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The impact of internship programs for Indigenous law students
Here, an Indigenous law student reflects on her personal experience completing an internship program at a BigLaw firm, highlighting the critical importance of such opportunities as vital pathways for Indigenous law students.
Grace Robbie
Speaking on a recent episode of The Protege Podcast, Yuin and Kamilaroi woman Lara Jash, a penultimate law student at Charles Sturt University and an intern at BigLaw firm McCabes, discussed her experience at the firm’s newly launched Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Internship Program.
In this discussion, she emphasised how these opportunities not only enhance her professional development, but also serve as essential pathways for Indigenous law students, helping bridge the gap in representation within the legal industry and fostering a more inclusive environment for future generations.
Jash said that her journey into the legal profession has been notably unconventional, having left high school after Year 9 to pursue a variety of TAFE programs.
“What brought me to law wasn’t like everybody else’s, it wasn’t the most conventional. I left school quite young, so I left in year nine, didn’t get my school certificate or anything like that, and made my way through, I guess, TAFE programs or preparation programs to ready myself for university study,” she said.
Initially, she said that she pursued a degree in medical science. However, as her journey unfolded, she discovered a deep passion for legal studies that ultimately redirected her career aspirations.
“From there, I went into a medical science degree where I studied for a couple of years and just noticed after getting a job in the medical profession that it wasn’t actually for me. I just didn’t really enjoy the environment,” she said.
“That was how I came into law. I did a health law unit or a bioethics unit, and then from there, it sparked an interest. So I’ve always been quite interested in the health law space.”
Jash said that the internship program she is currently completing at McCabe’s closely mirrors the firm’s graduate program, enabling young lawyers to rotate through various practice areas over a 10–12-week period.
“It runs quite similarly to the graduate program, so you’ll move into different areas of practice for about 10 to 12 weeks, get a feel for that,” she said.
Speaking independently, Jash said that a fundamental motivation for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Internship Program at the BigLaw firm was to promote reconciliation, reflecting the firm’s commitment to fostering diversity and inclusivity within the legal profession.
“One of the major reasons would be reconciliation. The members of the firm are quite culturally aware, so they’ve got great programs and initiatives and things like that. Not just the internship program, but really have that community feel about them,” she said.
Jash said that the supportive structures within the internship program have been instrumental in transforming her perception of corporate law. Initially intimidated by the field, her experiences have ignited a genuine interest in pursuing a career in this area.
“It’s really broadened my sense of understanding about what a corporate law life might look like. And, yeah, I think it might have been limited. Maybe a few years ago I might have thought that it might just be limited to community work or something like that, but it’s definitely sparked an interest in various practice areas that I didn’t think were possible for me,” she said.
