Hi bjh68,
I'm currently a second year science/laws student at La Trobe University Bendigo. Have to say I love the degree. Our lectures are via video conference from the Bundoora campus (so obviously we get exactly the same content as the bundoora students) and our tutors/seminar leaders are living in Bendigo.
The lecturers are all great. I'm yet to have a lecturer who doesnt have a clue or anything like that. The course can be as intellectually stimulating as you want it to be or as easy as you want it to be! One benefit of doing the course for the first two years in Bendigo is that i think our results tend to be higher than the Bundoora students simply due to the student- tutor ratio.
Personally, I also like knowing that my tutors know my name and my capabilities! A lot better than being stuck in the 'interactive seminars' (i.e a psuedo-lecture with 100 other people) they offer for commercial and consumer contracts students in Bundoora.
Another thing I love about the degree in bendigo is the access to the legal profession. We, the students, are regularly attended to small functions (read: real networking oppourtunities) such as judge's welcomes etc that simply wouldnt be availiable to melbourne students. I know that I have scored clerking/instructing work from these events. Furthermore, there is the Community legal centre which operates every wednesday and allows law students to interview REAL clients (solicitors just supervise, but rarely interupt! awesome experience)!
I have been to the bundoora campus and checked it out also. The law building has a horrible interior, but is pretty massive. The lectures are carried out mostly in the West Lecture theatres which are great, modern lecture theatres.
Another handy feature of the La Trobe program is that lectures are audio taped and loaded onto the net... So if you miss a lecture, you can just catch it online!
Recognising that Uni is not all about the work, i thought i would touch on the social side of things. In bendigo, we have a law club which runs heaps of awesome events attended by great people! We're not a bunch of pretentious wankers who are all best friends from high school! Going out is really cheap in bendigo and pretty similar in Bundoora!
To conclude, i would give the La Trobe program 5/5. Heaps of fun, and great people to study with!
-jim
P.s Can't really comment on reputation etc, but to be honest i think all that crap is meaningless..... its all the extra curricular stuff that really counts! Availiability of that is in no shortage in places like bendigo....
Any more Q's I can help with?