Tania Leiman is the dean of Flinders Law School, and Bianca Paterson is a lawyer and mentor at Leo Cussen Centre for Law, as well as the convener of the school’s innovation project, Justice Lab.

Speaking on an episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, produced in partnership with Leo Cussen, the pair outlined key skills junior lawyers and grads need to be developing in the digital age and how legal education has changed to cater to those new skills.

While law grads need to be prepared for a “huge range” of different career pathways, Leiman said that in terms of making sure grads are fit for purpose when entering the legal profession, giving students the skills to “find their own path and think differently” has been a priority.

“We’ve introduced, right from the very commencement of our law degree, formal legal innovation training so that students are given robust tools to use design thinking and human-centred focus to really think. What is it that the law is trying to achieve here? What are the problems that these people might have? And how can we think differently about using legal information, legal processes, legal systems to provide solutions for them? So, we embed that as core in our degree,” she said.

“We have, for the last four years, also required all our students to undertake a topic called law in a digital age. But with the rise of some of the new technologies in the last year or so, we’ve actually seen that we’ve had to revamp those courses. So, now we’re introducing a further course, the digital lawyer and technology for access to justice, to expose our students to the vast range of technologies that are out there, some of them proprietary, some of them available open source, that students can use to think differently about how they might create those solutions.

“But it’s not about the technology; it’s about the mindset. It’s about saying to students, understand that we have a responsibility to use all that’s available for us, all that we can have access to achieve better legal outcomes in our society. And, of course, placing always not only the client at the centre but [also] the capacity of the law student and the lawyer to thrive.”

At Leo Cussen, the PLT course is built around what Paterson described as “the whole lawyer” – with four separate capabilities taught across the course.

“Those are technical capability, which is obviously the traditional idea of technical skills. But then also we teach human skills, adaptability and character, which we think are also important skills to have as a lawyer. And there are studies out there that show that that’s what employers are now looking for. As part of that, we have a course called Justice Lab, which is run across the entirety of the course. And it’s basically a course where the grads use legal innovation and design thinking, user-focused thinking, to address an access-to-justice problem,” she said.

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“And so, the thing there is that the whole user-focused and design-thinking skills that we teach the grads about here is putting yourself in the shoes of the user. And so doing that, I think you’re not only learning amazing skills that you’re going to be able to use in practice, but it means that you’re going to get outcomes for clients that actually suit the client.

“With our Justice Lab, we’ve partnered with Portable, an organisation that will collect the solutions that our grads come up with, and they actually can use that to make real change to and lobby government and get real legislative change to help those out there having those access to justice problems. And I think that links into legal tech and innovation and social justice being two of the important things that we think grads need to be thinking about when they go out into the workforce.”

In terms of how law students and grads are actually embracing these mindset shifts, Leiman said that when they first introduced their new curriculum in 2020, some students had “real challenges” understanding why the curriculum would include legal innovation.

“Students who chose to do law because they didn’t want to do STEM topics, why we might be exposing them to coding or other issues like that. And I think as time has gone on, those students who found it really confronting at the beginning, and now that they’re in at the end of their degree and they’re seeing how much change has happened during their time at university, they are now saying, I’m so glad I’ve done that,” she said.

“Students who are coming in now, they’ve already been exposed to many of these ideas at school, and so this is nothing new for them. And in fact, if they’re going to a law school that is not challenging them around innovation or technology, they should be asking, why aren’t these things included as core in our curriculum and the same in practical legal training? If we’re not thinking about equipping students with these skill sets, then they should be asking, why not?”

For young lawyers to truly develop these skills, however, Paterson said they have to “take responsibility” for themselves and their own careers.

“As they move out into the profession, there’s going to be a responsibility placed a little bit back on them to run with those skills that they’ve learnt and keep going with it. And I think there are lots of things that they can do to help themselves with that. And part of it is professional development. The legal profession generally is getting better at that. We’re now teaching things like resilience as part of professional development and how to deal with challenges within the workplace and how to deal with bullying and sexual harassment,” she said.

“As a lawyer, you have requirements for CPD, and you need to get a number of points in certain areas, but I think there is an opportunity for graduates to do more than that, do more than what is required of them as a lawyer and go out and find what it is that they need. Obviously, everybody has different values, but I think if we give them a good basis here at the legal education stage, then they have the skills that they need to go forward and run with them and sort out what they need to do.

“There’s a lot going on out in the world at the moment, and I think there’s a lot that puts a lot of stress on people, and they get very anxious about what’s going on the world. So, I think it’s challenging for everybody, but I think if we give them a good basis at the education point, then they have the skills that they need to navigate those things.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Tania Leiman and Bianca Paterson, click below:

Lauren Croft

Lauren is a journalist at Lawyers Weekly and graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism from Macleay College. Prior to joining Lawyers Weekly, she worked as a trade journalist for media and travel industry publications and Travel Weekly. Originally born in England, Lauren enjoys trying new bars and restaurants, attending music festivals and travelling. She is also a keen snowboarder and pre-pandemic, spent a season living in a French ski resort.