COL v ANU - A practical guide to selecting your admission to practice course in NSW

Who should read this article?

If you are studying at the University of Newcastle, UTS, UWS or the University of Wollongong, you can stop reading now. Your admission to practice course is usually incorporated into your time at university. All other law students and recent law graduates continue reading.

Selecting your admission to practice course may seem like a random choice, but the two Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice (GDLP) courses offered in NSW are VERY different. There are two main providers of admission to practice courses in NSW:

1.       College of Law; and

2.       Australian National University.

In the interest of full disclosure, I completed my GDLP through the ANU in 2014, but have numerous friends who studied their GDLP through the College of Law and have drawn on their experiences for this article. The material in this post is valid as of March 2015.

How are the courses structured?

	College of Law	Australian National University
Orientation	Compulsory 1 day orientation at St Leonards -course overview -provided with printed course materials -provided with Practice Papers -meet your classmates Compulsory Coursework Component begins immediately after the orientation.	Becoming a practitioner Compulsory 1 week face to face course in the Sydney CBD teaching you the practical basics you will need for the rest of the course, meet contact lecturers and learn how to navigate the online learning system. This week long orientation also gives you the opportunity to meet new people and work out who you would like in your 4 person “firm” for the Professional Practice Core.
Core subjects	Compulsory Coursework Component -civil litigation practice -commercial and corporate practice -property law practice -professional skills -professional responsibility -trust and office accounting Choose to study full time face to face or part online/ part face to face. Teaching style is much more like law school than the ANU course.	Professional Practice Core -property practice -commercial practice -civil litigation -ethics – Giving Voice to Values -trust accounting -professional development/mentoring Taught completely offline, you will be in a “firm” with three other students, most assessments are conducted in this “firm”, and course material is predominantly self-taught.
Electives	Must study two. Any two. Electives are more limited in scope: -administrative law practice -criminal law practice -family law practice -consumer law practice -employment and industrial practice -wills and estates practice -banking and finance practice	Must study at least two electives from different streams. Many electives are offered. How many electives you study is directly related to how much work experience you do. Electives are either taught in an intensive one week face to face block OR completely online.
Work Experience	Work experience as per admission board guidelines.	How much work experience you do will determine how many electives you must study.
Further study options?	Limited to courses run by College of Law.	Credit points can be used towards Masters at ANU. This balances out the slightly higher costs of studying the ANU course.
Taught in-house?	If you are working at a top-tier or mid-tier commercial law firm in Sydney, some of the course content may be taught in-house at your firm by Partners at your firm, making the process streamlined and convenient.	No.
When can I start?	Many starting dates throughout the year.	Starting dates more limited, as you will have to attend the Becoming a Practitioner course before continuing with the rest of the course. In Sydney there are two main starting points in the year, though you could attend Becoming a Practitioner in the ACT to get things started.

The main differences between the two courses are:

1.       Teaching style; and

2.       Type of assessments.

What teaching style do you prefer?

If you prefer to learn content by yourself or in small self-guided groups, the ANU course is for you. Apart from the compulsory one week face to face attendance at the beginning of the course, you can complete the remainder of the subjects completely online. The benefit is that the learning is completely flexible. You can learn the content before work, in your lunch break, or after work. The College of Law course also has potential to be largely self-taught. However, most students select the face to face learning options where you attend classes at the St Leonards campus (generally after work during the week). This teaching style is similar to the teaching style you would have experienced at University. The main benefit is that you get face to face contact with your teachers and interaction with other students. However, classes are not as flexible as online learning. You may have a job where you cannot guarantee you will be able to leave at 5pm to attend class.

What type of assessments do you prefer? Do you like working in groups or prefer working by yourself?

Assessments in the ANU course are predominantly group work which you complete with your “firm”. At the beginning of each week you will be given several assignments, and as a team you will have to delegate and divide the work. You have a Senior Associate you can email for help. This is a “real life” experience. You will learn group work and proof readings skills that will be very useful when you start work as a lawyer. This is the component I loved most about the GDLP at ANU. Meeting and working through assignments with your team members created a very supportive environment. The work flow for the core subjects is intense, especially at first. In your team of four, you deal with about six assignments a week or more, as there is some overlap and some core subjects are studied concurrently. Do not choose the ANU course if you do not like working in teams or are not willing to improve your team work skills!

In contrast, assignments in the College of Law course are predominantly individual assignments, similar to what you would have done at University but with a slightly more practical focus. You will get fewer assignments than the ANU course, but many subjects have exams in addition to assignments. The ANU course has consistent assessments throughout, whereas from what I have heard from friends, COL is very intense towards the end of the course where several subjects are finishing at the same time. You may prefer the College of Law course if you enjoy the traditional style of assignments and exams you would have experienced at University.

What course materials will I get?

This is where the COL course outperforms the ANU course. Both courses have online material like readings, interactive tutorials and exercises. In addition, COL students also receive printed materials called “practice papers”. Most of the young lawyers I know keep these papers and refer to them on an ongoing basis. At ANU, little printed material is provided, though you do receive a folder of printed material at the Becoming a Practitioner orientation week. You can print the ANU professional practice core subject notes yourself (as I did), but there are nowhere near as comprehensive as the COL notes. However, I would not choose your GDLP course based on this alone as you could borrow your COL friend’s practice papers if you think you are missing out (or if you are feeling particularly cunning attend the COL orientation day, then withdraw once you have the materials….).

What kind of students will I meet?

At College of Law you will predominantly meet students from the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales.  If you are from one of these universities you will likely have many friends studying the course at the same time as you, but you may not meet too many new people. I found the variety of people I met at the ANU course one of the best parts of the GDLP. At Becoming a Practitioner I met people from interstate and overseas, who had obtained their law degrees through postgraduate study at University or online, and of a variety of ages. This variety was really interesting and I found it eye-opening to hear about other people’s experiences.

WARNING: a note on choosing your electives

Electives may say “no prior knowledge required”. Proceed with caution. I studied the Industrial Relations elective at ANU which stated “no prior knowledge required”. I was fortunate in that I had studied industrial relations at University and worked in the area for three years. I found the course challenging and do not know how a student with no prior knowledge would have coped. Electives run for only a matter of weeks, and self-teaching a whole subject can be difficult. If you are not working at all and dedicating most of your time to the elective, you may be able to do well. However, most people are balancing their GDLP with full time work.  Keep this in mind when choosing your electives.

Another trap can be choosing electives taught intensively where you have not allocated enough time to prepare or work on assignments. I studied the Criminal Law elective that was taught intensively in a one week face to face format. Leave all evenings free that week. Do not do what I did and say you will go to work after class. After class you will be required to work on assessments and assignments which occur continuously throughout the week.

The GDLP costs almost $10,000 to study. While it is the necessary final step to become admitted to the Supreme Court and become a lawyer, you should try and get as much out of it as you can. Think hard about which course will be best for you and what skills you would like to develop. Thinking it through now will ensure that your time studying your GDLP is enjoyable rather than a source of constant frustration.