Most newly admitted lawyers are subject to a supervised legal practice (SLP) condition on their practicing certificate. This means that they must have their legal work supervised by an eligible supervisor for the first 18-24 months of legal practice.
The period of supervised legal practice begins once a newly admitted lawyer is granted a practising certificate and starts engaging in legal practice.
Once the supervised period is completed, lawyers need to apply to the VLSB+C to have the SLP condition removed from their certificate so they can engage in independent legal practice without supervision.
Who must undertake supervised legal practice
Most newly admitted lawyers are required to undertake a period of SLP. Newly admitted interstate and international lawyers (including from New Zealand) practising in Victoria are also generally subject to an SLP condition.
The SLP condition does not apply if you’re a barrister or a foreign lawyer that only practises foreign law in Victoria.
Some newly admitted lawyers may be eligible for an exemption from the SLP condition.
Goals of supervised legal practice
The goal of SLP is for newly admitted lawyers to develop their practical legal knowledge, professional skills, and ethical judgment, under the supervision and guidance of a more experienced lawyer.
By setting up new lawyers for successful independent legal practice, SLP promotes the Uniform Law’s objectives of ensuring lawyers are competent and maintain high ethical and professional standards in the provision of legal services, and enhancing the protection of clients of law practices and of the protection of the public generally.
Our Early Career Lawyer Capability Framework provides guidance on what capabilities and skills early career lawyers should develop during the SLP period.
Responsibilities of supervisors and supervisees
The supervisory relationship is a mutual one. This section sets out supervisors’ and supervisees’ responsibilities. This information can also be found in the Supervision Plan Template.
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Remote supervision arrangements
If you are a lawyer subject to the SLP condition you can be supervised remotely, however different rules may apply. If you work at a different entity to your supervisor, you must notify us and submit a remote supervision plan for our approval.
If you are a supervised lawyer and your supervisor is employed by a different entity, we must approve a remote supervision arrangement before you start this supervision. The onus is on the supervised lawyer to apply to us for that approval first.
Considerations for remote supervision
When planning a remote supervision arrangement, you must consider:
- the logistics of contact, how regular one-on-one meetings will be conducted and how you can contact your supervisor at all other times
- how your supervisor will manage your workflow if they’re not employed in the same law practice or are based in a different location
- how correspondence and advice will be reviewed and feedback provided to you as well as the frequency of this review and feedback
- how your supervisor will access files and documents to review all your legal work. You must carefully consider issues of client confidentiality
- your supervisors experience in the areas of legal practice you will be working in.
We will consider whether the proposed remote supervision arrangement is adequate and in line with our Supervised Legal Practice Policy.
If we approve your remote supervision arrangement, we strongly recommend that all of your engagement letters to clients clearly state that you’re engaging in supervised legal practice and include your supervisor’s contact details.
Application for approval of a remote supervision arrangement
Please provide us with a remote supervision proposal, setting out the supervision that will be provided. The proposal should confirm the supervisor will have authority in respect of all legal work performed and will be able to direct, amend, override or intervene. You should demonstrate in your application how you will address any administrative obstacles.
Access remote supervision proposal template.
Please send your proposal to us via the lawyer enquiry form, selecting 'Supervised legal practice' as the category.
As remote working has become commonplace, a remote supervision arrangement is no longer required to be approved by the Board where you and your supervisor work for the same entity, but you work remotely.
We still encourage supervised lawyers to enter into an agreed remote supervision plan with their supervisor, however, this is not a requirement and we do not need to review a copy of the supervision plan.
Supervised legal practice resources
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Early Career Lawyer Capability Framework: sets out the capabilities should develop during SLP, with performance indicators to help identify capability development.
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Supervision Plan Template: helps supervisors plan appropriate work for their supervisees and t structure their supervision.
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Reflective Practice Template: assists all lawyers – but especially early career lawyers - to reflect on their professional development and wellbeing.
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SLP time calculator: supervisees can use this calculator to work out their remaining SLP time.
Frequently asked questions
In order to complete your supervision period, you must be engaging in legal practice. This is particularly relevant for government legal employment where there may be a mix of legal and non-legal work.
The terms ‘engage in legal practice’ and ‘legal services’ are defined in the Uniform Law. While there is no legislative guidance on the meaning of 'legal practice', further guidance is provided by case law.
We consider the following types of work to be examples of legal practice:
- giving legal advice;
- interpreting and applying legislation or case law for use of a client, whether or not for fee; or
- drafting legal documents.
The following examples of work are generally not considered to be legal practice:
- paralegal work;
- working as a judge’s associate;
- policy work, including legal policy work;
- working as a conveyancer;
- working as a migration agent;
- working as a tax agent; and
- working as a patent attorney.
Although the above professions work extensively with legislation and often provide advice, they are either not considered to be engaging in legal practice or are specifically exempted by legislation. For example, policy work is expressly excluded from the definition of 'engage in legal practice' under the Uniform Law. If you are unsure whether the work you are doing is legal practice, ask yourself:
- Does an Act of Parliament or rules of a court require the work to be done by a lawyer?
- Is the work normally done by a lawyer?
- Does the work require training or expertise in the law?
- Who is the client?
Once the required period of supervision is complete, you must apply to us to have the condition removed from your practising certificate. You don’t have to hold a current practising certificate to make this application.
- download our template application form and supervisor letter
- ask your supervisor(s) to complete the supervisor letter confirming you have completed your period of supervised practice. Please note that we will accept electronic signatures from your supervisors.
- complete the application form and statutory declaration.
- send both the application form and your supervisor(s) letters to us via our lawyer enquiry form, selecting ‘Supervised legal practice’ from the categories.
There are extremely rare scenarios where someone can be supervised external to their place of practice. If you propose a scenario where you will be supervised by a practitioner at an external entity, you should seek our approval of a remote supervision plan at the start of your supervision period. However, in some cases we may apply some discretion and approve a remote supervision plan retrospectively. This may be time consuming so to avoid delays in removing your SLP condition a remote supervision plan should be approved prior to commencing remote supervision.
Generally no. However in some limited circumstances we may agree to a lawyer with a SLP condition being supervised by a principal at the same law practice. Please use the lawyer enquiry form to discuss this with a member of our team. Select ‘Practising certificate’ from the category.
Electronic signatures
We accept electronic signatures from supervisors on the supervisor letter.
Multiple supervisors
If you have been supervised by different supervisors over your SLP period (i.e. you have changed jobs or your supervisor changed) you will need to get all your supervisors to complete a letter.
If you have been supervised by multiple supervisors at the same organisation (i.e. you report into several partners in the same firm) you only need to get one supervisor to complete a letter.
Leaving an organisation
If you are leaving an organisation we recommend you ask your supervisor to complete their letter before you finish your role. The supervisor letter template will need to be updated to remove reference to sighting the statutory declaration.
Your supervisor is leaving
If your supervisor is leaving the organisation we recommend you ask them to complete the letter before they finish their role. The supervisor letter template will need to be updated to remove reference to sighting the statutory declaration.
If your supervisor is leaving and there is no supervisor to replace them please contact us urgently. You cannot practice unsupervised.
I can’t get a letter from my supervisor, what do I do?
If you are not able to contact your supervisor, or there is a problem getting your letter, please contact us and we may be able to assist you. Use the lawyer enquiry form, selecting ‘Supervised legal practice’ from the categories.
Yes. However make sure you keep good records of the hours worked and obtain supervisor letters from relevant supervisors at each location.
Where you have engaged in legal practice overseas you may be able to apply for an exemption from SLP using the template for exemption on our website.
These applications will be considered in line with our supervised legal practice policy.
Where you work full-time ordinary periods of leave do not need to be deducted from the period of supervised legal practice.
Any additional periods such as long service leave, unpaid leave and parental leave will not contribute to your period of supervised legal practice.
You will need to pro-rata the time that you have engaged in supervised legal practice. For example, someone engaging in supervised legal practice 2.5 days per week, without any additional periods of leave would complete their supervised legal practice period in 4 years.
To calculate your full time equivalent (FTE) you should times the working days in a period by the percentage of supervised legal practice you engaged in. For example someone engaging in supervised legal practice 3 days per week has a FTE of .6.
Use our SLP time calculator here to help you estimate the SLP time you have completed before applying for SLP removal.
No. You can apply to have your SLP condition removed even if you are not employed.
No. The required period is 18 months or 2 years supervised legal practice (depending on how you qualified for admission). This period cannot be reduced to be completed in a shorter timeframe.
You need to meet Victoria’s requirements before you can have your SLP condition removed. Time spent being supervised interstate does count towards your period of supervision. You will need to have any interstate supervisors complete the supervisor letter and provide this with your application.
No. You must be supervised while subject to the SLP condition.
In certain circumstances, you may be granted an exemption from some or all of the supervision period. For example, if you have practiced overseas you may be able to claim an exemption.
You can apply for an exemption from SLP using the template for exemption on our website.
These applications will be considered in line with our supervised legal practice policy.
No. You are not permitted to supervise the legal work of other lawyers when subject to the SLP condition yourself. You must have the SLP condition removed from your practising certificate first.