Bachelor of Laws

VU's law degree requires 384 credit points across four years: 96 points of first-year core study, 132 points of professional core law units (the ones needed for admission), 108 points of law electives and 48 points of non-law electives, and is taught out of VU's City campus, which the university markets as sitting inside Melbourne's legal precinct near the courts and major firms.

Students who perform strongly early (a distinction average across the first 192 credit points) can apply to transfer into the honours version of the degree, assessed against their top 12 law units, so the honours distinction isn't set from day one the way it is at some universities. It's earned partway through. Core areas covered are the ones required for admission to legal practice everywhere in Australia: contracts, torts, property, constitutional, criminal and corporate law.

Because VU draws heavily from Melbourne's west, a lot of the clinical and community legal placement options connect students with legal aid and community legal centres in that catchment rather than corporate firm internships, which shapes the kind of practical legal experience students tend to graduate with.