Justice Bus brings legal education to regional Victoria
A bus full of Monash Law students has taken legal education beyond the city and into regional classrooms, bringing practical lessons about rights, responsibilities and the law to young people across Gippsland.
The 2026 Gippsland tour marked the first journey of the year for the Monash Law Clinics Justice Bus, an initiative designed to make legal education more accessible for regional communities.
Over five days, a team of 11 law students travelled through the region, visiting schools in Wonthaggi, Warragul, Mirboo North and Traralgon.
Led by Professor Jeff Giddings the tour gave students the opportunity to engage directly with young people on legal issues that affect their everyday lives.
Taking legal education directly to schools
One of the tour's largest engagements took place at Bass Coast College, where workshops were delivered across the school's Dudley and McKenzie campuses. Around 190 students were introduced to topics including consent, safe driving, partying laws, and the powers of police and protective services officers.
The workshops were carefully tailored to the needs of each school community, focusing on issues teachers identified as particularly relevant for their students.
Students participated in discussions and activities designed to encourage questions and build confidence in understanding the law.
The Justice Bus reflects a broader commitment within Monash Law Clinics to improving access to legal education and supporting community engagement.
Three students have reflected on their experience to give us a first-hand view of life on the Justice Bus and the personal impact of that community engagement.
Sophia Ao: Justice Bus rider
Since May, I have been completing my clinical placement at the ARC Justice Centre in Bendigo, Victoria. I originally chose to go regional for my placement because I wanted to more intimately understand the needs of regional Victoria. This experience has offered me direct insights into the unique legal issues that impact vulnerable and regional members of the community – a mixture of gaps and inflexibility in the law, which is then exacerbated by personal circumstances. Recent visits to Mildura and Swan Hill to visit my partner on a healthcare placement also helped me understand the layers of vulnerabilities that exist among regional communities, and have solidified my passion and interest in empowering these groups.
I think making a real change in these communities starts with education and empowering the community with a basic level of legal knowledge, so that people can know how to access avenues of help. This really motivated and drove me to apply for the Justice Bus program, where I felt I could meaningfully contribute to alleviating these inequalities.
As a team of 11 students, alongside Professor Jeff Giddings, we travelled throughout Gippsland. We started in Warragul, went east to Traralgon and Mirboo North, before finishing up the tour in Wonthaggi. Throughout the week, we collaborated closely to deliver engaging legal presentations on a variety of issues relevant to young adults, including driving laws, police and PSO powers and cyberbullying.
It was an incredible opportunity to connect directly with diverse and engaged cohorts of students at each school. The students were very receptive and interested in the topics we discussed, and I was truly struck by the maturity and engagement many students had around hard-hitting topics such as consent and cyberbullying. It was wonderful to have so many deep and important conversations with these young adults, and I think we may have even sparked some interest in them pursuing legal careers!
This was also a fantastic chance for personal development. This was a lovely team to work with, with a great diverse range of experiences – colleagues with regional backgrounds, teaching experiences, experiences being overseas – and I felt I learned a lot of valuable lessons from my peers as well as the students. Bonding with the team and sharing our various experiences made us stronger and more capable of delivering our presentations. Throughout the week, we definitely grew more confident in our presentations, and I feel really proud of the impact we had on the students.
At the end of the day, the goal of the program is to sow the seeds for long-lasting change. I hope and believe that the students I interacted with this week feel more empowered to seek legal assistance whenever needed, and that they stay curious and interested in the law.
Lakshitaa Kamat: Justice Bus rider
For a girl from Singapore, moving to Australia was already a new experience. But touring through Gippsland turned out to be one of the most insightful, enjoyable, and challenging parts of my time here.
The Justice Bus program involved delivering hands-on legal education to schools in towns including Warragul, Traralgon, Wonthaggi, and Korumburra. We presented to students ranging from Year 7 to Year 12 - some studying legal studies, some considering it, and others simply interested in the topics for their own sake. Our sessions covered everything from driving safely and respectful relationships to broader legal topics like civil rights and law reform.
We worked in teams, building each presentation from scratch: researching content and finding ways to make it interactive and engaging. Under the guidance of Professor Jeff Giddings, we studied interactive activities drawn from street law programs in South Africa, the UK, and beyond - techniques like "take a stand" and "pair and share" - while also designing our own activities to spark discussion and keep students actively involved, like the “Stanford Prison Activity” and “make your own country and rights”
Travelling through regional Victoria was a beautiful experience in itself. In our free time, we immersed ourselves in the towns we visited: trying local shops, wandering the streets, buying souvenirs to take back home, chatting with the locals, and taking in just how different the pace of life was from the city. It was a refreshing change.
The most significant part of the trip, for me personally, was the shift in perspective I gained from the students themselves. Coming from a Singaporean schooling background and a metro university experience, I walked into these regional classrooms with a very different lens. The conversations I had with students opened my eyes to the challenges young people in regional areas face: barriers to accessing justice, gaps in awareness, and unequal pathways to higher education. I had the privilege of speaking with students navigating family difficulties, involvement with the system, and financial hardship - and it left me both more aware of the opportunities I've been given, and more grateful to be part of a program working to close that gap.
A few moments stood out to me personally. One student raised a worry that's often overlooked: the social side of starting university, and how hard it can be to make friends. It felt genuinely satisfying to reassure her: to talk through the support systems, the professors, and the many student clubs that exist for exactly that reason. It was gratifying when she realised the friends we make at university often tend to be our colleagues, building lifelong relationships. In another conversation, a student was considering university but unsure whether her grades would hold up. I helped her think through her strongest subjects, encouraging her to work hard, and pushing her to aim higher than she thought she could. It was, in many ways, the advice I wish someone had given me during my own school years, becoming a full circle moment for me.
One presentation in particular stayed with me. While speaking to legal studies students about human and civil rights, they became so engaged that they started taking notes unprompted, and told us afterward how helpful they'd found it. Managing a room full of students, some eager to learn, others just wanting their questions answered, was a real test of how we prioritised and adapted our delivery on the fly.
Beyond the schools, the real highlight of the trip was the chance to connect with my fellow students. Working together, we discovered each other's presenting styles, learned about each other's lives, and built genuine friendships. By the end of the five days, we were making plans to meet up again, trading inside jokes, and leaving with a kind of connection that's hard to find in a big university.
I'm deeply grateful for this opportunity, not only for what it did for my communication and collaboration skills, but for how it fed my passion for access to justice, which I believe starts with education. Being able to make a real difference in even one student's life, filling them with confidence and opening their eyes to opportunities their metro peers often access more easily meant more to me than I expected. The Justice Bus program isn't just a strong community outreach initiative, it's a fantastic driver of both professional and personal growth.
Kashvi Shah: Justice Bus rider
As we made our way to the first presentations in Warragul, there was an uncertainty about what the week would entail. Nonetheless, we were excited to find out.
Holding on to that enthusiasm, we delivered the first presentations at Warragul Regional College and Marst-Sion College, and quickly realised the challenge ahead of us. Creating engaging and interactive workshops a week prior had been challenging enough, but we learnt that delivering those workshops was another task altogether. Things didn’t go quite as planned, but sometime during that first day, we started to understand that change was necessary to make this trip beneficial for the students.
And so, after a very long and reflective discussion, we learnt to rely on each other and be ready to adapt to changes – of which there were plenty! – along the way. From our new growth and team-bonding, we quickly got into the swing of things – successfully delivering a variety of workshops throughout Traralgon, Mirboo North and Wonthaggi. As we got more comfortable with each other and our presentations, we got more creative. Playing games, making paper airplanes and casually creating democracies became routine throughout the week. The best part of this was being able to see a spark of interest in the students.
Better yet was the feedback from the students and teachers on the workshops we presented – they were so enthusiastic to talk about our presented materials or learn more about university life. While there are several highlights from the presentations, I have two favourites that truly encompass our goal with the Justice Bus.
The first was from a teacher. He mentioned that his students weren’t generally enthusiastic about presentations. In the end, however, not only did we have the students in the class happily and enthusiastically engaging, but we could see how proud they were of the skills we helped them develop. The Justice Bus isn’t just about delivering legal information; it’s also about empowering the local community with the tools to navigate different situations.
That leads me to my second highlight: when a student stayed behind (and almost followed us to our bus) to talk to me about my experience at university and my degrees. Talking to a Law student, let alone an International Relations student, about what university is like is less accessible in regional areas like Gippsland. Having the opportunity to answer students’ questions and help them consider the option of university was truly the most rewarding part of this trip.
I’m truly so grateful for the experience on the Justice Bus and I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself applying again. Not only did I get to grow my professional skills, but I also got to make some amazing friendships. Most importantly however, the experience serves as a reminder of the impact that education and genuine conversation can have, particularly in regional communities where they are less accessible.
Justice Bus continues on its journey
The Justice Bus has had a powerful impact on the students from Monash Law Clinics and the students of the schools who welcomed the legal lessons on wheels.
For the law students involved, the experience provides an opportunity to apply their legal knowledge beyond the classroom. For participating schools, it offers a chance to engage with important legal topics in an accessible and supportive environment.
The Justice Bus will ride again.