2018-02-26 12:58:54
Kalia Laycock-Walsh interned with LSA’s Women
and Young Persons’ Department in 2017. Kalia comes all the way from Melbourne,
Australia and did her qualifying law degree there. Her internship at LSA followed
her completion of a Bachelor of Civil Law at the University of Oxford.
Why did you choose to intern with LSA?
I wanted
to intern in a law centre so that I could get some hands-on experience and
contribute my skills to a worthy cause. I’d visited Glasgow before I started my
masters and thought it was an interesting, vibrant city. I asked around and LSA
was highly recommended. As soon as I spoke to Farida on the phone about WYPD’s
work I knew it would be a great fit.
How did you find interning with the Women and
Young Persons’ Department?
I had a
fantastic experience. My supervisors consistently took time out of their busy
days to explain things to me so that I could do substantive tasks. This meant I
learnt a lot and felt like I was actually contributing to the work of the department.
I did first drafts of letters, legal and objective evidence research and
prepared summaries. One of my favourite tasks was being the key contact person
for an Angolan client. I did a high-school exchange in Brazil and was able to
use my Portuguese language skills to schedule appointments and read her letters
to her. I would say that is the first time it’s come in really handy (if you
don’t count talking to the occasional Brazilian backpacker).
How will the skills and experience you gained
at LSA be useful in the future?
I learnt
a fair bit of ins and outs of UK immigration law, which admittedly won’t be
that useful in Australia. Also, unfortunately for us, we don’t have anything
analogous to the UK’s Human Rights Act
1998. However, much of asylum law is drawn directly from the Refugee Convention so that’s very
transferrable. In the future I’d love to use that knowledge to get involved in
legal challenges to Australia’s shameful policy towards asylum seekers.
Although, I’m not sure that’s exactly what the Australian Government envisaged
when they chose to fund my internship at LSA.
In
addition to legal knowledge I had the opportunity to pick up some of the
general skills of the solicitors: managing a matter (or dozens), communicating
with clients and other parties, and putting together legal arguments. I got a
real sense of what it would be like to work in a law centre, which is great
because that is something I am considering doing in the future back home in
Australia.
Where to next?
After
eight years on and off at university I have finally graduated once and for all.
I’m heading back to Melbourne, Australia where I’ll do the equivalent of a
training contract at a big commercial firm. They work on refugee rights in
their pro bono program so I’m hoping to leverage my experience at LSA to get
involved with that as much as possible. In the future I’d like to work at a law
centre or practice as a barrister - and
come back and visit Glasgow of course!
