Leadership through Service

The Brennan Program is a voluntary program run for UTS law students. The key objectives of
the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program are to instil a sense of justice consciousness, and
an understanding of the rule of law. Also, it aims to encourage people to get involved with pro
bono work, so volunteering at a number of different organisations over the course of the
program, and ultimately just develop those leadership skills that you need to enter into the legal
practise.
The Brennan Justice Program is a really great program for university students to not only learn
about social justice, but also work practically in the community on social justice projects. It is
designed to look at those issues that perhaps mainstream society isn't looking at. It might
engage students to pursue other careers that they haven't considered.
The reason I chose to study law is because I was really passionate about making the world a
better place and getting involved in what I now know to be social justice issues, and on my very
first day of law school, the Brennan Program came and spoke at orientation and I remember
feeling so inspired and in awe by listening to people like me talk about the things that I cared
about, and that really was a moment that I was like, "I need to be involved in this in whatever
capacity I can."
The program makes sense to me because at its very core, it is about making sure law students
understand social justice and the role of law in changing society. Just makes sense for a
university to work with private practise to affect social justice change. And I think the Brennan
Justice Program is all about looking more deeply at the problems that we have in society and
looking at how we can tackle those. I feel so hopeful knowing that potentially thousands of
students are going to go through this program in the future, and they are all going to find
themselves in government, in companies, in not-for-profit organisations, and from early on in
their career, they will have developed all of these social justice framework skills that they can
then use as they pursue whatever they want to pursue.
Getting to experience the human rights sector as a student before I've even started my legal
career has been incredible in terms of shaping the way that I will approach the work that I do
when I graduate. I know that I will continue to be really involved in pro bono work, and that will
be a fundamental part of who I am as a lawyer. If you're thinking about getting involved in the
Brennan Program, it is easy. We design it around you. You get to volunteer where you want to
volunteer, you get to do everything you want to do, and really do the things that you care about.

Hey Brennanites. It’s Jennie Siow here, and I’m currently completing the Brennan Program like all of you!

In this video, I am going to demonstrate how to claim your ROJ points and LTS hours for the Brennan Justice and Leadership Program. It’s super easy.

Once you sign into CareerHub, you’ll notice the Brennan Program is under this dashboard tab here. Click on this and it takes you to your Program progress. This is my current progress. I signed up about 6 months ago. It’s worthwhile reading the Brennan emails and handbook, as there is quite a lot you can claim for with the LSS, Brennan and general social justice events you may attend. Now. Let’s show you how to claim. First, I’m going to talk about how to claim your ROJ points.

Step 1: Look for the appropriate category. To know which category your contributions fall into, check out the Brennan Program Handbook.

Step 2: Each category features this blue wording, which is the form you need to complete and submit to get the points – click the blue wording.

Step 3: Fill in the appropriate details like I am doing in this example for an LSS event (we call this an external event).

Step 4: Click ‘submit’. Or click on ‘save draft’ if you’re planning your claims out and would like to upload it later for approval. Keep in mind, that if you register and attend a Brennan Program event (one run by the Brennan Team, your points will be automatically accrued. So no need to claim!

Next, I’m going to show you how to claim your LTS hours. You can claim these as you go, with different organisations, submit hours in once a year, or at the end of your service. Whatever you prefer.

Step 1: Have your Confirmation of Service Form filled by your supervisor. This can also be a photo of the signed off form by yourself, or you and your supervisor can use Adobe to sign this digitally. This is a very common approach.

Step 2: Click on the blue wording - ‘submit Brennan program LTS claim form hours logged’

Step 3: Fill in the appropriate details.

Step 4: Upload your Confirmation of Service Form

Step 5: Click ‘submit’. Click on ‘save draft’ if you would like to upload it later

And that’s it! Told you it was easy right? If you have any questions though, just shoot the Brennan Team an email, and they’ll sort you out. They’re super helpful. Their email is: brennanprogram@uts.edu.au.

Till next time!