The university plans to outsource Tasmania's nationally esteemed postgraduate law course to an interstate provider, despite mounting concerns from the Tasmanian legal profession.
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Last month a delegation of some of the highest legal personnel in the state met with the university to discuss their "grave concerns".
But the meeting seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
The University of Tasmania said it plans to call for tenders to provide its Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice, which is currently run and offered by the university's Centre for Legal Studies.
UTAS said it has "offered the course through an external provider for many years", however the Centre of Legal Studies sits under the University of Tasmania's School of Law, and is headed by one of its senior law lecturers.
School of Law head Michael Stuckey said the move was part of a plan to make legal education and law accessible to more Tasmanians.
"We have had a long and very fruitful agreement with the current provider, the Centre for Legal Studies, and we will be inviting them to submit an expression of interest."
The move means that future Tasmanian law postgraduates will not have access to the current format of the Tasmanian Legal Practice Course, with the current agreement expiring at this year.
The current program is a 26-week course which gives students a law-office experience, with mock-court appearances in front of Supreme and Magistrate Court judges, and practising lawyers giving lectures.
Professor Stuckey said the future graduate diploma course will be offered twice yearly.
It would be offered in a blended mode of delivery, where "certain essential course components could be taught face to face while students could also have the option of online study for other components".
Law Society of Tasmania president Simon Gates said there had not been any consultation with the legal profession about the proposed changes.
He said there had been no response from the university after the delegation's meeting on February 8.
"There is a lot of anger. A lot of people are contacting the law society and raising their concerns about this. Senior lawyers are concerned about what this will mean for new lawyers entering the profession, and whether they are going to be adequately prepared for practice," Mr Gates said.
"A very high proportion of members of the legal profession have law degrees from the University of Tasmania and they are rightly concerned about what it would mean for the reputation of their own qualification if the standing of the law school would deterioate."
Professor Stuckey said the university wanted the diploma to be accessible to anyone, regardless of geographic location, stage of life, family background, age or gender.
"We want the Diploma of Legal Practice to be accessible to students who may live a long way from Hobart and who may be juggling the demands of work and family."
But Mr Gates dismissed the rationale that regional-based law students would now be able to access a graduate diploma and practical legal training.
"To the extent that it is being suggested that it will allow regional based students to have access to PLT, then that just doesn't make sense," Mr Gates said.
"PLT is already on offered online, for example the College of Law and the Leo Cussen Centre for Law, so for people who want to do it that way, they already can."
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