Sailor lawyer teacher mentor meet Stuart Lowe

From the Navy to the Bar to teaching

During a secondment to the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions, Stuart discovered a passion for being inside a courtroom.

“The type of thing that really excites me is standing on your feet and arguing your case,” he says. Keen on pursuing a career as a barrister, Stuart sat his Bar exams, completed the reading program, and was called to the NSW Bar. 
 
Around the same time, he started doing some casual work at UTS. Teaching was a natural fit – with his breadth of experience, Stuart had a lot of knowledge to share.  

“I get the best of both worlds. I can leverage off the knowledge and experience I have from my time in the Navy and being at the Bar, and then put that into both the PLT (Practical Legal Training) program and the other subjects that I teach,” he says. 

Supporting students through Practical Legal Training

PLT is a compulsory step in the journey towards admission to practise as a lawyer; students complete their PLT program at the end of their university degree. All PLT programs are slightly different, although they share the same goal: to help students connect their theoretical knowledge to the day-to-day aspects of working in the law. 

The six-month PLT program at UTS is focused on practical and interpersonal skills development with an emphasis on personal interaction and face-to-face learning.

The course includes up to 65 days of professional placements, giving students a real-world opportunity to translate their learning into practice and preparing them to be the best lawyers they can be. 

“To me, a good PLT program is one that arms you with the skills and knowledge that you will need as a graduate lawyer – especially in that all-important first year of practice,” Stuart says.  

The UTS PLT program does that really well because it offers students the ability to develop and hone their skills under the expert guidance of our PLT teaching team.” 

Career options are endless after the PLT

Supporting students through this final stage of the journey to become a lawyer is a privilege Stuart doesn’t take lightly. Having come from an unusual professional background himself, he reminds his students that a legal career can be far more than the university-to-private-practice pathway many assume they’ll follow. 

“Sadly, students are often told that unless they do really well at university and get a job in one of the top-tier firms, they won’t be considered successful,” he says.