Block B). The assignment box is cleared every business day at 6pm. Assignments submitted by fax or email are not accepted by UTS: Law, unless otherwise arranged with the lecturer.

Late work

Any assessment task submitted after 6pm during Faculty teaching weeks, or 5pm during Faculty non-teaching weeks, on the due date of submission will either be rejected without assessment (where the subject outline states that this will be the consequence of an assessment task being submitted after the due time on the due date) or penalised by way of loss of marks unless an extension has been sought and approved by the Subject Coordinator (after due consideration of any submission made by the Academic Liaison Officer on behalf of Special Needs students) through a Request for Extension or Application for Special Consideration.

In the absence of compelling circumstances, no application for a Request for Extension will be accepted after the due date.

Insofar as there is to be a penalty by way of loss of marks, five (5) per cent of marks for the assessment task will be deducted per day for assessment tasks submitted after the due date. Submission will not be accepted after assessment tasks have been returned to other students.

Plagiarism

Where individual work is required for the purposes of assessment, the copying, unacknowledged use of, or reliance on the work of other individuals without acknowledgment is considered to be cheating/misconduct. The penalties imposed for cheating/misconduct or allowing work to be plagiarised are severe under the University Rules and regulations.

Plagiarism is one of the most serious crimes in the academic community. It indicates an attempt by someone to pass off the words and/or ideas of another as their own. To take any but a few sequential words of another without acknowledgment is plagiarism and tantamount to cheating. It is so treated at UTS: Law.

Experience shows that one of the most common ways for plagiarism to occur is when students work together. It is acknowledged by the academic staff that study groups are an efficient and beneficial method of learning but problems arise when it is extended into the assessment process. UTS: Law expects, in fact demands, that all assignments submitted be the work of the person who is credited with the mark. It can be an extremely fine line between discussion of an essay topic with another, and collaboration, but where comparisons of various students' work indicate collaboration this is taken to be plagiarism and UTS: Law policy will be invoked (see the Guide to Written Communication).

Acts of plagiarism are penalised. Such penalties may include, depending upon the seriousness and nature of the offence:

• a requirement that the assignment be rewritten de novo
• a penalty in the reduction of marks awarded to the work, which may include a reduction to zero, or a sharing of the mark awarded to the document among its apparent authors
• a fail result in the subject concerned and a referral of the matter to the associate dean or other appropriate body.

Student facilities

UTS: Law library

The library aims to support the teaching, learning and research needs of students and staff at UTS: Law. The law collection consists of print and electronic sources while training and research assistance can be provided. Further information is available at:

For information or assistance contact the UTS: Business and Law library team at:

Computer labs

UTS: Law provides four computer labs for use by UTS: Law students. Students have access to the full range of Microsoft Office applications, the internet and printers, and are supported by a faculty-based Information Technology Division (ITD) team.

The labs are located at:

Opening hours: 7.30am–10pm Monday–Friday, 8am–6pm Saturday and Sunday during semester.

In addition, ITD provides computer laboratories for UTS students on all campuses. Further information is available from:

Law Students' Society

The UTS Law Students' Society (LSS) is the largest student-run society on campus. It provides a variety of services to law students and its members ranging from organising social and educational events, running legal competitions, providing careers information, writing legal publications and representing the educational concerns of law students. An important part of this role is being a key communication channel between UTS: Law and the student body including representing student concerns to the dean where necessary.

The LSS communicates its activities and relevant activities of UTS: Law to students via the noticeboard outside the LSS office, social networking groups such as Facebook and a free fortnightly e-newsletter, The Buzz, which students and staff can subscribe to at:

The LSS is governed by a council of student members, elected by law students during an election process held in October each year. The council meets on a monthly basis during each semester to review the society's activities and discuss new initiatives. Interest and input are encouraged from students and many of the ideas acted upon come from members.

Social functions are an important part of university life and the society regularly organises functions for students. Popular events include the annual graduation ball and a variety of drinks nights throughout each semester, as well as a harbour cruise and many on-campus events. Each year, the LSS also organises a camp for first year law students during which, the first year representatives are elected. Services to members include:

• legal competitions such as mooting, client interviewing, negotiation, witness examination and paper presentation
• affiliation with the Australian Law Students' Association (ALSA)
• careers publications for legal and non-legal graduate opportunities
• mentoring program for first year students
• careers events both on and off campus.

The society is responsible for the publication of Full Bench magazine. Each edition focuses upon a different theme and addresses topical issues of law. Members are also encouraged to submit articles of interest, whether social, academic or education-based, and these are reviewed for inclusion by the publications officer. A list of council members and their contact details is posted on the society's noticeboard and on the website.

Centres within UTS: Law

The Australasian Legal Information Institute

The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) provides free access to Australian legal material online, making it one of the world's largest publicly-accessible databases of legal materials on the internet. AustLII aims to make available all public legal information: primary legal materials (legislation and decisions of courts and tribunals) and secondary materials that are (or ought to be) in the public domain or able to be licensed free of charge. AustLII's public policy agenda is to convince governments, courts, law reform bodies and other publicly-funded organisations to make legal materials they control available for free via the internet. It has an innovative approach to computerising legal materials, based on over 15 years' research and development.

AustLII also collaborates with other legal information institutes from around the world and operates with their cooperation, three multi-country legal information systems: AsianLII (covering 28 Asian countries); CommonLII (law from all Commonwealth countries); and WorldLII (law from all countries).

AustLII's research features include automated rich hypertext markup, development and use of its own search engine (SINO), a free-access international citator (LawCite), and integration of hypertext and text retrieval.

AustLII is a joint facility of the faculties of Law at UTS and UNSW. It was established by funding from the Department of Education, Employment and Training, and the two host universities, and also receives funding from the Australian Research Council, AusAID, Thomson Reuters, the federal Attorney-General's Department, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Victorian Legal Services Board, courts and tribunals, other bodies and the legal profession.

Industrial training/professional practice

Admission to legal practice in Australia

Admission to the Supreme Court of NSW to practise as a lawyer in New South Wales is based upon the successful completion of an accredited legal qualification and an accredited course of practical legal training (PLT).

The UTS Bachelor of Laws (C10124) (LLB) and Juris Doctor (C04236) (JD) are approved degrees for the purposes of admission to practise as a legal practitioner in Australia.

Practical legal training

The Faculty of Law's PLT program is accredited by the Legal Profession Admission Board of the Supreme Court of NSW (LPAB). The faculty was the first university to offer an accredited PLT program in Sydney. The program comprises six academic subjects (36 credit points) and a practical experience work placement. It can be undertaken within three UTS: Law courses:

• the Bachelor of Laws (C10124) (see note below) and combined undergraduate law courses
• the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (C07075), which is available to Bachelor of Laws graduates or holders of the LPAB/SAB diploma qualification
• the Juris Doctor (C04236), which is offered to students who have a bachelor's degree in an area other than law and who wish to attain a legal qualification.

Note: Students who began before 2008 have the option of completing four of the seven PLT subjects within their undergraduate law degree. The other three PLT subjects must be completed concurrently within the Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice (C11128) or, with UTS: Law approval, students may undertake these subjects as part of the law option component of their degree.

Students who take either of these options must be in their final semesters of study in their law degree, and students in combined degrees must have completed a minimum of 48 credit points of their studies in the non-law discipline prior to enrolling in the PLT program.

Practical experience

A compulsory and integral part of the PLT program is completion of 75411 Practical Experience work placement. Students must undertake an approved 16 weeks of full-time, or equivalent part-time, work placement. Further information regarding completion requirements is available from the Practical Experience Guidelines and Rules at:

International law graduates

Students who have been admitted to practise as a legal practitioner in a country outside Australia should have their legal qualification assessed by the Legal Profession Admission Board.

UTS: Law offers two courses to allow legal practitioners from a common law background to meet the LPAB requirements to practise law in Australia. Depending on the number of subjects required by the LPAB, candidates need to complete one of the following courses:

• Graduate Certificate in Australian Law (C11211) requires the completion of four set subjects (30 credit points) and subject substitution is available for one subject only where it is approved. This course particularly suits lawyers from Canada, USA and UK.
• Graduate Diploma in Australian Law (C07073) is designed specifically to meet the requirements of the LPAB assessment. The course is designed for subject choices to be tailored to meet the needs of individual students in line with the LPAB requirements.

To qualify as a legal practitioner in New South Wales the above courses need to be followed by enrolment in the PLT component, which may be completed at UTS by enrolment in the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (C07075).

Students from a non-common law background may be required to enrol in a mix of all of the above courses or may need to enrol in the Juris Doctor (C04236), depending on the number of subjects required by the LPAB.

International lawyers who have received LPAB assessment of their law qualification and would like to receive a study plan which best suits their needs from courses offered by UTS: Law are invited to send a scanned copy of the assessment to the Haymarket Student Centre at:

Bar exams

Students who wish to pursue a career as a barrister can find information about education, training and professional development from the NSW Bar Association at:

Application and admission

International candidates who wish to enrol in one of the above courses will find information about the application process and due dates for application at:

Information about fees for international students is available at:

Local students lodge applications via UAC. Information about application is available at:

Admission to postgraduate law courses is available twice a year in Autumn and Spring semesters.

Law postgraduate information evening

Prior to each semester UTS: Law holds a postgraduate information session that provides a good opportunity for potential candidates to

• receive further information about postgraduate courses
• ask any questions
• seek advice from senior academic and administrative staff.

Sessions are held in May for entry in Spring semester and in September/October for the following Autumn semester. Information and registration is available from UTS: Law prior to each information session at:

Graduate employment scheme and summer clerkship program

UTS: Law participates in the graduate employment scheme and summer clerkship program in conjunction with the major Sydney law firms and government departments.

The employment interview scheme was devised in 1980 and is available to penultimate and final-year law students who are interested in working in one of the large law firms or government organisations. Students who participate develop a greater understanding of employment opportunities and legal experience while adding detail to their curriculum vitaes.

UTS: Law, in conjunction with the UTS careers service and UTS Law Students' Society, organise a range of support services for interested students within application timelines each year (April/May for the graduate employment scheme; July/August for the summer clerkship program).

Further information on support services, conditions of participation and closing dates are available at:

Cross-disciplinary subjects

UTS: Law offers a range of cross-disciplinary law subjects — studies in various strands of the law for students not undertaking a law qualification but who wish to become familiar with the law as it affects their chosen profession. Through its cross-disciplinary program, UTS: Law offers subjects for students in UTS: Business; UTS: Design, Architecture and Building; UTS: Engineering; UTS: Information Technology; UTS: Nursing, Midwifery and Health; and UTS: Science.

Cross-disciplinary students enrol in UTS: Law subjects through their home faculty and any inquiries should be made in the first instance to the UTS Student Centre.

Further information is available from:

Majors and sub-majors offered to students from other faculties

Majors

The following law majors are available within courses from other UTS faculties.

Master of Business Administration (C04018)

• Business Law major (MAJ09362)
• Dispute Resolution major (MAJ09002)
• International Trade Law major (MAJ09004)
• Law major (MAJ09005)

Bachelor of Global Studies (C10264)

• Legal Studies major (MAJ09399)

Sub-majors

The following law sub-majors are available within courses from other UTS faculties.

Bachelor of Business (C10020 / C10021 / C10026 / C10027)

• Business Law sub-major (SMJ09030)
• e-Commerce and Information Technology Law sub-major (SMJ09031)
• Foundations in Law sub-major (SMJ09032)
• Taxation Law sub-major (SMJ09033)

Master of Business Administration (C04018)

• Business Law sub-major (SMJ09037)
• Dispute Resolution sub-major (SMJ09021)
• International Trade Law sub-major (SMJ09046)

Some courses from other UTS faculties may also include law subjects not listed under any of the above majors and sub-majors; students should check the handbook entry for the course in which they are enrolled for further details or contact the appropriate UTS Student Centre.