Stuart Lowe was an officer in the Royal Australian Navy when he was first exposed to issues relating to the law. Now, he leads the UTS Practical Legal Training (PLT) program.
Sailor, lawyer, teacher, mentor - meet Stuart Lowe
PLT program head Stuart Lowe
“While I was working on the new submarine project, one of the marine engineers and I found ourselves arguing contractual issues with the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC),” says Stuart, a UTS academic who leads the university’s Practical Legal Training (PLT) program.
“On one side of the table there were a large number of lawyers from ASC, and on the other side, there was me and another guy – we had no legal background or training whatsoever.”
Despite having been thrown in the deep end, Stuart was hooked: he started studying law at UTS soon after, kick-starting a legal career that now spans more than 20 years. As a legal officer in the Australian Defence Force, he took on leadership roles in the Navy’s Advocacy and Counselling Service and the Asbestos Litigation Team and was later deployed to the Middle East.
The type of thing that really excites me, is standing on your feet and arguing your case.
From the Navy to the Bar to teaching
But it was during a secondment to the NSW Department of Public Prosecutions in 2001 that 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 readers’ program and was called to the NSW Bar in 2005.
Around the same time, he started doing some casual work at UTS. Teaching was a natural fit – with such a breadth of experience, Stuart had a lot of knowledge he wanted to share. In 2021 he was asked to head up the UTS PLT program.
“In the position I’m in now, 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 program and the other subjects that I teach,” he says.
Find out more about practical legal training at UTS
What is Practical Legal Training (PLT)?
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.
Find out more about how to become a lawyer
It doesn’t matter where you go. If you find something that fits you as a person, you’ve succeeded.
Under Stuart’s guidance, the six-month UTS PLT program 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 such a diverse professional background himself, he constantly 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.
“My message is that it doesn’t matter where you go. If you find something that fits you as a person, you’ve succeeded.”
