About the survey

As part of the annual practising certificate renewal period we survey Victorian lawyers to find out more about their working lives.

This year we asked lawyers who were currently completing supervised legal practice (SLP), or who had completed SLP within the last five years, to share insights into their experiences of supervision.

The driver for our survey was the absence of any research directly exploring early career lawyers’ experiences of being supervised. We were particularly interested in understanding how lawyers are supported and managed during SLP, what their working relationship with their supervisor is like, and whether lawyers feel SLP benefits their skill and career development.

All up 325 lawyers took part in the voluntary survey. All questions were optional, and some included follow up questions (i.e. questions designed to allow a respondent to expand on or clarify an answer they gave to a preceding question). This meant that not all lawyers had the same set of questions.

We recognised that early career lawyers may have had more than one supervisor during their SLP period. That’s why we asked them to answer questions about the supervisor they had for the longest period of time, or if they had multiple supervisors for an equal amount of time, to answer questions about the supervisor who had the greatest impact – be it positive or negative – on their development.

We would like to thank all lawyers for sharing invaluable insights into their SLP experiences. We will draw on the survey results to develop initiatives to better support early career lawyers, and design further research on the lawyers who supervise them.

*Headline results

There were a number of encouraging findings on the benefits of SLP for early career lawyers. Over two thirds of respondents (67%) agreed or strongly agreed that SLP helped them to develop the necessary skills and knowledge needed for their career, and 67% also agreed or strongly agreed that SLP helped to increase their confidence in their professional abilities. Additionally, 66% of lawyers agreed that SLP helped them to avoid making mistakes.

Nearly two in three lawyers (63%) were satisfied with how often they met with their supervisor and for how long they met with them each week (65%).

The survey uncovered some concerning trends in relation to challenging behaviours and wellbeing. Almost two in five lawyers (38%) reported that they experienced challenging behaviours – such as shouting, bullying and swearing – from their supervisor. Three in five (60%) reported that their supervisor rarely or never discussed tools or resources to manage their wellbeing, and 44% reported that their supervisor rarely or never asked about their wellbeing. Over two in five lawyers (42%) disagreed or disagreed strongly that SLP helped them to manage their wellbeing.

The average overall score that lawyers gave their SLP experience was six out of 10, where one indicated being highly dissatisfied and 10 highly satisfied. We asked respondents what they feel may have improved their experiences. Forty-two per cent reported that they would have liked a better understanding of supervision and guidance on what supervised lawyers should be doing or learning, 40% reported that their experience would have been improved by their supervisor offering more training in areas where they needed development, and 28% reported that they would have liked to feel more comfortable asking their supervisor for more support.

Detailed results

Lawyer demographics

The clear majority of respondents were women (66%) followed by men (31%) and non-binary (1%), with 2% preferring not to disclose their gender. Most respondents (61%) were aged 20–30 years when they started SLP. Twenty-three per cent were aged 31–40 years, 10% were aged 41–50 years, 5% were aged 51– 60 years, and 1% were aged over 60. Most had completed Practical Legal Training (89%) before starting SLP. Only 9% had completed Supervised Legal Training, with 2% having completed neither.

Organisation and environment

Most respondents had completed their longest or most significant SLP period in Melbourne’s CBD (57%) followed by Melbourne suburbs (27%) and Regional Victoria (15%), with 1% preferring not to say.

Most respondents completed SLP in law firms (56%) followed by government employers (18%), community legal services (9%), Incorporated Legal Practices (6%), sole practitioner firms (5%) and non-legal employers (4%).

Most lawyers had a hybrid work arrangement that saw them work in the office and from home (56%). Thirty-nine per cent only worked in the office and 2% only worked from home. Two per cent had another arrangement and 1% preferred not to say what their arrangement looked like.

More lawyers were supervised by one lawyer during SLP (45%) than by two lawyers (28%) or three or more lawyers (28%). Just over half of all lawyers supervised by multiple lawyers were supervised by them at the same time (57%) rather than sequentially (43%).

Preparing for SLP

We asked lawyers to rate their understanding of SLP, that is, what was required of them and their supervisor at the start of SLP, compared to when they took the survey. Figure 1 shows that lawyers generally reported that their understanding of SLP had improved from the start of SLP to now, with most lawyers having good or very good understanding of SLP (67%) at the time they took the survey. Conversely, at the start of SLP, 23% of lawyers reported that they had either a poor or very poor understanding and 32% reported that they only had an average understanding.

We also asked lawyers whether they had the chance to familiarise themselves with their supervisor and/or the supervision process at their firms when they started SLP. Pleasingly, the overwhelming majority (80%) reported that they had the opportunity to meet their supervisor and make an introduction. However, 12% reported not having had any sort of introduction to their supervisor or the supervision process (see Figure 2).

Experiences during SLP

We asked lawyers who they most commonly approached for support during SLP – their supervisor, another senior practitioner, other peers or a mentor outside of work. Most reported that they approached their supervisor for legal and professional skill development (68%), day-to-day tasks such as reviewing their work (75%) and for stress or wellbeing issues such as debriefing after a challenging client (37%).

In terms of planned and regular opportunities to meet, most lawyers reported that they met with their primary supervisor weekly, fortnightly, monthly or daily. One in three (32%) reported that they didn’t have regular meetings scheduled (see Figure 3). 

The vast majority of lawyers also reported that they had ad-hoc meetings with their supervisor (94%), usually when they had a question about their work (85%) or when an error was identified in their work (49%). 

Sixty-three per cent of respondents were satisfied with the frequency of supervision meetings. Around one in four (27%) reported that they would have preferred more regular meetings, while 6% reported that they would have liked more opportunities for ad-hoc meetings. A small number of lawyers (3%) would have preferred less frequent meetings and 7% were dissatisfied with the frequency of supervision meetings for a different reason (e.g. they had no meetings, they were dissatisfied with quality of the meetings). 

When considering the lawyers who didn’t have regular, scheduled meetings with their supervisor:

• 36% were satisfied with the frequency of supervision meetings
• 49% would have preferred more regular meetings
• 11% would have preferred more ad-hoc meetings
• 3% would have preferred less frequent meetings 
• 14% were dissatisfied for a different reason (e.g.  they had no meetings, they were left unsupervised).

When we asked about the amount of time that lawyers spent with their supervisor each week, most respondents (35%) reported spending more than 45 minutes (see Figure 4).

When asked whether respondents were satisfied with the amount of time spent with their supervisor each week, 65% reported that they were satisfied, while 31% would have liked to have spent more time and 4% would have liked to have spent less time.

We asked lawyers how often they discussed certain aspects of legal practice with their supervisor. Encouragingly, the majority of respondents (66%) reported that they often or always discussed complex areas of law and how to navigate these with their supervisor. Around half of the respondents often or always discussed how to manage clients and relationships. Concerningly, 41% of lawyers rarely or never discussed billing and/or costs disclosure with their supervisor, and 60% rarely or never discussed wellbeing tools or resources (see Figure 5).

We asked lawyers how often their supervisor carried out supervisory and development activities. Many reported that their supervisor often or always provided constructive feedback on their work (75%), and reviewed correspondence or other material that they had drafted (63%). Contrastingly, they also reported that their supervisor never or only rarely: 

• conducted audits on their files (48%)
• organised coaching or professional development opportunities for them (42%) 
• enquired about their wellbeing and how they were coping at work (44%) (see Figure 6).

Relationship with their supervisor

We tried to gauge the type of relationship that early career lawyers had with their supervisor by asking them about their perceptions of their supervisor. Pleasingly, most respondents (72%) reported that their supervisor had enough knowledge and experience to supervise them effectively. However, only 48% of respondents agreed that their supervisor had enough time to supervise them (see Figure 7).

A significant proportion of lawyers (38%) reported that they had experienced challenging behaviours from their supervisor. For this cohort, the behaviours they most frequently experienced were bullying (18%) and their supervisor using their power as a means of control over them (18%). This was followed by their supervisor using disrespectful language (15%), shouting (14%), swearing (11%) and preventing them from moving to other positions (10%).

Female lawyers were more likely to report experiencing challenging behaviours (41%) than their male counterparts (28%). They were also more likely to report experiencing bullying by their supervisor (20% compared to 12% of males), as well as being shouted at (17% compared to 9% of males) (see Figure 8).

Evaluation of SLP

When we asked lawyers to rate their overall experience of supervision out of 10, the average score was 6.4. This score was consistent between genders and lawyers who had completed SLP in different sized firms.

We also asked lawyers whether being supervised helped them with their professional duties and development. Pleasingly, around 2 in 3 respondents (67%) reported that SLP helped them to develop the skills and knowledge needed for their careers and helped them to avoid making mistakes. Most respondents (65%) reported that SLP helped increase their confidence in their professional abilities. However, 42% disagreed or disagreed strongly that SLP helped with managing their wellbeing (see Figure 9). 

Lastly, we asked lawyers about the factors that could have improved their experiences of SLP, if any. Only 20% reported that their experience could not be improved in any way. Most commonly, lawyers would have preferred a better understanding of the purpose of supervision and what they should be doing as part of SLP (42%), followed by their supervisor organising training or development opportunities in areas where they needed more support (40%) (see Figure 10).

Our next steps

This survey has been instrumental in improving our understanding of the experiences and challenges that lawyers have during SLP. We will draw on these valuable insights to design our future research, which will include a 2024 survey of lawyers who supervise early career colleagues. This survey will help to make sure we gain a balanced understanding of the way SLP works in Victorian legal practices, ultimately helping us to better support early career lawyers, and the lawyers responsible for supervising them.

* Please note: the rounding of the data means that not all totals add up to 100%