Trina Ng didn’t quite have her power suit picked out when she began her law degree, but she was pretty certain where her career was headed.

“I didn’t envisage myself as a lawyer. I saw law as a degree that would get me past the door at the investment banks,” she admits. What she wanted was a career with a ticket to travel: “Law didn’t strike me as particularly portable.”

But as she progressed through her five years of study, Ng’s eyes were opened to the practical and international opportunities.

Her experience included going on exchange to Germany, taking part in an international moot in Vienna, undertaking an internship at the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague, editing the UNSW Law Journal, publishing a research paper on the human security implications of climate change, and working on developing human rights clinics in the Asia-Pacific. All gained her course credits. 

She graduated to a job as an associate in the international arbitration practice of White & Case LLP, an international law firm based in New York. There she works with a team of brilliant and very “global” lawyers.

While UNSW Law has always offered students international opportunities (last year more than 100 students went on international exchanges to partner universities), the biggest overhaul of the law degree in 40 years will see the global perspective enhanced with a new focus on learning law in action.

The new program, inspired by the experiences of students like Ng, starts in 2013. It is the most ambitious by an Australian law school and follows intensive consultation with students, the legal community and employers.

Read the full story in the latest Uniken.

Contact: Steve Offner, Uniken Editor, 02 9385 1583