QUT Legal Placement at Empire Legal

You cannot learn a settlement from a textbook. Empire Legal is an industry partner in the QUT Faculty of Business and Law Work Integrated Learning (WIL) program, hosting Bachelor of Laws students on placement through the unit LLB463 Legal Placement. QUT is the only university we hold a formal placement partnership with.

What the placement is

LLB463 Legal Placement is a credit-bearing unit in the QUT Bachelor of Laws. Rather than a work experience week, it puts a student inside a working practice for a full semester, applying what they have learned to live matters under the supervision of an admitted solicitor.

Our Semester 2 2026 placement ran from 20 July to 23 October 2026, supervised by Maddie Cesca, our Head of Legal.

Why property law is unusually good training

Conveyancing is one of the few areas of law where a student sees a matter from first contact to completion inside a single semester. A contract is signed, conditions are cleared, searches come back, something goes wrong, and the property settles. That full arc is rare in litigation or large-firm commercial work, where a graduate can spend a year on one part of one matter.

• Live files with real deadlines. Not hypotheticals, and not a research memo nobody reads.
• Queensland law that actually moves. The seller disclosure regime under the Property Law Act 2023 commenced on 1 August 2025 and reshaped every sale in the state.
• Supervised client contact. Buyers, sellers, agents, brokers and other firms, from week one.
• The systems the profession runs on. PEXA, Smokeball and InfoTrack, not a training sandbox.

What a placement student does here

Placement students work alongside a file handler on residential conveyancing matters, with a senior lawyer and our practice manager reviewing everything that leaves the office. Typical work includes conducting and reading property searches, drafting correspondence, preparing settlement figures, helping clear contract conditions, and sitting in on settlements.

Students do not run files alone and do not give advice. Every matter at Empire Legal carries practice manager and senior lawyer oversight, which is the same reason our clients get consistent outcomes and the reason a student can be trusted with real work safely.

Who you would work with

QUT is not an arms-length relationship for us. Our Legal Practice Director is a QUT alumnus, and QUT-trained lawyers are throughout the firm.

You would be supervised by an admitted solicitor with named responsibility for your placement, with the rest of our senior legal team behind them, so you are never dependent on one person’s diary.

• George Sourris, Legal Practice Director. Named Queensland Solicitor of the Year (Small Firm) at the 2026 QLS Excellence in Law Awards, a member of the PEXA Member Advisory Council, and a QUT alumnus.
• Maddie Cesca, Head of Legal, admitted 2017, the named placement supervisor. Practical Legal Training, QUT.
• Greta Sedl, Senior Solicitor. Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Media and Communication, QUT.
• Lucy Thomas-Barnes, Senior Solicitor. Bachelor of Laws (Honours), Bachelor of Justice and Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, QUT.

Empire Legal is a team of about 20 across three Queensland offices. Meet the full team.

How do I apply for a placement at Empire Legal?

Through QUT, not through us. Placements in LLB463 Legal Placement are advertised and allocated by the QUT Faculty of Business and Law Work Integrated Learning team, and students apply against the opportunity description we lodge each semester. Speak to QUT WIL rather than sending us a direct application, because we cannot allocate a placement outside that process.

Do you take placement students from other universities?

QUT is the only university we hold a formal placement partnership with, and that is deliberate. We would rather do one relationship properly, with a named supervisor and real files, than spread thin across several and hand every student a photocopier.

That does not mean the door is shut. If you are studying law somewhere else and property law is where you want to end up, get in touch and tell us what you are after. We will consider it on its merits, and where the timing and the supervision work we will look at how to make it happen.

Can PLT students apply, or only undergraduates?

Our arrangement with QUT runs through LLB463 Legal Placement, an undergraduate Bachelor of Laws unit. Practical Legal Training work experience is a separate thing, and we take PLT students from any provider – see PLT placements at Empire Legal.

Which office would I be based in?

Placements are normally based at our Brisbane CBD office in Spring Hill, which is 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 talk about what is practical for you before a placement starts.

Does a placement lead to a job?

Not automatically, and we will not pretend otherwise. What we can say is that we hire law graduates and conveyancing paralegals regularly, several of our lawyers started here in junior roles and worked up, and a placement student is someone we have already seen do the work. Our current openings are on our careers page.

Talk to us about property law

If you are a QUT student weighing up where to spend your placement, or an academic who wants to talk about what the profession needs from graduates, we are easy to reach. Call 07 3088 7675 or get in touch. If you are here for a property matter instead, start with how our conveyancing works.