Admission Process
1. Admission Ceremony Dates
See Admission Calendar.
2. Filing of Documents
Documents must be filed in person.
Applicants outside the metropolitan area may contact the Board to arrange for lodgement of documents by mail.
All documents provided by you to the Board as part of your admission are subject to the Freedom of Information Act (Vic) 1982. As such, we strongly recommend that you take photocopies of ALL of your documents as under the Act we may not be able to provide copies back to you.
3. Graduation
Applicants must have formally graduated before admission; this stipulation is strictly enforced.
4. Requests for Group Admissions
Sometimes a group of candidates wishes to be admitted together. (Typically they would be clerks who had served traineeship at the same law firm, or a group which had been together at a practical legal training course). The Board of Examiners will assist such groups as far as possible, but you should note that it is not a right, and that occasionally arrangements must be altered at the last minute.
Those who desire admission as a group must:
- Give notice in writing, naming every member of the group. (Each participant must sign the notice in person).
- Serve the notice no later than the last day for serving your Notice of Intention.
All persons not requesting group admission will be balloted into sessions.
5. Publication of persons applying for Admission
Before the date of admission, the Board will publish the names of persons applying for admission in a newspaper circulating generally in Victoria.
6. Admission Ceremony
See Notice No. 1 of 2009 (pdf 15KB)
7. Practising Certificates
To practice law in Victoria it is necessary to be admitted as an Australian lawyer and to hold a current Practising Certificate. You are not eligible to apply for a local Practising Certificate until you have been admitted as an Australian Lawyer and an application for the grant of a Practising Certificate must be signed and duly executed after the date of your admission. Care should be taken not to hold yourself out as a Lawyer until you hold a current local Practising Certificate, notwithstanding that you have been admitted as an Australian Lawyer.
Upon admission, the applicant will be entitled to apply for a restricted Practising Certificate which permits supervised legal practice. It is possible to have this condition removed from your Practising Certificate after a period of supervised legal practice of 18 months if the applicant has undertaken Supervised Workplace Training or two years in the case of Practical Legal Training course graduates (s 2.4.18).
The Law Institute of Victoria as a delegate of the Legal Services Board, grants Victorian Practising Certificates. An information kit about applying for a local Practising Certificate will be provided to you when you attend and pay your admission fee at the Supreme Court Registry.
Any queries regarding practising certificates should be directed to the Law Institute of Victoria or the Legal Services Board. Applicants may apply to practise in the Federal Jurisdiction to:
The Registrar of the High Court of Australia
Level 17, 305 William Street
Melbourne
Telephone: (03) 8600 3000
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