Responding to a global financial crisis by bolstering your academic credentials is by no means an unusual tactic. A range of professional industries – including finance, accounting and management – have long considered postgraduate qualifications as a safety net, in times of economic uncertainty.

In the past, strong demand for lawyers has prevented higher education being seen as a necessity. Masters and Doctorates in law were largely viewed as qualifications for academics. A changing profession and the economy has seen an unprecedented rise in legal professionals taking up the offer of higher education.

“Lawyers didn’t typically do PhDs unless they intended to be academics,” says Professor Gillian Triggs, dean of the University of Sydney Law School. “Whereas I recently had a new PhD student who is a successful barrister. We are seeing a very significant change in that regard.”

Professor Triggs says two things prompt movement from the commercial legal profession towards higher education. “Lawyers understand that law is such a dynamic field of study, so they have become more interested in keeping up with change,” she says.

“The other reason is they need specialist skills to compete in the legal environment, particularly with courses having an international or transnational element.”

As a result, institutional offerings at the College of Law, University of Sydney and Monash University have seen enrolments increase substantially in  2009. And law firms have noticed younger lawyers expressing more interest in undertaking further study.

“We have seen a slight increase in the numbers of people who are applying to do their Masters,” says Gavin Bell, chief executive officer and chief managing partner at Freehills. “We can’t say if this is a result of the global financial crisis, or just lawyers trying to improve their marketability.”

The two are undoubtedly linked, as a tightening job market places increased pressure on lawyers to distinguish themselves from the pack. “What we are hearing from unemployed lawyers is ‘if you can’t place me, then I’ll go and do a Masters,’” says Paul Burgess, a director and founder of Burgess Paluch Legal Recruitment.

Conversely, employed lawyers are also taking advantage of the slowing market to improve their skills through postgraduate education. Allens Arthur Robinson confirmed that several of their staff members opted for voluntary redundancy last month, intending to undertake further study. Universities are noticing a similar tendency.

“We think it is very likely that young people are being encouraged by their employers, perhaps to work fewer hours in the slowing economy, not to be made redundant, but to take on the opportunity to complete another degree,” Professor Triggs notes.

Practically focused

With the corporate world more interested in legal education, providers need to respond by placing a higher emphasis on practicality in their courses. “We have introduced a wider range of commercial subjects, including employment law and IP,” says Monash University’s Professor Marilyn Pittard.

“We also use teachers who are not only academics but practicing lawyers, such as barristers or solicitors, and we offer skills-based units such as negotiation or mediation.”

Sydney’s The College of Law, which is traditionally reputed for its admission programs, has also recognised this need in the legal profession. An Applied Masters program was introduced last year, offering specialisations in family law and commercial litigation.

“Market research prior to the design of the program, and experience once it was in place, both found that modern practising lawyers are looking for high-quality, job-relevant degrees which give them a Masters credential,” says Neville Carter, managing director and principal of the college.

“We were surprised by that, but lawyers didn’t think this was available on the market.” The Applied Masters program is significantly different to an LLM, providing specific professional skills which are tailored to particular areas of practice.

“We aren’t really competing with LLM providers,” says the college’s John Nelson. “There are historical boundaries between what a law school does and what an institution such as ourselves does. We are less specifically academic and far more vocational.”

However, the range of commercial specialisations offered by providers has increased substantially in the past decade. “There has been a demand from the profession for LLM programs to be more orientated towards practise, and this has certainly accelerated in the past ten years,” said Mark Darian-Smith, a partner at top-tier commercial firm Mallesons Stephen Jaques.

“Universities have generally had to become more commercial and find more of their own funding. One obvious area that graduate law schools have sought to encourage is the corporate sector.”

LLM or MBA?

Another decision legal practitioners need to make is whether to undertake a Master of Laws (LLM) or the increasingly popular Masters of Business Administration (MBA). A glance at the staff in the senior echelons of law firms in Australia will see a steady mix of both postgraduate qualifications for their partners.

Gavin Bell actually undertook one semester of an LLM qualification, but eventually decided on an MBA.

“I think I had seen that my career would, in the long term, be in management at Freehills,” he says. “As a lawyer, I had no commercial or business background.”

“By learning about project finance and people management, by the time I was in full-time management I could see how useful my MBA had been.”

The value of management training has been acknowledged even by the legal faculties within universities. “For senior lawyers, they are usually ‘running a business’, even within a law firm,” Professor Pittard says. “They are managing groups of people, and that would be the motivation for senior lawyers to undertake an MBA.”

Senior lawyers who are opting for further legal training have also been encouraged by their firms to undertake management courses at postgraduate level. Darian-Smith undertook a BCL qualification at Oxford University, but after moving into management at Mallesons, also completed a short management course at the graduate business school INSEAD, in Paris.

Other Mallesons partners are encouraged to complete a ‘quasi-mini’ MBA, through a 10  week business program at Harvard University.

Move towards specialty

Yet the value in an LLM program is evident in the range of specialisations that are available for lawyers.

The College of Law is planning to introduce more offerings in coming years to their Applied Masters programs, including a specialty in wills and trusts. The law faculties of the University of Sydney and Melbourne University, amongst others, already offer a plethora of LLM focuses, including dispute resolution, commercial law, competition law and intellectual property.

“There is a limitation in specialisation for lawyers at an undergraduate level, so postgraduate study at Monash gives an opportunity to specialise in aspects of commercial law, or international law, and so on,” says Professor Pittard.

“Further study may also enable lawyers to move into another area of specialisation in practise, and they may use a specialist masters as a vehicle to make that change.”

It also seems that postgraduate qualifications are considered more necessary in certain areas.

“A lot of tax lawyers seem to do postgraduate study, and it is also very common for senior intellectual property lawyers to have a Masters degree,” Darian-Smith says. “But those qualifications are never a formal bar to progression at Mallesons – or in another firm.”

Looking overseas

The historical tendency to appreciate international postgraduate education has receded, as the quality of our local institutions has grown.

Completing a Masters with an Australian university certainly hasn’t placed any barriers on the careers of some of the most successful lawyers in private firms today.

David Fagan, national chief executive partner at Clayton Utz, took an LLM at his alma mater, the University of Melbourne. Robert Milliner, chief executive partner at Malleson Stephen Jaques, completed his MBA at the University of Western Australia.

Attending an international university is not necessarily ideal, considering the costs and career break required. Darian-Smith acknowledges that without his Menzies Foundation scholarship, attending Oxford may not have been possible.

Similarly, Freehill’s Bell selected the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales for common reasons – reputation and high-quality education. “Yet studying part-time was evidently a motivator,” he says. “Travelling to an international school would have meant a substantial break in my career.”

Law firms have opted for different policies to support postgraduate education for legal staff. Freehills offers competitive fellowships to its lawyers to attend universities in the UK or US. Mallesons offer unprecedented support to its lawyers wishing to study in Australia on a part-time basis, providing funding and support for their chosen Masters.

Australian universities are becoming more recognised for their high-quality legal education. The brand new facilities and buildings on campus at the University of Sydney Law School are assisting that reputation.

“It is hard to say what is the major driver of our increased enrolment numbers – whether it is our competitive edge, the economy, reputation for research or even simply it is that we now have the finest law teaching building in the world,” Professor Triggs comments. “The focus upon the local market which Australian institutions offer is also of use to young lawyers who decide to study locally. Where to study often depends on the actual chosen field, as sometimes an Australian Masters would be much more relevant to practice than an overseas one,” she says.

Timing matters

It seems that lawyers have chosen to undertake postgraduate education at different stages throughout their career. The overwhelming response from senior lawyers and institutions was that young lawyers should gain some experience, prior to gaining their postgraduate Masters.

“We wouldn’t generally encourage someone in their first year (post-admission) to rush off and do their Masters,” says Darian-Smith.

“I think they would generally benefit from a couple of years under their belt, and a feel for where they are going.”

Yet value in higher education is still as relevant to young lawyers as it is for partners. “Ten years ago, the people with LLM’s would only be encouraged at the big end of town,” says Carter. “We are now finding that it is filtering down into all levels of the profession.”

Law firms and legal education institutions seem to be in agreement about a change in the psyche of the younger legal professional, with higher education becoming more and more necessary in a tightening market.

“You probably will see a swing in the coming years towards bright young lawyers taking the opportunity to improve their formal qualifications, and that’s a good thing,” says Darian-Smith. “With something like law, it is a marathon, not a sprint.”

“You’ll be practicing for a long time, and if you have the privilege to do your Masters in your  twenties, it is something you’ll have forever.”

Leading Australian Institutions of Higher Legal Education