Liuzhuo Chen may be the youngest person admitted to legal practice

LIUZHUO Chen is just 19, but already she has a five-year headstart on most other lawyers after signing the rolls last month.

Three years after arriving at Bond University from China as a 16-year-old, Liuzhuo Chen has been admitted to legal practice in Australia. Picture: Aaron Francis

LIUZHUO Chen is just 19, but already she has a five-year headstart on most other lawyers.

Ms Chen was admitted to legal practice last month, becoming one of the youngest — and possibly the youngest person — ever to sign the rolls in Australia.

And she has achieved that milestone with English as a second language.

“It is definitely an honour and a privilege to become a legal practitioner,” said Ms Chen, who is also known as Aletta.

“As for my age, I feel fortunate to have started school earlier than my peers ... I look forward to experiencing more through life experience and achieving more along the way.”

Ms Chen’s parents enrolled her in an accelerated primary school at the age of 3½ because they recognised she had a gift for memorising Chinese characters.

By 15 she had finished high school and soon after, at the age of 16, she left her home city of Changsha, in south-central China, to study law in Australia.

She arrived on the Gold Coast alone, with limited English, and started a foundation legal course at Bond University.

“I was quite happy to leave my country where I had lived 16 years, but after one month, after all the excitement, I started to miss my family,” she said. Despite the hurdles, she completed her bachelor of laws in just 2½ years. And then, in case she hadn’t stretched herself enough, she completed her practical legal training at Victoria’s Leo Cussen Centre for Law.

“I came to Melbourne because I wanted more challenges,” she said. “I know in order to force myself to grow, the best way is to work outside your comfort zone and to go to a place where you don’t know anyone, to learn new skills and meet new people ... (and) Melbourne has more opportunities than the Gold Coast.”

Now she hopes to embark on a career in international trade law, drawing on her Mandarin language skills, and she is also passionate about human rights.

Leo Cussen director of practical training Judith Dickson said she believed Ms Chen could be the youngest person admitted to legal practice in Australia, but it was impossible to verify this without sifting through 140 years of Supreme Court records.

Ms Chen is certainly the youngest to complete a graduate diploma at Leo Cussen, which opened its doors in 1974.

“Ultimately it comes from her,” Ms Dickson said. “She has really shown enthusiasm, talent and capability and a lot of life skills and resilience.” She said Ms Chen had been absolutely committed to making the most of her training. “I had conversations with her about the need to go home and ... focus on her life,” she said.

Nevertheless, Ms Dickson said entering practice at such a young age gave Ms Chen the opportunity to experiment and determine where she could best contribute.

Ms Chen said when she first arrived in Australia she was struck by the way her fellow students saw themselves as individuals, whereas in China she had been taught to think of others before considering herself.

So it makes sense that as a lawyer, Ms Chen is interested in social justice. She has volunteered in aged care in China and mentoring indigenous students in Australia.

“These experiences strengthened my commitment to give back to the community, which is how my family raised me,” she said.

She is still amazed by the physical beauty of Australia, which she now considers home. “I remember for the first month, I can just stand there and look at the sky, I was just amazed by how beautiful it was,” she said. “I still feel that now.”