Multidisciplinary Practice: the way of the future

Multidisciplinary Practice: the way of the future – Rob Hulls talks to Elissa Scott

AUDIO:  Upbeat Music

VISUAL:  Rob Hulls sits, facing the camera.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Well students, thanks for joining me. Today, I have as my special guest, Elissa Scott, who is the Summary Crime Program Manager at Legal Aid. Elissa, thanks for joining me.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

TEXT ON SCREEN:  Elissa Scott, Summary Crime Program Manager, Victoria Legal Aid.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  Pleasure.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts back to Rob Hulls.

TEXT ON SCREEN:  Rob Hulls, Director of the Centre for Innovative Justice

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Just give us a brief background as to your history, because it’s very interesting. You’re a social worker and a lawyer.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  That’s correct. So after high school, I wanted to do social work, I didn’t get the marks for law and I wasn’t too concerned at that point, so embarked on a social work journey. Finished my social work degree and actually asked to transfer across to law. So I studied law while I was working fulltime as a social worker and mainly worked in the area of children and adolescent mental health and later on in the education department. So it was really interesting. But I still felt this calling to the law, so I finished my law degree, although at times questioned why I was doing law and then got articles at a commercial law firm. But commercial law firms and me was just not the go, I felt like a square peg in a round hole, and couldn’t wait to get out. So I stayed there for about 18 months before leaving and then, basically falling into a criminal law job. So, worked in the private sector for about 5 or 6 years and then moved to legal aid about 7 ½ years ago now.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts back to Rob Hulls.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Ok, so multi-disciplinary practices, they seem to be the buzz word at the moment. Can you explain what exactly a multi-disciplinary practise is and why it works so well?

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  Sure. I think they can be different things in different settings, but for me they really are about having a number of different professions together to assist a person. So, we could be looking at different professions like a financial counsellor, drug and alcohol counsellor, psychologists, social workers, lawyers and sometimes even medical professions, like dentists, because it’s really interesting how your teeth can really impact on whether you can get employment. So there’s lots of people that come together to really look at a problem from a holistic point of view rather than just in isolation because we know that legal problems in particular don’t just surface on their own. They’re usually in combination with a number of different things.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts back to Rob Hulls.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Ok, so most of the students watching this, a number of law students, what can law students, what can lawyers learn from social workers?

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  I think quite a lot. Clearly in social work we do lots of study around communication, mediation and basically how to really get people on board and to understand what’s going on for them. I think sometimes as lawyers, we overlook that, we try to just think of the legal problem, but in fact the legal problem doesn’t exist if it wasn’t for that person. So social workers are great in terms of being able to really help us understand and to be empathetic and I think that’s what they really bring and they can really add to a legal profession.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts back to Rob Hulls.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Well, I think most students would understand the importance of having people’s issues dealt with in a holistic way and social workers working alongside lawyers, great thing, but, and this is probably a technical issue, what about the issue of professional privilege and legal professional privilege, particularly if you’ve got social workers getting the same information as lawyers.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  I think it can be a really tricky space to work within. I think social workers generally tend to work within the best interests of the client. Lawyers work with what are my instructions, so sometimes they cannot marry up, so it’s really important that lawyers in particular are continually talking to their clients in a bit of a different way. Just say, look, it might be important for us to divulge this type of information because therapeutically that might help you shift. But it’s always, from a legal point of view, to get those instructions and get that permission from the client to get something and then to really advocate in that space for the clients because sometimes social workers or psychologists or drug and alcohol counsellors will push back and say, well I need to know more about what’s going on for that person. But a lawyer’s role in that is really to say, I need to get permission before I can divulge anything. And then to explain to the client why it is really important for some of that information to come out, because therpeatuically, it will be better for them in the long term.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Sure. And we’ve just had the royal commission into family violence released here in Victoria and family violence really is core business of all courts on a daily basis, what special skills do you think lawyers need in dealing with family violence matters?

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to show both Ron Hulls and Elissa Scott sitting on stools facing each other in front of a glass wall.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  I actually think probably a real matter of having courage in that space. We do a lot of work with respondents where I am at legal aid and it’s really interesting that we have to have the courage to sometimes call things for what we see. Sometimes we work with people who are very much into blaming someone else for the reason they got into the position they’re in. And having the courage sometimes to say, look I’m going to assist you with your legal problem, I’m going to make sure we offer you the best possible service but having the courage to say but sometimes in that space, your behaviour was not ok and it’s about accepting responsibility for some of that. They can be really challenging conversations for lawyers, I think, to have, particularly if they haven’t had some of that social work training, but it’s about not colluding with clients and it’s about saying there’s another side to this story as well, it’s about accepting responsibility for behaviour.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts back to Rob Hulls.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Ok, now tell the truth and I know you will as you’re a lawyer, but which part of your work do you like the best? The social work aspect or the legal aspect?

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to Elissa Scott, facing Rob off screen.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  I think for me, I would call myself a people lawyer. So if you asked me to argue about a certain line in legislation I would probably roll my eyes and say, do I have to? It’s the technical legal side of things that I don’t enjoy the most. What I do like though, is working with the client to try and help them get the best possible outcome from a legal point of view. So I think that’s how I see myself, more of a practical lawyer than a real technical lawyer.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to show both Ron Hulls and Elissa Scott sitting on stools facing each other in front of a glass wall.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  And last question, if you had one piece of advice for our students, what piece of advice would that be?

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to face Elissa Scott, with the back of Rob Hulls’s head.

ELISSA SCOTT SPEAKS:  I think, if you’re working within the type of sector that I work within, in terms of people that face very complex issues day in and day out and it might sounds trite on some level, but it’s actually about holding onto those stories of hope. We quite often work with people in crisis and every day we’re faced with that, we’re faced with quite a negative environment, we deal with people who have got a lot of issues, but sometimes actually holding onto those stories of hope, that in fact things can get better for those people, really gives us the strength to continue in the work we do. But it’s about being empathetic and it’s also about developing those skills of empathy but also knowing when to put up those boundaries and knowing when to take a step back and actually look after yourself. Sometimes as lawyers, particularly when you’re first starting out, you get drawn into thinking, I’ve got to help solve everyone’s problems and we can’t. That’s the reality of it. So understanding that it’s really healthy to step back sometimes and say I need some time for me, I need some space, and I need to perhaps utilise some things that social workers do, like debriefing, to really help me have some longevity in that space.

VISUAL:  Camera cuts to show both Ron Hulls and Elissa Scott sitting on stools facing each other in front of a glass wall.

ROB HULLS SPEAKS:  Well there you go students, there’s some great advice. Hang on to that glimmer of hope on behalf of your client but don’t think you have to try and resolve every aspect of every part of your client’s issues. Thanks very much Elissa and can I say, multi-disciplinary practices are the way of the future. We’re about to open a multi-disciplinary practice here at RMIT to deal with people’s issues in a holistic way. Get involved.

VISUAL:  Screen fades to white with RMIT logo.

AUDIO:  Upbeat Music.

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