Legal associations in Victoria

First, the bodies that are not associations

Before the associations, meet the four bodies every Victorian lawyer deals with. You do not join them, but you will hear from each.

The Board states that some of its functions are delegated to the two professional associations, the Law Institute of Victoria and the Victorian Bar. Both instruments are published on the Board's Delegations page.

Law Institute of Victoria

The Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) is the peak body for the Victorian legal profession, representing lawyers and people working in the law. For many solicitors it is the first professional home.

There are four membership categories. Practising Full Membership is for holders of a current Victorian practising certificate. Affiliate Membership covers the judiciary, barristers, people who support a legal practice, and interstate or overseas certificate holders. Student Membership is for LLB and JD students. Graduate Membership is for law graduates in supervised or practical legal training who do not yet hold a practising certificate.

Members join Sections, each formed around an area of law, by updating their member profile. There are thirteen: Technology & Innovation; Administrative Law & Human Rights; Commercial Law; Cost Law; Criminal Law; Agency Prosecutions; Disability, Elder and Health Law; Government Lawyers; Family Law; Litigation Lawyers; Property and Environmental Law; Succession Law; and Workplace Relations. Committees and working groups sit under each Section and are joined by application.

Law students and early-career lawyers have their own community, LIV Emerging Lawyers. It is open to LIV members who are law students, graduates or practitioners with less than six years' post-admission experience.

The LIV also runs Accredited Specialisation. To apply you must be a member of the LIV or the equivalent interstate body, hold a current practising certificate, have at least five years' full-time-equivalent experience in practice since admission, show substantial involvement in the area over the past three years, and supply three references. Candidates then complete a three-part assessment, and specialists re-apply for accreditation every three years. The sixteen areas are Administrative Law, Children's Law, Commercial Law, Commercial Litigation, Commercial Tenancy Law, Costs Law, Criminal Law, Environment & Planning Law, Family Law, Immigration Law, Mediation, Personal Injury Law, Property Law, Taxation Law, Wills & Estates Law and Workplace Relations Law.

The Victorian Bar and its bar associations

The Victorian Bar is the professional association of barristers in Victoria. To come to the Bar you must be an Australian lawyer, pass the Bar's Entrance Examination and complete the Readers' Course. At the end of the course you sign the Roll of Counsel, subject to Bar Council's approval, and then read in your mentor's chambers until the reading period ends.

Once you are at the Bar, you will find your closest colleagues in a bar association. There are eleven. The Bar supports them, and each has an independent voice.

Regional and suburban law associations

If you practise in the suburbs or the regions, your local law association is likely to be the most useful room you walk into. This is where local practice knowledge lives. The LIV maintains close relationships with fifteen of them, and several limit full membership to LIV members.

Practice, affinity and community networks

Some networks form around a practice area or a shared background.

Family Law Association Victoria (FLAV) is a not-for-profit association. Its purposes are to coordinate, foster and encourage liaison, mutual cooperation and understanding among legal practitioners in family law, through social events, mentorship opportunities and other initiatives.

The LIV's Diversity Legal Associations page lists many more.

Sector bodies

A few bodies look after a whole sector, so you will meet them through your organisation and not as an individual member. The Federation of Community Legal Centres is the peak body for Victoria's community legal centres and Aboriginal Legal Services, and its members are the centres themselves. Victoria Law Foundation, established under the Victoria Law Foundation Act 2009 (Vic), works through research, education and grants. Nationally organised associations with a presence here include the Australian Lawyers Alliance and, for in-house lawyers, ACC Australia.

Which to join

Nobody joins everything. If you are in a suburban or regional practice, begin with your local law association, because that is where referrals and court know-how circulate. If you are at the Bar, the bar association for your practice area comes first, alongside your list and your floor. If you work in-house, in government or in a community legal centre, a specialist or sector association will usually feel more like home than the generalist bodies.