by Ganesh Sahathevan
Australia's lawyer certification and admission debacle, where the training and certifications of over 100,000 graduates of the College Of Law Australia has been called into question by the Chief Justice Of NSW, Andrew Bell, has its origins at MARA (now UiTM) in Malaysia in the 1980s. This writer reported in 2019 with regards College Of Law Australia's long time CEO Neville Carter:
Carter says on his Linkedin profile:
I was seconded (between 85-86 for one year) from the College of Law, to UiTM in Malaysia to create a fourth advanced year of study that would enable law graduates to secure legal practice skills and qualify for immediate admission to legal practice. The course successfully addressed gaps in law practice in Malaysia.
Australia's lawyer certification and admission debacle, where the training and certifications of over 100,000 graduates of the College Of Law Australia has been called into question by the Chief Justice Of NSW, Andrew Bell, has its origins at MARA (now UiTM) in Malaysia in the 1980s. This writer reported in 2019 with regards College Of Law Australia's long time CEO Neville Carter:
Carter says on his Linkedin profile:
I was seconded (between 85-86 for one year) from the College of Law, to UiTM in Malaysia to create a fourth advanced year of study that would enable law graduates to secure legal practice skills and qualify for immediate admission to legal practice. The course successfully addressed gaps in law practice in Malaysia.
The reaction from lawyers in Malaysia to that claim has been one of amusement. None, except a few who were at MARA in the 80s, have ever heard of him and even then disagree with his claims. His name was certainly not one that was heard mentioned in KL and Selangor legal circles. Additionally his claim that he was a Senior Lecturer at MARA has also been denied by MARA who say he was only employed as a consultant.
The further claim that he authored the inaugural Legal Practice Handbook with instructional details, materials and resources for Malaysian law and practice is also problematic, for not even the Librarian, Federal Court Malaysia, has been able to locate a copy. Lawyers senior and junior alike have never heard of it.
These claims have nevertheless been part of College Of Law Australia's PLT advertising. The NSW LPAB were alerted to all of the above in 2018, but chose to ignore the information out of Malaysia.
TO BE READ WITH
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Pillar of Australian legal education responsible for training thousands of Australia's barristers, KCs, SCs , magistrates and judges reported to have turned a blind eye to cheating in his practical training programme , accused by his own Chief Justice of providing training not worth the money
by Ganesh Sahathevan
Neville Carter , the pillar of Australian legal education responsible for training thousands of Australia's barristers, KCs, SCs and possibly judges, is reported to have turned a blind eye to cheating in his College Of Law practical training programme. He has been accused by his own Chief Justice of providing training not worth the money.
Readers of this writer's Ganesh Sahathevan blog will recall this claim form The College 's website:
With a career spanning three decades, Neville (Carter) is an influential figure in legal circles, having been responsible for the professional education of nearly 100,000 lawyers in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
Senior practitioners and recent graduates from the 15-week practical legal training course, which requires only five days of in-person attendance and is taught mostly online, criticised its lack of rigour and utility.
They acknowledged a normalisation of cheating by sharing past answers to recycled exam questions and deploying ChatGPT to generate responses.
One junior lawyer, who completed the course last year and now works in the public sector, said prior fees of up to $12,000 were “transparently extortionate, and everyone knows that’s going in. It’s a necessary prerequisite for admission, and students know they won’t gain anything from it”.
“I didn’t feel like I was getting value for money once. Coming from university where academic rigour was held in high regard, to be paying for mundane and reductive online tasks felt like a slap in the face. In order to justify that price, the standard should be a lot higher,” said the lawyer, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.
Another junior lawyer, who paid for the course themselves and now works at a community legal centre, said staff did little to combat students’ dim view of the course.
“There’s kind of this unspoken vibe between teachers and students that it’s all pretty bullshit,” they said.
“Written assessments follow the same formula for every subject … but no one puts any effort into them. People either copy someone else’s [answers] or use ChatGPT.
“You can upload the course documents to ChatGPT and ask it to write a letter of advice. I did that and passed everything.”
Readers of this writer's Ganesh Sahathevan blog will recall this claim form The College 's website:
With a career spanning three decades, Neville (Carter) is an influential figure in legal circles, having been responsible for the professional education of nearly 100,000 lawyers in Australia, New Zealand and Asia.
In the past week however a personage no less than the Chief Justice Of NSW, Andrew Campbell SC, who is also chairman of the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board which oversees the College and accredits its PLT course, has accused Carter and the College of charging excessive fees for its PLT and initiated a survey among the state's barristers and solicitors to determine how the PLT can be overhauled.
Bell's highly public attack on the College has emboldened NSW lawyers to express themselves in blunt terms (even if under condition of anonymity) about the College's PLT .
Senior practitioners and recent graduates from the 15-week practical legal training course, which requires only five days of in-person attendance and is taught mostly online, criticised its lack of rigour and utility.
They acknowledged a normalisation of cheating by sharing past answers to recycled exam questions and deploying ChatGPT to generate responses.
One junior lawyer, who completed the course last year and now works in the public sector, said prior fees of up to $12,000 were “transparently extortionate, and everyone knows that’s going in. It’s a necessary prerequisite for admission, and students know they won’t gain anything from it”.
“I didn’t feel like I was getting value for money once. Coming from university where academic rigour was held in high regard, to be paying for mundane and reductive online tasks felt like a slap in the face. In order to justify that price, the standard should be a lot higher,” said the lawyer, who asked for anonymity to speak more freely.
Another junior lawyer, who paid for the course themselves and now works at a community legal centre, said staff did little to combat students’ dim view of the course.
“There’s kind of this unspoken vibe between teachers and students that it’s all pretty bullshit,” they said.
“Written assessments follow the same formula for every subject … but no one puts any effort into them. People either copy someone else’s [answers] or use ChatGPT.
“You can upload the course documents to ChatGPT and ask it to write a letter of advice. I did that and passed everything.”
Despite these revelation Lewis Patrick , the College's longstanding Academic Director says he is unaware of any cheating:
Lewis Patrick, the College’s chief academic officer, said plagiarism, sharing of coursework and use of artificial intelligence “pose a major challenge to the assurance of academic integrity for all higher education institutions”.
“As such, we have developed strategies to address this, including relying strongly on oral assessments, coupled with the redesign of coursework activities to ensure that when students use AI they do so responsibly and critically.”
“Any suspected plagiarism or unauthorised use of AI by a student in their coursework is investigated and may result in a finding of academic misconduct.”
“As such, we have developed strategies to address this, including relying strongly on oral assessments, coupled with the redesign of coursework activities to ensure that when students use AI they do so responsibly and critically.”
“Any suspected plagiarism or unauthorised use of AI by a student in their coursework is investigated and may result in a finding of academic misconduct.”
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