PLT Placement in Brisbane and the Gold Coast
For most law graduates, finding the placement is the worst part of PLT. The coursework has a timetable. The work experience component has a blank page and a deadline, and if your provider does not place you, finding a firm that will actually supervise you becomes your problem to solve.
Empire Legal is a property law firm in Brisbane with three Queensland offices and a team of about 20. We take a small number of PLT students. This page sets out what the work experience component requires, whether conveyancing satisfies it, what you would actually do here, and how to ask.
If you are a QUT undergraduate looking at LLB463, that is a different program with a different application route. Read our QUT legal placement page instead.
What the work experience component requires
Check your own provider’s rules before relying on any of this. Requirements differ by provider and by state, and they change. The College of Law’s Work Experience Rules (Appendix 5, effective 26 February 2026) are the ones most Queensland students work to, and they set the shape of it:
- Two routes. In Queensland, either 75 days of work experience, or a 15 day minimum period plus the Clinical Experience Module.
- The 15 day minimum period must be completed in Australia, at a minimum of two full days per week, concurrently with or after your coursework. A day is seven working hours.
- The additional 60 days on the 75 day route is more flexible. It can be as little as one day per week, it can be split across multiple firms, and it can be accrued in the two years before you start coursework.
- Weekends count. A maximum of one day is recognised in any 24 hour period.
- Get it approved first. You submit an Application for Approval of Placement before you start. Retrospective approval is discretionary, which is a polite way of saying do not risk it.
Other providers land in different places, and the biggest practical difference is whether they find the placement for you or leave it to you.
| Provider | Placement requirement | Do they find it for you? |
|---|---|---|
| College of Law | 75 days, or a 15 day minimum period plus the Clinical Experience Module | No You find it yourself. This is who this page is for. |
| QUT | A four-week placement, as part of the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice | Yes QUT sources it for you. |
| Bond University | Up to 60 days, of which at least 15 must be completed while enrolled. Up to 45 days of prior legal work can be recognised on approval | Assisted Bond’s Career Development Centre helps you look, but you still choose and secure the firm. |
| Leo Cussen | 15 days, as listed by the provider | Yes Through its placement service, which is a paid add-on. Griffith law graduates are pointed here. |
Figures are as published by each provider and change without much warning. Confirm yours before you rely on any of them.
Gold Coast and Bond students
If you are at Bond in Robina, our Paradise Point office is up the coast rather than down the highway to Brisbane, and Bond students are among the most likely to be looking for their own placement, because the Career Development Centre assists with sourcing rather than allocating. If you are a Griffith graduate, your PLT runs through Leo Cussen, which will place you, but a self-sourced placement in the area of law you actually want to practise is usually worth more than an allocated one.
Tell us which office suits you when you get in touch. Brisbane CBD sees the highest file volume, Paradise Point is the Gold Coast option, and Wynnum covers the bayside.
Conveyancing counts, and the reason is worth knowing
The College of Law rules require your work experience to occur in the delivery of legal services and to include the majority of four things: significant client contact, drafting documents, legal research, and using a file management system.
A residential conveyancing file gives you all four. Not three with a stretch on the fourth. All four, on every matter.
- Significant client contact. Buyers, sellers, agents, brokers and other firms, from week one.
- Drafting documents. Correspondence, settlement figures, notices and contract condition letters.
- Legal research. Searches, title, and the seller disclosure regime under the Property Law Act 2023.
- File management systems. Smokeball, PEXA and InfoTrack, which is what the profession actually runs on.
That is not true of every placement on offer. A research-heavy placement can leave you light on client contact, and admin work with no legal tasks fails the rule outright, as does any role without supervision from a lawyer.
Why property law is unusually good PLT experience
You see the whole arc. Conveyancing is one of the few areas where a matter starts and finishes inside the window of a placement. A contract is signed, conditions are cleared, searches come back, something goes wrong, and the property settles. In litigation or large-firm commercial work a graduate can spend a year on one part of one matter and never watch anything conclude.
The law is moving. The seller disclosure regime under the Property Law Act 2023 commenced on 1 August 2025 and changed every sale in Queensland. You would be learning a regime that admitted practitioners are still adjusting to, which is a rare position for a graduate to be in.
The volume is the training. Empire Legal has handled more than 16,000 settlements. A student here sees repetition, and repetition is how the pattern recognition that makes a good property lawyer gets built.
Deadlines are real and external. A settlement date is not a soft internal target. That focuses people quickly.
What you would do here
You would sit with a file handler on residential conveyancing matters. Typical work includes:
- Conducting and reading property searches, and working out what the results actually mean
- Drafting correspondence to clients, agents, brokers and other firms
- Preparing settlement figures
- Helping clear contract conditions and chasing what is outstanding
- Sitting in on settlements
- Working in PEXA, Smokeball and InfoTrack
What you would not do: run files alone, or give advice. Every matter here carries practice manager and senior lawyer oversight. That is not a restriction we apply to students, it is how the firm runs, and it is the reason a student can be handed real work safely.
You would also keep the records your provider needs. If you are on the 75 day route you have a reflective journal that your supervisor has to sign during the minimum period, and we will make sure that gets done rather than leaving you to chase it at the end.
Who would supervise you
Supervision is the part students get wrong when they arrange their own placement, and it is the part that gets an application knocked back.
Under the College of Law rules a supervisor needs to hold a full practising certificate, or a restricted practising certificate held for two years, or be a judge, tribunal member or government lawyer admitted for at least two years. There is no requirement for a decade of post-admission experience, but there is a hard requirement for the right certificate, and for a supervisor who is genuinely across your work rather than a name on a form.
At Empire Legal you would be supervised by:
- George Sourris, our Legal Practice Director. Queensland Solicitor of the Year (Small Firm) at the 2026 QLS Excellence in Law Awards, and a member of the PEXA Member Advisory Council.
- Maddie Cesca, our Head of Legal, admitted 2017, who runs our student placements day to day.
- Support from the rest of our senior legal team, so you are not dependent on one person’s diary.
Our PLT placements are unpaid
Directly, so you can plan around it: our PLT placements are unpaid, and we will not dress that up.
That is the norm rather than the exception. Provider rules expressly allow unpaid and volunteer work to count, and most advertised PLT work experience placements in Australia are unpaid. It is worth knowing going in, and worth weighing against what you actually get out of the placement.
Where it can change: if a placement turns into a role, that is a different conversation and we are open to it. We hire conveyancing paralegals and law graduates regularly, and several of our lawyers started here in junior roles and worked up. A placement student is someone we have already watched do the work.
How to ask
We do not run a formal intake round, and we take a small number, so a direct and specific approach works better than a mass-mailed CV.
Tell us:
- Which provider you are with, and which route you are on (75 day, or 15 day plus the Clinical Experience Module)
- The dates you need to cover, and how many days per week you can commit
- Whether you have already submitted your Application for Approval of Placement
- Why property law, in one honest sentence. “I need 15 days” is a fine answer if it is the true one.
Ask us about a PLT placement
Put PLT Placement in the subject line so it reaches the right person. We answer every application, including the ones we cannot take.
Placements are normally based at our Brisbane CBD office in Spring Hill, a short trip from Gardens Point. We also have offices at Wynnum on the bayside and Paradise Point on the Gold Coast, and we will work out what is practical before anything starts. Our current openings are on our careers page, and if you are here about a property matter instead, start with how our conveyancing works.
PLT placement FAQs
How many days of work experience does PLT require?
It depends on your provider and your state. Under the College of Law’s Work Experience Rules for Queensland you either complete 75 days, or a 15 day minimum period plus the Clinical Experience Module. The 15 day minimum period must be completed in Australia at a minimum of two full days per week, concurrently with or after your coursework. Other providers set it differently, and QUT’s Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice includes a four-week placement that QUT sources for you. Check your own provider’s current rules.
Who can supervise PLT work experience?
Under the College of Law rules a supervisor must hold a full practising certificate as a legal practitioner, or a restricted practising certificate held for at least two years. Judges, tribunal members and government lawyers admitted for at least two years can also supervise. The placement itself also has to be with an approved kind of organisation, which includes a legal practitioner in private practice.
Does conveyancing count as PLT work experience?
Yes, where it is properly supervised. The rules require work in the delivery of legal services covering the majority of client contact, drafting, legal research and use of a file management system. A residential conveyancing file involves all four. Submit your Application for Approval of Placement before you start, because approval after the fact is discretionary.
Are PLT placements paid?
Usually not. Most advertised PLT work experience placements in Australia are unpaid, and provider rules expressly allow unpaid and volunteer work to count towards the requirement. Placements at Empire Legal are unpaid.
Can I split PLT work experience across more than one firm?
Yes. Under the College of Law rules the requirement can be made up by aggregating multiple placements, provided each period meets the minimum weekly commitment. The 15 day minimum period needs at least two full days per week. The additional period on the 75 day route can be as little as one day per week.
Should QUT students use this page or the QUT placement page?
If you are an undergraduate doing LLB463 Legal Placement, use our QUT legal placement page, because those placements are allocated through QUT’s Work Integrated Learning team rather than by applying to us. If you are a QUT PLT student in the Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, QUT sources your four-week placement, so start with QUT WIL and tell them you want property law.
Do you take PLT students from any provider?
Yes. QUT is the only university we hold a formal placement partnership with, but PLT work experience is a separate thing, and we will consider students from any provider on the merits, subject to capacity and supervision.
