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The article reviews how law degrees are positioned in a deregulated higher-education market and highlights the financial and employment uncertainties facing graduates. It discusses competing ideas for law-degree direction, proposing a collaborative rather than adversarial emphasis, while drawing on studies of depression and legal-academic wellbeing to inform reform debates.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/australian-universities-review-australian-legal-education-at-a-crossroads-pauline-collins/594636/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/australian-universities-review-australian-legal-education-at-a-crossroads-pauline-collins/594636.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Ben ","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":81},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What challenges are driving debate about Australian law degrees?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Globalisation of corporate law firms, low law-graduate employment, financial burdens from professional legal training, and research showing high mental distress among law students and lawyers.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does the article characterize the transition from studying law to becoming a practitioner?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"After completing a law degree, graduates face additional professional legal training (PLT) and further costs, while employment outcomes remain uncertain in a weak job market.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What reform approach does the article suggest for legal education?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Adopting a collaborative rather than adversarial emphasis, presented as a pathway that could respond to changes and dilemmas in legal training.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},594636,1792192694,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":81,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":44,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},2336478951081,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nAustralian legal education at a crossroads  \nPauline Collins  \nUniversity of Southern Queensland  \nWith globalising transnational corporate law firms, high rates of depression among law students and lawyers, and a changing role for lawyers in the world of dispute resolution, academics and professional bodies have been doing some soul searching. They are pondering just what is required in a law degree to train future lawyers adequately. This article discusses the current positioning of law degrees and draws together some of the diverse trains of thought arguing for the adoption of different directions. The article discusses adopting a collaborative rather than an adversarial emphasis as a particular path that could address some of the changes and dilemmas raised.  \nKeywords: law degrees, legal training, legal education, alternative dispute resolution, ADR  \nIntroduction  \nAustralian law degrees in the newly proposed deregulated market of higher education, are forecast to incur a $100,000 student loan debt with a six per cent interest rate (Nelson, 2015a; Lewis, 2015; Pash, 2014) . Therefore, the need to ensure the law degree provides graduates with the training needed to become gainfully employed has never been more important.After graduating from law to become a practitioner a further 15 weeks professional legal training (PLT), currently costing around $8,500 (Law Council of Australia, 2015) is required, and to provide mediation services an additional qualification incurs further costs of over $4000.  \nThis is all in a climate of uncertainty for lawyers with employment rates at the lowest they have been for many years. Nelson (2015a, para 8) notes ‘Unfortunately, law graduate employment is at a record low and one quarter of law grads who wanted a full-time job in 2014 could not find one within four months of finishing their degree’.  \nDodd and Tadros (2014, p. 7) found ‘Graduate Careers 30 Australian legal education at a cross roads Pauline Collins  \nAustralia highlights the challenging employment market for new university graduates … just 71.3 per cent of bachelor degree graduates had jobs four months after leaving university in 2013, compared with 76.1 per cent in 2012. The decline was particularly acute among law, accounting and civil engineering graduates’.  \nThe world of law practice and the nature of law firms are also rapidly changing under the influence of corporatisation and globalisation. Australia is experiencing the merger of law firms into some of the biggest transnational legal conglomerates, employing thousands of lawyers (Mezrani, 2015a) . Reports show unhealthy cultures exist with allegations of high rates of bullying in legal practice (Baghust, 2014). The pressureson law students are also evident in alarming studies of the unusually high levels of mental stress in this cohort of students. A report by Kelk, Luscombe, Medlow and Hickie in 2009 was the first major study of depression and psychological distress in Australian law students and practising lawyers.The study, covering 741 law students in 13 universities, 924 solicitors and 756 barristers, indicated  \nvol. 58, no. 1, 2016  \nA U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W  \nlevels of psychological distress and risk of depression at three times that of the general population and 17 percent higher in law students compared with other tertiary student groups (Kelk et al., 2009, pp. 1, 37, 42, 50).These studies,unfortunately, confirm the US experience exposed in the early 1970s (Boyer & Cramton,1973-74;Taylor,1975) . Benjamin et al.,(1986,p.228) disturbingly found that prior to starting a law degree, law students ‘ … showed a parallel range of wellbeing as found in the general population. However, within six months of becoming a law student they were showing a very different result with symptoms of obsessive-compulsiveness, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid ideation, hostility, depressio","cbCaigxhm0amAN9b","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaigxhm0amAN9b","pdf",168137,"English","# Introduction\n# Law degrees under market uncertainty\n## Graduate employment and training costs\n# Changing legal practice and workplace culture\n## Bullying, mental stress, and depression studies\n# Curriculum scrutiny and accreditation pressures\n## Core subject review suggestions\n# Academic wellbeing and possible reform directions","[{\"question\":\"What challenges are driving debate about Australian law degrees?\",\"answer\":\"Globalisation of corporate law firms, low law-graduate employment, financial burdens from professional legal training, and research showing high mental distress among law students and lawyers.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article characterize the transition from studying law to becoming a practitioner?\",\"answer\":\"After completing a law degree, graduates face additional professional legal training (PLT) and further costs, while employment outcomes remain uncertain in a weak job market.\"},{\"question\":\"What reform approach does the article suggest for legal education?\",\"answer\":\"Adopting a collaborative rather than adversarial emphasis, presented as a pathway that could respond to changes and dilemmas in legal training.\"}]","Australian Universities’ Review - Australian legal education at a crossroads - Pauline Collins | PDF",1792079536,23]