Julia Tutt, Wills and Estates Lawyer
Law in the Real World, Session 1 Speaker
Julia Tutt was always told she could be a lawyer. Even so, she admits the first couple of years working as a lawyer can be tough, as you build confidence and experience. She is passionate about helping students be better prepared.
Julia sees UNE’s new Law in the Real World Series, where she was the inaugural speaker in April, as one important way to arm students with information to help them plan their futures in law.
“You can go through your law degree and work really hard to get the marks, you can know how to study and learn how to think a certain way. But then working, and doing your Practical Legal Training (PLT), which is very practical, is very different. And I think most people find the first two years in the workforce as a junior lawyer really hard,” she says.
She says it’s often hard to find information about the different areas of law you can practise in, and how to get into those specialty areas, which is another benefit of the Law in the Real World Series, which she helps organise.
Hearing from other lawyers helps students understand practically what they might be doing day-to-day, which can differ hugely depending on what area of law they practise in.
Julia completed her degree at UNE in 2015, and these days works as a Senior Associate at de Groots Wills and Estates Lawyers in Sydney.
“I did a bit of work initially in liquor licensing and conveyancing to get PLT experience, then I worked for a sole practitioner law firm in the city and had a really great first boss. I was his shadow. He was generous with his time and took me to everything: he took me to mediations, he took me to court, he just let me observe and slowly build up that confidence.” Julia says she owes a lot of her confidence in practice now, to how supported she was by her first supervisor.
Even when new lawyers are lucky enough to have this experience, Julia says it’s important to be prepared for the challenges and pitfalls of being an enthusiastic new lawyer.
“Students need to know that while being a lawyer can be quite demanding, it cannot be your whole personality. Yes it’s a profession, and you have to take it seriously and you have to do the right thing by the profession and the clients, but, at the end of the day, in order to be a happy lawyer, you have to acknowledge it’s also just a job ”
“I think it’s important for students to know exactly what they’ll be getting into, the good and the bad. There are a lot of Type A personalities in law, which is a good thing, but unfortunately, that can produce a lot of burnout once they get into law. So, knowledge is power”.
Julia studied a double degree in Law and Arts at UNE, and undertook a Masters of Applied Law at the College of Law in 2020-22, majoring in Wills and Estates, which was a practical course she says she still draws on today.
“I think people don’t give enough credit to being a wills and estates lawyer, it’s a really good area to practise in,” she says.
Julia says for her, the best part of working in law is the people she gets to meet.
“I like the job because I get to talk to people, and, especially with estate planning, it’s often not the most stressful part of someone’s life, so it’s quite relaxed, but I get to ask clients about themselves, hear about their lives, and provide a helpful product and service”.
I’m passionate about empowering people, especially elderly people, with as much knowledge as I can about their finances, assets and rights, and also family members about what they can do to assist the elderly vulnerable people in their community and in their family.
She says a day in the life of a wills and estates litigator is very different to the day in a life of an estate planning lawyer, and it’s important students are armed with that kind of information.
“I think there’s a lot to be said for having a job with stable, solid hours in a firm where you enjoy working for the partners. If you don’t have a supportive firm around you, it drains you a lot quicker than you realise, and you just head towards burnout.”
Study experience
Julia is an advocate of combining a Law degree with Arts.
“I don’t know how people do a law degree by itself,” she says. “Arts is a different way of thinking. So it challenges you in that regard. It made it a lot easier to get through the five-year degree. There are some areas of law that are just really dry, but it’s hard to find a dry area of Arts. The readings were always interesting, and there was always something fun to learn.
“Doing my Arts degree made me a more rounded person and therefore a more rounded, and better, lawyer. I could quite confidently say others who did a combined Arts and Law degree would agree. Law can be quite a narrow discipline, whereas an Arts degree opens up the world a lot more.”
But for Julia the best part of going to UNE was living at Duval College for the majority of her degree.
You had ready-made friends, you share meals together, you do sport together – and I did so many sports I wouldn’t have otherwise tried. It’s a situation I feel you just don’t ever really get again. It was just the best. And now I have all these friends who live in all kinds of different places.
“I think the social skills and the life skills that I got from college and the resilience that I built up there were really important.”
Another highlight of her degree was an international trip.
“I got to do a funded exchange to Shanghai for two weeks, which was really great! I wouldn’t have travelled to Shanghai otherwise, and it gave me an opportunity to do some solo travel afterwards, which also strengthened my confidence and resilience.
“There are other opportunities, locally I think, that are available when you’re part of a small community like Armidale too, if you’re willing to put yourself out there and have a go at things.”
Interested in a career in law? Come along to the next networking and Q&A session:
Law in the Real World Session 3
When: Tuesday 21 July 2026, 5pm
Location: UNE Sydney Campus, Parramatta and Zoom
Speaker: Liam Garty, Associate, Chamberlains Law Firm, Corporate and Commercial Team.
