Ms Rachel Spencer is the Director: Professional Programs at the University of South Australia’s School of Law, where she teaches Civil Procedure; Lawyers, Ethics and Society; Law, Art and Literature and Lawyers, Ethics and Society (Advanced: Clinical Placement).
Rachel is also responsible for the Legal Advice Clinic, where final year law students (under supervision) provide free legal advice to members of the public. In December 2015, Rachel and her Legal Advice Clinic team received a teaching and learning award for achievement in industry collaboration.
Rachel holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA), a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) and Master of Laws (LLM) from the University of Adelaide, a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the South Australian Institute of Technology, a Master of Creative Arts (MCA) from Flinders University and is currently undertaking a PhD in creative writing at the same institution. She also has a Graduate Certificate in Education (Academic Practice) from UniSA. Rachel has extensive experience in the legal profession, having practised in a variety of areas of law, including commercial dispute resolution, insurance, insolvency, criminal law, family law, intellectual property and disputed estates.
She has been in-house counsel in the wine industry, a corporate solicitor in the radio broadcasting sector, a senior associate of a major Adelaide law firm, a Governor of the State Theatre Company of SA, the Chair of the Australasian Professional Legal Education Council (APLEC) and the Director of Practical Legal Training at Flinders University. She has appeared as counsel in Magistrates, District, Supreme, Industrial and Family courts, and is a member of the Law Society of South Australia and the Australian Law Teachers Association.
Rachel’s current research interests include legal ethics, clinical legal education, experiential learning, the links between law, literature and popular culture, how media representations of lawyers (both real and fictional) affect access to justice, and the role of narrative in the adversarial system. Rachel has published various books, book chapters and journal articles on a variety of areas of law, legal ethics and legal education. In 2012 Rachel received an Excellence in Teaching Award from UniSA.