Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Skills and Ethics (PDLP) Online

The Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Skills and Ethics is a higher degree offered by the Faculty of Law, Monash University. It is a part-time external program offered to students in the professional workplace.

It provides an integrated approach to the learning of relevant law and practice, the acquisition of generic and lawyering skills and the enhancing of ethical awareness. It has been designed to enable students to benefit from combining formal study and workplace experience.

Content of the Program

The program has been structured in such a way that at the same time it meets the requirements for a University Award and of postgraduate pre-admission training in Victoria. Thus graduates who successfully complete the program will be awarded a Postgraduate Diploma from Monash University and may be admitted to practice in Victoria as a legal practitioner.

The program consists of the following units:

Key Concepts

The key concepts that characterise the program are:

• the acquisition of generic and lawyering skills, particularly in oral and written communication, negotiation, mediation, advocacy and practice management, in addition to legal research and analysis, the presentation of legal argument and working with facts;
• a sustained ethical focus, which is concerned with both the raising of awareness of ethical issues and the study of theory and the application of ethics in the legal profession; and
• an interactive and participatory approach, which directly engages each graduate in learning and self-development.

Objectives of the Program

You are starting a program that is different from previous academic studies. It is designed to help you progress from being a graduate with knowledge and understanding of the law, to becoming a practitioner able to use that knowledge and understanding in practice, to the best advantage of your client.

Whether we are talking about chess players, doctors or lawyers, the difference between the novice and the accomplished practitioner has less to do with total knowledge than it has to do with skills such as pattern recognition, awareness of context, and the ability to take learning acquired in an academic context and apply it in a practical one.

The transition from novice to practitioner is subtle, and more complex than many people assume. It must begin from a sound foundation of academic learning. The function of your university studies was to provide that. But the practitioner adds to that foundation a range of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are derived from the traditions of the profession, from a range of intellectual and social disciplines, and from a study of humanity in all its aspects.

The profession that you are now seeking to enter is competitive.  Those who wish to succeed need to be hard working and self-reliant and they need to have the skills necessary to represent effectively a wide range of clients. We are here to help you, but whether you succeed in becoming an acceptably competent practitioner is up to you.

The overall objective of the program is to equip you for the first years of legal practice. It also aims to ensure that you have a sound knowledge of your ethical responsibilities; that you can complete those tasks that junior practitioners most frequently perform; and that you are able to perform those tasks that the public reasonably expect all lawyers to be able to perform. 

Organisation of the Program

Units

Each unit is named after its practice field content but the activities in which students are engaged are equally concerned with the development of practice field knowledge, skills and ethical understandings.

Skills-based activities and performance guides

Drawing upon the Graduate Profile, the following skills are developed during the program:

• Communication
• Interviewing
• Legal writing and legal drafting
• Problem-solving
• Advising/counselling
• Legal analysis and research
• Work management
• Negotiation
• Advocacy
• Computing skills

Ethical elements

Ethical elements are integrated into the program and arise in discussion and coursework activities. This integrated approach supplements a closer examination of professional rules and practical issues offered in the unit Ethics and Professional Responsibility. The following checklist of ethical duties of legal practitioners should be borne in mind throughout the program.

1. Duty to obey the law
2. Duties to the court and the administration of justice
3. Duties to the client
4. Duties to other practitioners

Graduates are expected to enhance their understanding of ethics and the application of ethics in practice with assistance from this list of ethical duties.