Ungatekeeping: PLT Reform in NSW
The Headline
The Urbis survey of more than 2,500 recent graduates and more than 2,000 supervisors, released 14 April 2025, found that only 43 per cent of graduates thought their PLT assignments were practical and relevant, only 40 per cent rated the teaching as satisfactory and only 13 per cent considered the fees reasonable (Interim Report, §1, p.5). Many graduates, on the record, called PLT a "box-ticking exercise". The 75 day work experience requirement was identified as a barrier to entry, particularly for people who could not afford an extended period of unpaid placement. The Chief Justice of NSW noticed, the Board agreed, and on 13 March 2026 it issued this Interim Report setting out what it intends to do about it.
The signatories are Chief Justice Andrew Bell, Justice Tony Payne (Presiding Member), Justice Jeremy Kirk, Emeritus Professor Michael Quinlan and Wen-Ts'ai Lim. The reform process now moves from consultation to implementation (Interim Report, §1, p.5 and §2, pp.12 to 15).
A bit of context, from someone who has been through it
Anyone who completed PLT in the last fifteen years or so can tell you exactly what this report just confirmed. The online coursework duplicated the law degree. The 75 day work placement was often not real training. The fees were high. The whole thing felt like a tax on entry, not a useful preparation for practice. None of this is a secret. Generations of graduates have said it and now the data says it too.
The College of Law, the largest provider in NSW, had retained earnings of almost $200 million in its 2024 to 2025 accounts and secured a return of approximately $20 million in the financial year. The Chief Justice raised this in his 2026 Opening of Law Term address and the Board has put it in writing in the report (Interim Report, §5, p.28).
Make of that what you will.
What is actually changing
The current single stage system (do a law degree, then do a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, then get admitted) now becomes a three stage continuum. Practical training is embedded in the law degree, reinforced in a shorter pre-admission PLT and continued through a brand new compulsory layer in the first two years of practice called Post-Admission Legal Training (PALT).
The three stages at a glance
| Stage | What it replaces | What the new model requires | Where in the report |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1: Practical skills in the law degree | The current setup, where practical skills are optional at most law schools | All NSW law schools must teach a mandated set of foundational practical skills in compulsory units, set out in the Skills Schedule | §3, pp.16 to 19; Annexure A, pp.38 to 46 |
| Stage 2: Pre-admission PLT | The lengthy, online-heavy GDLP or GCLP at AQF Level 8 | A four week intensive in-person course, preceded by up to one week of self-study, plus 15 days of verified work experience (down from 75) | §4, pp.20 to 22; §5, pp.23 to 28; Annexure B, pp.47 to 60 |
| Stage 3: PALT (new) | Nothing. This is entirely new. | 15 hours of structured in-person practical training in each of the first two years of practice, on top of CPD, with assessment | §6, pp.29 to 34; Annexure C, pp.61 to 66 |
The Skills Schedule
The most operationally significant document in the whole report is Annexure A, the Skills Schedule (pp.38 to 46). It sets out the practical knowledge and skills that every law student must be able to demonstrate before admission, including taking instructions from a client, providing advice in writing and in person, interviewing witnesses, preparing affidavits, professional communication with other practitioners, oral presentation, court etiquette and short advocacy, ethics in context and matter management. The third column suggests which Priestley 11 subjects could carry the skill, but does not mandate placement, which is the Board's nod to law school autonomy (Interim Report, §3, p.17).
This Schedule is the spine of the whole reform. If you read nothing else in the report, read this annexure.
The timeline
Year by year, what is happening
| Year | What happens | Report reference |
|---|---|---|
| April 2025 | Urbis survey results released (2,500+ graduates, 2,000+ supervisors) | §1, p.5 |
| 30 September 2025 | LPAB Discussion Paper published | §1, p.6 |
| 13 March 2026 | This Interim Report issued | Cover page |
| 2026 to 2027 | Two-year trial of mandated 15 days face-to-face teaching at existing PLT providers | §5, pp.26 to 27 |
| Start of 2028 | New model commences. All NSW law schools incorporate the Skills Schedule into law degrees. Four week pre-admission PLT launches as the new mandatory minimum, alongside the option of longer GDLP/GCLP courses for those who want FEE-HELP. Work experience drops to 15 days, with prior work counting. | §3, p.16; §5, p.23 |
| 2029 | Review of pre-admission PLT course length, with a view to potentially shortening it | §5, p.24 |
| 2030 | Possible commencement of a shorter (three week) pre-admission PLT course. First cohort of three year LLBs/JDs graduating with the embedded Skills Schedule. | §5, p.24; §5, p.23 |
| 2031 | First cohort of four year degrees graduating with embedded skills | §5, p.23 |
| 2032 | First cohort of LLB combined or double degrees graduating with embedded skills (full transition complete) | §5, p.23 |
PALT does not have a stated commencement date in the report. It will come in via discretionary conditions on practising certificates issued by the Law Society, under section 53 of the Uniform Law, which the Board considers can be done without legislative amendment (Interim Report, §7, p.36).
What this means by graduating cohort
| If you graduate | What you will do for PLT | What you will do post-admission |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 or 2026 | Current GDLP/GCLP model under existing rules. The 15 days face-to-face mandate already applies under the trial. | Current CPD only. PALT not yet in force at admission. |
| 2027 | Likely the new four week intensive (from 2028), but you will not have had embedded Skills Schedule content in your degree. Transitional cohort. | Likely caught by PALT once the regulatory machinery is in place. |
| 2028 to 2029 | New four week intensive. Some Skills Schedule content in your degree, depending on how far through your studies you were when reforms started. | Almost certainly PALT. |
| 2030 onwards | New pre-admission PLT (possibly shortened to three weeks after the 2029 review). Full Skills Schedule embedded in your degree. | PALT as the standard model. |
The 2027 graduating cohort is the one to watch.
They get the shorter PLT but did not have the embedded skills in their degree, which is why the Board has set the initial PLT length at four weeks rather than two or three: to give that transitional cohort time to catch up (Interim Report, §5, pp.23 to 24).
The cost picture
| Cost element | Current | Proposed |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-admission PLT fees | $9,200 (College) to $12,504 (UTS) for a GDLP or GCLP | Materially less, given the shorter course. The Board has not set fees but has signalled clear expectation of fee reduction, including bursaries, payment plans, and waivers tied to rural or community legal work. (§5, p.28) |
| Work experience | 75 days, often unpaid, often unable to count prior work | 15 days, with prior paralegal, clerkship, internship or community legal centre work counting (§4, pp.20 to 21) |
| FEE-HELP eligibility | Yes, because AQF Level 8 | Not for the new minimum course (AQF requirement removed). Yes for any GDLP/GCLP that providers continue to offer voluntarily. (§5, p.23) |
| Post-admission cost | Nil (beyond CPD) | New: 15 hours per year of PALT in years one and two, self-funded or employer-funded, with tax deductibility expected. (§6, pp.29 to 33) |
The Board is clear that the cost burden should shift rather than vanish. Some of the savings on pre-admission PLT get recycled into PALT, the difference being that PALT is intended to be directly relevant to the work you are actually doing, with the realistic prospect of being paid for by your employer.
A personal aside, the AI lens
I cannot pretend to be a neutral reader of this report.
I have spent the last few months arguing that the legal profession is being reshaped by AI faster than its institutions are reckoning with it. The AI Readiness Report across 27 Australian law schools is my work. The GC2030 thesis on the bifurcation of the General Counsel role is also mine. So when this report landed, I went straight to the AI sections, half expecting a footnote and a wave of the hand.
What I found was AI threaded through almost every major part of the reform. The good news first: the Board is not pretending AI is somebody else's problem. It is named as one of the drivers of the move away from online assessment, with the Board explicitly citing AI cheating as a reason PLT needs to be face to face from 2028 (Interim Report, §5, p.26).
"Responsible use of technology" is mandated as a Pre-admission Skill in the Skills Schedule, defined as understanding "appropriate use, and limits, of AI and other technologies to serve the client's best interests" (Annexure A, p.44). The four week PLT course designs from the College of Law and UNSW build AI into the daily timetable, with exercises like drafting a letter without AI then improving it using AI, evaluating an AI tool for matter management and contract drafting with AI (Annexure B, pp.48 to 54). The Family Law PALT module even includes an ethical scenario asking new lawyers what they would do if their opponent filed a case outline with hallucinated authorities (Annexure C, p.63). Macquarie demonstrated its "Silly Tavern" agentic LLM, which simulates client interviews for students, to the Board in March 2026 (Interim Report, p.96). That is further than I expected.
The less good news is that there is no coherent position. AI is everywhere in the report and nowhere in particular. It is treated as a threat to assessment integrity, an ethics topic, a drafting tool and a teaching simulator, all in different sections without ever being pulled together into a stated view on what an AI-fluent newly admitted lawyer actually looks like in 2028. APLEC and the Law Council both flag the gap. APLEC's submission warns of "rapid AI encroachment into entry-level legal tasks" hitting graduates without networks particularly hard, which is a fundamentally different conversation from AI as an exam-integrity problem. The Law Council says new lawyers need training in "the ethical, wise and active use of AI" (Interim Report, p.88). Neither concern is yet reflected in a strategic position from the Board.
Which brings me to the part of this I cannot stop thinking about, which is what an extraordinary time it is to be studying law right now. If you are part way through a degree, the training model is changing under you. The technology of the work itself is changing under you. The structure of entry-level legal roles is changing under you. The economics of a career in law, including HECS, FEE-HELP, junior salaries and the realistic path to partnership or in-house seniority, are all in motion at once.
There is a version of this where that feels overwhelming, and I take that seriously.
There is also a version where it is the most interesting possible moment to be entering the profession.
The default career path your seniors took is not the default career path you will take. The skills your law school teaches you will not be the only skills you need. The supervisors you work for in your first two years will, under the proposed PALT layer, be carrying more of your professional formation than they have for any cohort before you. Almost everything is in flux.
I think it is worth saying out loud that this is a generational opportunity to shape what your version of the profession looks like, not just to fit into the one you find. The PLT reform is one piece of that. AI is another. The cost story is another. The conversation about what comes next is genuinely yours to participate in. Treat it that way.
What is missing from this report
A few things you should know are not in the report, because their absence is itself information.
No consultation with student representative bodies. Across the 340 pages and the consultation annexures, there is no mention of ALSA, the NSW Law Students' Society or any university law society or student association. The consultation list covers the deans of every NSW law school, PLT providers, the Law Society, the Bar Association, the Law Council, the Legal Services Council, APLEC and the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession. The closest thing to public access was the 5 November 2025 Banco Court information session, which was live-streamed (Annexure H, p.339). Student voices in the report come from the Urbis survey, individual unsolicited submissions (notably from a current student, Jason Johnston, and a recently admitted lawyer, Peta Zoubakin, whose detailed submission on placement exploitation shaped some of the supervisor reforms), and feedback at the Banco session. For a reform that materially restructures the path of entry to the profession, the absence of student association engagement is conspicuous (Annexure D, pp.75 to 80; Annexure E, pp.92 to 104).
No commitment to mandate First Nations focused and led content in the PLT curriculum. The Board declined to add this, citing the cultural communication requirement in the Skills Schedule and existing CALD statements (Interim Report, §5, pp.28 to 29). This is a reasoned decision, but worth noting given the level of advocacy for it from the submission by Massender, Janovic, Delaney, Wallace and Christian-Hare (Annexure D, p.77).
No national alignment yet. The reform is NSW-only. The Law Admissions Consultative Committee and the Admissions Committee of the Legal Services Council are running a parallel national review. The Board's position is that NSW cannot wait. Whether the national review ultimately produces something consistent with what NSW does is an open question (Interim Report, §1, pp.9 to 10; §2, p.14).
What to do now
If you are a current law student or recent graduate in NSW:
- Read the Skills Schedule (Annexure A, pp.38 to 46). These are the competencies you are going to be assessed against. If you are early enough in your degree, your law school will be working out how to embed these. If you are later in your degree, you can start building these out through extra-curricular work, clerkships, mooting, volunteering at community legal centres, and your electives.
- If you graduate in 2027, plan for the transitional version of PLT. Four weeks intensive in person, plus up to a week of pre-reading. Plan your finances and your work commitments around an intensive four week period after you finish your degree.
- If you do not yet have 15 days of legal work experience, get it during your degree. Under the new model, prior work counts. Under the old model, it does not. The earlier you start, the more options you have.
- Find out where your law school sits. Some NSW schools are already deep into curriculum reform. Others have further to travel. Ask your law school what its 2028 readiness plan looks like. They have told the Board they can do it; they should be willing to tell you.
- Push for student representation in the next phase. The report explicitly says further consultation is ongoing on the final Skills Schedule, the work placement framework, and the PALT course design (Interim Report, §8, pp.36 to 37). ALSA, your law society and individual submissions can still shape this. The Board has taken individual student submissions seriously in the past, as evidenced by their citation throughout.
The bigger picture
What the LPAB has done is, on the substance, the right call. The current system is not working. The data is clear, the survey is robust and the consultations have been wide. The model is sound: scaffolded skills development across the continuum of legal education, with practical training where it actually belongs, in the law degree and on the job.
What is less defensible is the failure to bring law students into the room formally, given how much of this report's empirical foundation comes from student and graduate dissatisfaction. The reform is, in significant part, about you. The next phase of consultation should include you properly.
In the meantime, this is the most concrete change to legal education in NSW in many years, and it is moving fast. If you are not paying attention to the 2028 commencement date, the people designing your training are.
Onwards!
Mel
Source
LPAB, Interim Report on PLT Reform, NSW Legal Profession Admission Board, issued 13 March 2026, 340 pages. Available via the NSW Legal Profession Admission Board.
Key references
- §1 Introduction (pp.5 to 11): the case for reform, the Urbis survey, the preferred model
- §2 Designing changes (pp.12 to 15): principles, consultation, implementation
- §3 Law degree reforms (pp.16 to 19): the embedded skills mandate, 2028 commencement
- §4 Work experience requirement (pp.20 to 22): 15 day reduction, prior work counting, supervisor concerns
- §5 Pre-admission PLT course (pp.23 to 28): four week intensive, AQF removal, fee relief, College earnings
- §6 Post-admission legal training (pp.29 to 34): PALT structure, 15 hours per year, two years
- §7 Regulatory changes (pp.34 to 36): legislative pathway
- §8 Steps continuing to be taken (pp.36 to 37): next phase consultations
- Annexure A (pp.38 to 46): the Skills Schedule, the operational spine of the reform
- Annexure B (pp.47 to 60): draft four week PLT course designs from the College of Law, UNSW and UTS
- Annexure C (pp.61 to 66): draft Family Law PALT module
- Annexure D (pp.67 to 91): written submissions, including the student and graduate submissions
- Annexure G (pp.328 to 338): table of suggested legislative changes from the Legal Services Council
- Annexure H (p.339): feedback obtained at meetings, including the 5 November 2025 Banco Court session
