Welcome to the Victorian Legal Admissions Board's short video outlining English language proficiency requirements.
You must have sufficient knowledge of written and spoken English to practice law in Victoria. This is a legal requirement which applies to everyone who wants to be admitted.
Your English language skills are assessed when you apply for admission, not before. The English Language Proficiency Guidelines are linked below.
There are six pathways used to establish your English language proficiency. You need to select the pathway that applies to you.
You do not need to take a test unless VLAB advise that you are required to. If so, you should take either the IELTS academic or TOEFL iBT test as set out in pathways three and four.
You will need to have sat the test and achieved minimum scores within two years of applying for admission. The Pearson English Language test is not recognized for admission in Victoria.
In pathway five, sometimes you can still pass your English language assessment even if you haven't achieved the minimum scores.
If you find that pathways one to five don't apply to you, you should use pathway six as a general category. If you do, you need to explain how you have sufficient oral and written English language skills to practice as a lawyer.
You will need to provide documentation of training courses you have completed, your CV or a letter of recommendation from an employer. It's important you tell and show us what your English language skills are.
For more videos in this series, please click the link below.