Arvid Tang 23 August at 21:28
Hi Jason, I am fine Ty.

After I graduated from Utas, I enroll the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice (GDLP) in SA. I need to fulfill the 2 years requirement for my PR application.

GDLP in SA is a one year program (52 weeks) and the cheapest in Australia. However, there is a catch in this program. It is the toughest/hardest Legal practice program in Australia.

In SA, we call it GDLP; Qld or NSW or Vic they call it PLT (Practical Legal Training) 26 weeks or 6 months program; even in Tassie they call it PLT (Tassie PLT is the shortest 22 weeks);

PLT in Canberra is the easiest and allow you to work in other Commonwealth countries (besides Malaysia)

WA does not have PLT; do get admitted you need to fulfill the one year articles or clerkship. (not sure about this you have to double check)

How many years you need to stay in Utas? 1 year or 2 years? It makes a difference. If you study 2 years in Tas and you plan to stay and work in Australia and finance is not an issue: I recommend you to do the PLT in Canberra or in the 3 major cities Qld, Vic or NSW.

Where you do your Legal Practice will eventually bind you to that state. PLT in the 3 major cities will be more practical because it is conducting by College of Law, and you can get mutual recognition in these 3 cities.

PLT (by College of Law)- is very easy to study; the program is around $9k and you get to resubmit the assignment as many times as you like until you clear the Unit/subject and without extra cost.

GDLP (by Law Society of SA)- is very tough; each Unit has multiple assignments, and you must pass all the assignments to clear the Unit. They have a leniency of 90- 95% correct answer for each assignment.

-Please take note: they don't really give you mark for your assignment, but it is just an overall view on each assignment. If one of your assignment falls below a 90% then you deemed to fail the Unit.Although you passed the rest of the assignment in that Unit. In other words: they have ~100% correct standard.
You only have one chance to resubmit your assignment, and you are not allow to repeat each unit more than once.

- you do not have a full time lecturer where you can make appointment to meet up and clear your doubts. They hire some practising lawyers to give us some lecture and they take off when they are done. If you have any enquires after class you are on your own.

- they don't give you any text book, and what they provide is just one big file folder with some articles and some photocopied legislation.

- you do not have internet access or lexis nexes user password or etc. To access SA jurisdiction in Lexisnexis: you need to go to the law society library (you can't do your research at home; even though you have internet access)

- I had some obstacles in my studies in the beginning on this year, I try to get help from UniSA; Flinders Uni or Adelaide Uni. All of them refuse to help me because I am not their student. I am not allowed to borrow books from the Law society library or from the SA universities. For their own student, they have some special workshop to discuss the answer with them and someone to review their assignment before they hand in their assignment.

*The universities in SA is different from Utas; they have a lot of open book examination and most of the subject is open book exam. GDLP is part of the law degree which means they are allowed to do the GDLP even though they haven't graduate from the University. The law degree is in a more practical sense than theoretical like us.

-In SA, the huge law firm will hire the law student before they graduate from uni and pay for the GDLP. The interstate student is usually suffering in various way.
hope this will give you a brief idea on my program.