Page 1728 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 6 June 2006
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New South Wales, for example, you would need practising certificates in both places to practise; you would need to be admitted in both the ACT Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of New South Wales. There were often different rules, for example, as to what solicitors could and could not do.
I recall that, in the eighties, when I was admitted in both places and had practising certificates in both places, you had to do continuous legal training in New South Wales, which was not a bad idea. I think perhaps some of it was people paying lip service to it, but you had to get 10 points. That necessitated going to about three days of conferences or taking home a whole lot of videos and looking at them. The ACT did not have the same requirement for the ACT legal profession. That is just an example of different practices and standards.
This bill makes it very easy now for practitioners to be admitted in one place and to be able to practise across the country. There are core areas that have been worked out by the states and territories and there are some areas, which are not core areas, which reflect the fact that there are some quirks between jurisdictions which are worth while keeping.
The national legal profession model laws project aims to achieve greater consistency and uniformity in the legal profession regulation and legal trade. It resulted in the release of model provisions approved by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. The model provisions are of three types, which I have briefly alluded to: core uniform, which are core provisions that are to be adopted in each state and territory using the same wording as far as practical; non-core uniform, which are again core provisions that are to be adopted in each state and territory but the wording of the model provisions need not be adopted; and non-core. In other words, states and territories can choose the extent to which they will adopt these provisions.
In July 2004 the commonwealth, states and territories agreed to implement all the core uniform and core non-uniform provisions in their respective jurisdictions. They established the legal profession joint working group to maintain uniformity and monitor implementation. That joint working group had representatives from the commonwealth, states and territories and from the Law Council of Australia. The model provisions were designed to ensure that clients and practitioners in all states and territories had similar rights and responsibilities and to provide for the regulation of the legal profession on a consistent national basis, including nationwide recognition of admission as a lawyer in any jurisdiction and of the grant of a practising certificate in any jurisdiction to practise as a legal practitioner.
This current bill incorporates, to the greatest extent practicable, the core uniform and core non-uniform provisions. Most of the non-core provisions have also been included. There are about 330 core provisions out of the 600 provisions in this bill. The non-core provisions are effectively a re-enactment of sections of the existing act. As the model provisions address principally those aspects of the legal profession regulation requiring national uniformity, many elements of the Legal Practitioners Act have, of course, been retained. In those instances the drafting has in fact been modernised.
A legal practitioner now admitted in the ACT will be able to practise in any Australian jurisdiction without the need to also be admitted in that jurisdiction. A client in the ACT
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