The Attorney General will keep the Law Society and the profession closely informed. One of the issues that emerged from the 2018-2020 comprehensive review of the ASCR was the need to clarify how to apply existing ethical principles to avoid conflicts of interest between current or current and former clients of a lawyer or law firm when providing short-term legal advisory services. For more information, please refer to Legal Council`s public consultation paper entitled Public Consultation Paper on Short-Term Assistance Services. On 5 February 2009, the Council of Australian Governments agreed that further work was needed to nationalise the regulation of the legal profession in Australia, and the National Legal Profession Reform Project was launched. Information documents on the project are available under ag.gov.au. The following rules are out of date. See the rules relating to lawyers in the Uniform Law on the Legal Profession. The Uniform Law on Legal Professions (Vic) (the Uniform Act) came into force on July 1, 2015. The Uniform Act replaces the Legal Profession Act, 2004 and the rules and regulations made under that Act. The commentary is not intended to be the only source of information on the rules – detailed information is available from the constituent bodies of the Legal Council to understand the application of the ASCR to the variety of situations arising in legal practice. The Commissioner of Legal Services is the designated local regulatory body that receives and handles complaints about the legal profession. This includes complaints about the conduct of a lawyer. In March 2020, the Directors of the Legal Board approved the recommendations of the Professional Ethics Committee regarding the examination.
The Legal Board is currently working with Uniform Law and other state and territorial jurisdictions to implement the revised ASCR in accordance with the processes of those jurisdictions. For more information on how the legal profession is regulated in Australia, click here. The ASCR is a statement of lawyers` professional and ethical obligations under legislation, common law and equity. However, they also express the profession`s collective vision of the standards of behaviour expected of professionals. Following the ASCR review, further amendments to Rule 42 (Anti-discrimination and harassment) were proposed. This new revision of Rule 42 is the result of the Law Council`s National Anti-Sexual Harassment Roundtable in July 2020 and subsequent consultations that fed into the Law Council`s National Action Plan to Reduce Sexual Harassment in the Australian Bar Association (NAP). The Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules (ASCR) have been developed jointly by all state and territory bar associations and other constituent professional bodies of the Law Council, as agreed professional rules for all lawyers in Australia. ASCRs were approved by the Directors of the Law Council in June 2011 and adopted as professional rules for lawyers in South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria (and soon Western Australia), Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.
ASCRs have been adopted in accordance with the procedures of each jurisdiction, which vary considerably. The Northern Territory currently has its own Code of Conduct. The introduction of a uniform system of regulation of the legal professions was an objective of the Law Council of Australia. Victoria and New South Wales passed the Uniform Act on 1 July 2015. This was seen as an important step towards a truly national profession and a positive example of the profession`s leading role in setting its own standards. Complaints concerning the legal profession are mainly dealt with in Chapter 5 of the Unified Act. The Law Council has produced a fact sheet outlining the regulations that apply to intergovernmental practitioners practising in New South Wales and Victoria from 1 July 2015. After the bills expired, the Law Society was informed that the Attorney General had written to the Attorneys General of New South Wales and Victoria to extend the application of the Intergovernmental Agreement on the Uniform Framework for the Legal Professions until 1 January 2022 and to confirm the State Government`s commitment to join the Legal Profession Uniform Law Scheme.
The Law Society of Western Australia fully supports and has championed the adoption of the Uniform Legal Profession Act since 2014. Learn more about the historical context by clicking on the link below. In 2020, the Uniform Law Application in the Legal Profession Bill 2020 and the Uniform Law in the Legal Profession (Levy) Bill 2020 were introduced in the Western Australian Legislative Assembly. The bills were passed by the Assembly and referred by the Legislative Council to the Standing Committee on Uniform Legislation, which reported on the bills in October 2020. The Legal Board regularly reviews the ASCR in consultation with its constituent bodies, regulators and other relevant stakeholders. The Professional Ethics Committee of the Legal Council supervises these examinations with the assistance of the Secretariat of the Legal Council. As a result of the above-mentioned reviews, the Legal Board is currently working with the jurisdictions of the States and Territories in the application of the Uniform Laws in order to apply the revised rules in accordance with the procedures of those jurisdictions. A copy of the ASCR as currently in effect is available here. In response to the letter to the Attorney General, the Law Society was notified on July 25.
November 2021: The Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules 2011 were updated in March and April 2015. With the exception of the deletion of former rule 29.12.5, the minor amendments did not change the content of the Rules of Procedure. For more information on the uniform law, see these resources.