Noel graduated from Monash just two years ago in 2016. Very early in his degree, Noel obtained a job working in a law firm, which cemented his decision that he did not want to take the traditional law pathway and becoming a practising lawyer. In February 2018 Noel and a team of five others imagined ANIKA – a not-for-profit online platform which provides free legal advice to people struggling to access it. It connects people who can't access the legal help they need with law students from partner universities, and our lawyers supervise the process to ensure a quality legal service.  After being selected as the winning team at the Global Legal Hackathon in March 2018, the ANIKA team ventured on a whirl wind six-month journey of bringing their idea to fruition.

 

When you were in Law School did you have any plans for the kind of career path you wanted to follow?

I was looking at Corporate Law until I worked in a law firm and then decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. That was pretty early on – that was my second year or third year. After that, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do for a while and I didn’t really figure out exactly what I wanted to do until one year after I graduated.

 

What was your journey like post-graduation?

After I graduated in July 2016 – pretty much one week later, I went to Europe for a year and a half to figure it all out and I got back January 2018. ANIKA happened in February, so almost exactly when I got home. I stumbled into the Hackathon and [ANIKA] gradually came out of it.

The initial group was six people – five Monash Law and one Web Developer. Since then, the Web Developer has left and we’ve recruited another Monash Law person – so we’re six people, all Monash Law.

It’s a not-for-profit in the start-up stage. How it works, is we’re connecting people who need legal advice but can’t access it, with law students from partner Universities, who want practical training and are enrolled in a practical ANIKA unit.

The client who needs legal advice would log onto anikalegal.com and submit their case. Their case would be assigned to a law student enrolled in this unit, and the student would draft the advice for the case. That advice would be sent to a practising lawyer at ANIKA who would review it and send it off to the client once they have signed off on it. So the student gets practical legal training and feedback from the lawyer, and our client gets free legal advice.

The way it works on the business side of things is that universities are currently paying quite a lot of money for clinical legal placements. They will be financially backing ANIKA as a practical legal and technological training provider which prepares law students for work in an evolving legal industry.

The plan is to run the pilot [program] in Monash, and when we've run a program of scale, we will look to expanding it to the other Victorian Law Schools and also other areas of Law.

A few of the [areas of law] we are considering are Residential Tenancies, Consumer Law and Infringements, and possibly Refugee Law – but we still definitely have to do research in that area.

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What would be your best advice for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur or take a non-law pathway similar to yours?

For those who are interested in entrepreneurship, get an idea of what it's like by going to some free events or courses or talking to established entrepreneurs – there are plenty willing to chat. For a closer look, volunteer in a startup and read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Just about every course I've been to echoes the principles in this book.

 

For those who are considering a non-law pathway but not set on entrepreneurship, try some short term placements in fields that might interest you – it's the best way to know if you will or won't like a pathway. A few weeks is a worthwhile investment considering the average length of a career. The other thing I'd recommend is reading the 80,000 hours career guide. It's by far the best careers resource I've read. It won't resonate with everyone, but at the very least, it offers a perspective which is given far too little consideration in today's society. I spent years trying to discover what I wanted to do, and this guide has been the most significant influence in my career choices to this point.

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ANIKA is in the running for Government funding that will secure their ability to launch their project, providing free legal advice to those who need it AND practical legal training for law students. Make sure you vote for them before the closing date on 17 September!

 

*Steps to vote*

1. Click this link https://pickmyproject.vic.gov.au/…/pick-my-proj…/ideas/anika.

2. 'Shortlist' ANIKA, and this will take you to a registration page - complete it

3. Verify your account via email

4. Select two other projects (this is essential) and vote to complete!

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