National clerkship Scheme (“NCS”) Molly Snaith| September Council 2012

Why a NCS?  See the 2011 National Clerkship Discussion Paper  Arguments for a National System: Provides students with a broader network of firms for students to approach for employment Assist students looking for work out of their jurisdiction Helps firms avoid duplications between offices  Arguments against a National System: Students from smaller states or regions could be disadvantaged, there would be an increased competition throughout all states

Previous attempts towards a NCS  Recruitment working party  Put together the Discussion paper Proposed a national model and national dates Liaised with firms regarding the NCS No implementation of the system by firms  The proposed model voted for by Council in 2011 A common date for clerkships and graduate applications Clerkships of 2 – 5 weeks A multiple round offers system, and An offer period of at least 24 hours and not longer than 48 hours

Why didn’t anything come from the working party?  All states have different systems  New South Wales: 12 weeks  Victoria: 3-4 weeks  Western Australia: 2 weeks  South Australia: no set length  Queensland: 3-4 weeks  This systems are tried and tested and clearly work well for what the states require  There is a reluctance to change something that works

Where to go from here?  Allow firms to retain their current systems is terms of length  Seek to streamline dates  Opening and closing dates  Interviews commence from the same date  Offers can be made from the same date

Possible issues with this system  Potential difficulty for students who are interviewing in more than one state, however it is anticipated that the period between the commencement of interviews and the offer date will be long enough to ensure students have ample time to interview everywhere  Potential difficulty for firms who use the same HR for more than one state  Potential difficulty with streamlining the Queensland dates

Benefits of this system  Students who have applied to more than one state can make a decision knowing all their options  Firms will potentially receive more applications from interstate and may therefore be able to ensure they are hiring the best candidates

Taking this approach  Implement a new recruitment working party  It is envisaged that this recruitment working party will consist of a person from each state to allow for meetings with firms and to provide a representative approach  I would ideally like to keep numbers small to allow for ease of teleconferencing and communication etc. however if there are a number of good nominations received there may be more than one person from some states

The role of the Recruitment Working Party  To liaise with firms and the schemes’ governing bodies, e.g. the Law institute of Victoria  To put together a paper on how the new system will work and take this paper to the Firms initially  It is recognised that without the cooperation of the firms the system will be unable to work  Having the firms onboard will also give the working party leverage for discussions with the schemes’ governing bodies  Once the firms are on board, the working party will then liaise with the schemes’ governing bodies

The role of the Recruitment Working Party  It is envisaged that the Recruitment Working Party will communicate via and will teleconference once a month

The 2012 Dates  South Australia – Offers made from 9am on 4 September  Victoria – Offers made from 9am on 9 October  New South Wales – offers made from 21 September  Queensland – Offers made from 14 May  Western Australia – Offers made from 26 September  Tasmania – no current system

The Proposed Dates and periods  Possible dates:  Sometime in mid-September Going with the middle of September will allow the least disruption for the firms, essentially most firms will only need to move their offer dates by 1-2 weeks  The application period  Generally open for 3-4 weeks under the current systems, this is probably a good length. A shorter period would produce more stress for students, particularly those applying to several dates.  The potential dates for the application period – ideally commencing in the winter break to provide students with the time to make higher quality applications and keep stress levels to a minimum  E.g. Monday 15 July – Monday 12 August or Monday 8 July – Monday 5 August  The interview period  Needs to be long enough to eliminate the issue of students who have applied to several states  3-4 weeks for interviews to be conducted is probably sufficient  To commence 1 week after the closing of applications  E.g. Monday 19 August or Monday 12 August  The offer dates and period Offers may be made after the interview period, ideally from 9am on the Monday The offer period differs between states, e.g. NSW is open for 4 days (including the weekend) A longer period is desirable in order for students to make an informed and educated decision and possibly negotiate dates for their clerkships E.g. Offers may be made from September 23 or September 16

Queensland  Queensland’s system is a lot earlier to any other Australian System, recruitment for winter and summer 2013 will be in done in March 2013  It is recognised that gaining compliance from Queensland maybe difficult as it will involve a drastic change from their current system  How to approach this?  It is believed that the best way to approach this with Queensland is to work out what the can gain from a NCS  More interstate applicants and therefore a higher number of applicants etc.  To ensure cooperation from the other states first, with the other states on board it will be in Queensland’s best interests to also come on board

Nominations for the Recruitment Working Party  Nominations may be made from now until 5pm AEST on Friday 12 October to  Nominations should consist of: words explanation of why you want to be involved 2. Your experience relevant to the position 3. Your state  Promoting the Recruitment working party:  It is asked that LSSs promote the RWP and nominations within their Law School and within their LSS to ensure that we have as many quality nominations as possible  We encourage VP Ed’s and Presidents to nominate