About the School of Law
Welcome!
The School of Law at UNE, established in 1993, has become one of Australia's largest Law Schools outside the capital cities. The School is also one of Australia's largest providers of distance legal education, continuing the traditions of academic excellence and innovation that have characterised UNE since its inception - UNE is Australia’s oldest regional university with a history dating back to 1938. Our historic mission is the provision of excellent distance education and our external students benefit from programs that embrace the use of state-of-the-art teaching technologies including podcasts and vodcasts.
The School of Law has approximately 400 on-campus and 1600 distance-education students currently enrolled in our programs. UNE's extensive, traditional residential college systems, combined with sporting and cultural facilities, provide on-campus students a great opportunity to form part of a unique on-campus living and learning experience that is the envy of our city counterparts.
Teaching
The School of Law offers undergraduate law degrees to both on-campus and distance-education students in programs that use technology combined with sound teaching practices to deliver high quality courses for our students. All law units feature an online presence, and most courses have supplementary CD‑ROM reading materials. Students are able to take advantage of a state-of-the-art electronic moot court. The law degree may be undertaken by itself, or combined with another degree such as a Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts. The School's students come from various backgrounds, including school leavers, graduates in other disciplines, and students with relevant work experience. More than three-quarters of our students undertake their studies by part-time distance education, residing elsewhere in Australia or overseas.
The School offers a range of options in the postgraduate study of law, including a Juris Doctor (JD) and a fully on-line Master of Laws (by Coursework). Staff at the school are also able to provide supervision of Masters of Laws (by Research), SJDs and PhDs across a range of topics.
Research
The School of Law is committed to excellence in research. Our academic staff have national and international reputations in their fields and the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law, contained within the School, is engaged in cutting-edge research projects in natural resource management.
We are committed to excellence in research. The School is the home of the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw) which is engaged in cutting-edge research projects in natural resource management.
The School hosts the Kirby Seminar Series that have the purpose of stimulating and sharing ideas for, and the substance of, legal scholarship through attracting high calibre national and international speakers, drawing upon academics from the wider university community and offering a platform for researchers (including PhD students) from within the School of Law. The School also publishes the University of New England Law Journal – a scholarly refereed law journal – twice a year.
Career Opportunities
Law degrees carry high status, are versatile and offer excellent academic foundations for a wide range of careers. Double degrees offer further flexibility and an even wider range of career options. UNE law graduates have pursued careers as:
- practising solicitors and barristers – in capital cities and regional areas;
- government, corporate or community lawyers or managers;
- judicial officers;
- law enforcement officers (eg Intelligence, customs, police).