Alexandra Saltis

Law School for Alexandra Saltis was a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences. Throughout her six years at Monash University, she enjoyed many highlights, while also enduring her fair share of low points. Through a combination of studying abroad, carefully selected electives and supportive lecturers, Ally rediscovered her love of learning and her passion for the Law. Ally found her niche through an internship with Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority in her final year, which secured her a full-time job in which she thrives as the Authority’s Compliance, Board and Legal Support Officer.​

 

When you were in Law School, what career path did you hope to take?

 

It evolved a lot throughout the six years that I took to do my degree. At the start I was relatively convinced that I wanted to go into a human rights field. A year passed, and I thought maybe I want to do commercial law. I thought I really wanted to [be] going into the city every day in a suit and a pair of heels, and have a brief case - I had a very glamourised understanding of what working in a large commercial firm would look like. In about third year, I had a bit of a breakdown and I thought ‘I don’t want to do law at all, this is awful and I hate it.’ Then I went away, I did an exchange and then I came back and I was refreshed, and then I started doing my electives and I thought - what I’m really interested in is criminal law and family law and medical and health law. And that’s where my electives took me. It was a bit of an evolution of what I thought I would do.

 

What has your career journey looked like post-graduation?

 

In my second last semester at Monash, I did Biotechnology and the Law as an elective. I reached out to my Lecturer, Karinne Ludlow, and I said ‘I’m really interested in this, where could I go for an internship or a clerkship?’. She said ‘give Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority a call and see if they’d be happy to have you,’. That’s what I did and I got an internship there that was supposed to be for six months. About a month and a half into the internship I got offered a job, which was, at that point in time, a lot about preparing administrative decision making papers for the board. [My role] evolved, we had a legislative change which I was involved with implementing, which was incredibly challenging and exciting and hard. Now I am still working at VARTA and I am the Compliance Board and Legal Support Officer. VARTA regulates the IVF clinics, so I do a lot of work with the IVF clinics around compliance and how to meet their legal obligations under the legislation. I also work with our internal team, as we’ve got certain obligations to meet under the Act as well, so I try and make sure that everyone is meeting the requirements that they need to meet and we’re administering the Act in a lawful way. I also write briefs for external counsel, I present administrative decisions to the board, and I have a lot of contact with members of the public that need the law explained to them. I was extremely fortunate, [to get this role] and lucky enough to have an internship somewhere that really wanted to help me and get me moving in the right direction.

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What kinds of experiences did you pursue in Uni which shaped your career path?

 

I remember being in third year, and I came so close to dropping out. I really did. I just thought “this is the worst decision I’ve ever made, why did I do this?” And I wish I had someone to say to me “you don’t have to go and do a clerkship, you don’t have to go and work for a commercial firm, you don’t have to be a certain type of person or wear certain types of clothes to work – there are other options.

 

I did the Prato program in my first semester of fourth year, which was a massive turning point for me. Going to do that program – not only do you get out of Clayton, but you also get a little bit of independence. You’ve been studying for three years, you’re half way through your degree and it’s been really full on. I think it’s great to have that space and a break from the really hard thinking, and from subjects like Corporations law and Constitutional law, and go over and do some electives which totally opened my mind to what else I could be interested in and what else I could do. I think it really brought me back to that passion for learning that I had at the very start of my degree and that I lost very quickly because of the stress, and because of the very difficult concepts and the writing exam notes and all of that kind of stuff. It brought me back to ‘hang on, I do like this, and I do want to pursue it.’