Program Overview

La Trobe's Bachelor of Laws (Honours)/Bachelor of Arts lets you enrich your legal education by pursuing your interests and passions. Open doors to a diverse range of rewarding careers, while exploring how to make a difference in your community.

Learn the fundamentals of criminal, constitutional, property and company law. Explore the legal system and understand how it can be used as a powerful and positive force in society. Develop key skills in advocacy, negotiation and dispute resolution.

You'll also choose from our list of arts majors and explore your area of interest. Broaden your knowledge and experience by studying areas like politics, languages, sociology, history, philosophy and media studies. Learn how to communicate effectively and think critically, analytically and creatively.

You can also choose to complete law electives that complement your arts specialisation. For example, a politics major can be matched with related subjects like public international law and human rights law. While a language or philosophy major could be augmented by subjects in areas like Indigenous Australians and the law, intellectual property law or family, society and law.

Enhance your classroom learning by taking advantage of optional internships, work experience, and our study abroad program*. Gain hands-on experience working with community legal centres, law firms and government agencies. Find out what it takes to interview clients, prepare legal advice and work with senior lawyers to develop legal solutions.

Graduate ready to make a positive difference. With combined expertise in law and arts, you can build a career as a solicitor or barrister, in-house counsel or corporate consultant, working in commercial law firms or community legal centres. You could also work in the public service as a government lawyer or support social justice initiatives in the not-for-profit sector.

You'll learn:

• Evidence and criminal procedure: Build your understanding of the criminal legal system and process. Learn how to apply the law to factual scenarios and provide legal advice.
• Contract law and company law: Learn how to apply the legal principles governing the creation, interpretation and termination of a contract. Develop the skills to specialise as a corporate legal expert through studies in incorporation, corporate governance and the various methods of financing.
• Constitutional law: Discover how government power is distributed, exercised, and controlled. Learn about federalism, the €˜external affairs' power, and express and implied constitutional rights.
• Dispute resolution: Build key skills in negotiation and mediation to support your future practice. Learn about the processes of arbitration, conciliation, mediation, and negotiation in private and commercial disputes.
• Critical and creative thinking: Delve into complex problems. Learn how to see new possibilities and turn them into reality.
• Communication: Learn how to connect, communicate and collaborate with your university peers and future colleagues.

Major: Creative and Professional Writing

The Creative and Professional Writing major allows you to hone your writing skills in multiple genres and forms. If you have a passion for telling stories and using language to change the way we see the world, then this major gives you the opportunity to experiment with the short story, extended fiction, creative non-fiction and script-writing. As well as crafting your own pieces, you will learn about the links between creative practice and literary studies and discover how your own writing relates to or challenges literary traditions. You will practice reading as a writer, paying close attention to the strategies other writers use to create mood and meaning.

Over the course of the major, you will develop editing skills in dedicated classes with a focus on current practice in the publishing industry and in peer-feedback workshops. Supported by accomplished and published writers, you will finish your degree with a writing portfolio and valuable writing experience. Through this major you will gain skills highly valued within and beyond the university – to write cogently, to adapt style for different circumstances and audiences, to engage critically with language, and to tell compelling stories.