Nicki Mollard

After calling the Dean of law at both Monash and Melbourne, Nicki decided to undertake her legal studies at Monash university. Nicki then began her legal career in the health law team at Corrs as she had a strong interest in medical negligence and bioethics. She stayed in private practice for three years post admission before taking maternity leave to care for her young children. During this time Nicki began teaching law at La Trobe University and Monash University. Unsure if she wanted to return to private practice whilst raising young children, Nicki began her PhD thesis which she worked on part time alongside her lecturing at Monash University.

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At 40, Nicki decided it was time for a change, so she set off to join the Bar like she had always imagined she would. Since then, Nicki has balanced a number of different roles within the legal profession, continuing her role as a lecturer, as a barrister, becoming an accredited mediator, and a member of the VARTA board. She describes her career as a portfolio of opportunities that have peaked her interest.

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Did you have a career in mind or a dream job when commencing law school?

Before commencing university, I was thinking barrister, news reader, and Prime Minister’s speech writer. Once in law school I wanted to be a barrister and I never actually imagined that I wouldn’t get there; I imagined I would do 3 years as a solicitor and then go to the bar. And then it didn’t work out that way exactly.

But my dream job was to be the ethical and legal advisor at a hospital. I thought it would be full of all these tough and exciting ethical and legal decisions. But, turns out there is really not enough of that work to sustain one person in the whole country.

 

Were you involved in any extra-curricular activities at law school?

I mooted. That was my thing and I loved it. I felt that when I wrote my exams, I knew what I was talking about but then the next year when I was in the moot competition and it was about crime or torts and I had to apply that knowledge, make an oral argument and respond to questions, and respond to submissions made by my friends, that was when I realised that I really knew it. It solidified my understanding. In mooting I forged great friendships too – a bonding through trauma sort of thing.

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Do you have a career highlight or a moment you are proud of?

Not necessarily a career highlight, but I was pretty excited to pass the Bar exam and get a position in the readers course, because I was a bit self-conscious of moving straight from academia to the Bar as most other barristers were previously solicitors.

However, my best moment, or real sense of “I do belong here”, was during the readers course when we had to draft pleadings. I was really conscious that everyone else had been writing a whole lot of legal documents for the last few years while I had been teaching how to write pleadings. So, the barrister handed back all our marked pleadings and said, “would the person who pleaded a bailment please stand up”.   And I thought, “oh gosh, that’s me”, forty-five people in the course, who were my professional cohort, are going to be snickering at me. And then he said, “right, so my question is, what is it about you that made you plead bailment and the other 44 of you completely forgot it?” I was silently proud, it was because I was a torts lecturer and no one else remembers bailment but a torts lecturer.   

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How do you find balancing your many roles? Do they complement each other at all?

I’ve had this interesting balance of teaching here (Monash) and working at the bar, and that has been good.

The background I have from teaching is very useful in practice. The subjects I teach have given me great knowledge and the ability to structure arguments very quickly, so that has been great.

Then being in practice has been really good for the teaching because I have practical examples to share with students and really good access to current resources. I think I’d forgotten how out of the loop you can get as an academic when you’re not in practice, but at the bar, if there is an interesting unreported Magistrate’s Court decision in the civil area, everyone who works in that building (pointing to Owen Dixon chambers) knows about it by lunch time.

The two occupations work really well together; there is a timetabling issue, but my way around that is to teach the night classes in the city more than at Clayton. It’s tough some days, but there are a few of us that work as ‘pracademics’ (practicing academics), so we have created a real network here.

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Do you have any tips on navigating the legal profession for current/ future law students?

Every time I had the opportunity to meet someone from the profession I took it. I was awkward and nervous, worrying about what I was going to say to this partner from a top tier firm, so sometimes I’d just ask what football team they followed just to start the conversation.

Be open to opportunities that just look like work. Sometimes there is no money or other immediate and obvious benefit, you may even have to make a sacrifice to take it. The opportunity might be a barrister asking you to help with a case, for free, and it goes for 4 days – but my advice is just to try things, they are probably worth doing in the long run. You don’t have to know it will be worthwhile to know that it is worth having a crack at.

Lastly, you do have to make choices, but they don’t have to be exclusive choices, just look at what’s in front of you and say yes or no, and realise that you don’t shut off doors by exploring other things. It’s not as scary as it seems, and it’s not as if one false career move will do you in, you will just learn something.