School of Law: Law School Staff - Rachel Spencer

Rachel Spencer
BA, LLB, GDLP(SAIT), LLM(Adel)

Senior Lecturer
Director of Practical Legal Training

Rachel joined Flinders as the Director of Practical Legal Training in December 1998. Rachel co-ordinates and directs the PLT programme as well as the legal skills and ethics programme which is integrated within the degree. Rachel is particularly interested in communication skills as the basis of client-centred practice and sound risk management. Prior to starting at Flinders, Rachel was the corporate solicitor for the Austereo radio network, specialising in Arts, Entertainment and Media Law. Before that she was a barrister and solicitor in the Commercial Litigation section of a large commercial Adelaide law firm. Other experience has included a temporary appointment as Legal Counsel with Orlando Wyndham Group Pty Ltd (2003/4), working as a legal advisor to the AMP Society (as it then was known), a secondment to the Australian Securities Commission (as it then was known), lecturing in the Law of Associations at the University of South Australia and teaching English as a Foreign Language in France and England. Rachel holds a current practising certificate and is a supervisor at the Adelaide Magistrates’ Court Legal Advice Clinic. She is a member of the Flinders Social and Behavioural Research Ethics Committee, a member of the Flinders Clinical Research Ethics Committee, a Trustee of the Australian Federation of University Women (SA) Inc and a Governor of the State Theatre Company of South Australia. Rachel is the Chair of the Australasian Professional Legal Education Council (APLEC). She is currently completing a Masters in Creative Arts (Creative Writing).

Rachel's current research interests include work integrated learning; lawyers’ use of dictionaries; law and popular culture; representations of lawyers on stage, page and screen; and the impact such representations have on the role of lawyers in society generally.