Government introduces further protection for legal consumers

Queenslanders can look forward to even greater protection when engaging lawyers, following today’s introduction of the Legal Profession Bill 2007 into State Parliament today.

Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Kerry Shine said the new provisions concerning trust accounts and professional costs were based on the national model laws developed through the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General.

Mr Shine said the adoption of model laws was delivering greater uniformity of regulation for legal practice, reducing cross-border compliance costs, removing regulatory barriers to national legal practice and providing greater protection to the consumers of legal services across jurisdictions.

“The new trust account provisions will continue to protect clients whose money is held in trust by law practices,” Mr Shine said.

The Bill will facilitate national practices as part of the agreed approach by all states and territories and will benefit national firms and minimise their compliance costs.

Mr Shine said the new provisions on legal costs would provide greater consumer protection.

“Some of the more important safeguards include stricter disclosure requirements, provision for the setting aside of unfair costs agreements, prohibition of contingency fees, capping of uplift fees, better billing practices and costs assessments under the rules of court,” Mr Shine said.

To ensure all law firms have sufficient time to comply with the new provisions, law practices will have until 1 January 2008 to comply with the new professional costs requirements and 31 March 2008 for the trust account measures.

Mr Shine said the new legislation would also pave the way for greater participation in the provision of pro bono legal services.

“These provisions will allow the Queensland Bar Association and Queensland Law Society to issue volunteer practising certificates,” he said.

“That will enable government lawyers, legal aid lawyers, in-house lawyers, retired lawyers and other legal officers without practising certificates to offer their services at community legal centres on a voluntary basis.”

Mr Shine said the Legal Profession Act 2004 had already delivered major reforms, particularly in providing for new and independent complaints and disciplinary processes.

“The new Bill also reflects developments in the national model laws in recent years and fine-tunes some existing provisions,” he said.

Benefits of adopting the model laws include:
·nationally consistent standards for admission to the legal profession;
·recognition of interstate practising certificates;
·strengthening of complaints and disciplinary processes for lawyers, including the local enforcement of interstate disciplinary action;·nationally consistent trust account requirements;
·nationally consistent costs disclosure requirements;
·nationally consistent criteria for the assessment of costs;
·nationally agreed inter-jurisdictional fidelity fund arrangements;
·new business structure options for legal practices, namely incorporated legal practices and multidisciplinary practices; and
·nationally agreed regulatory arrangements for foreign lawyers.

19 April 2007
Media contact: Kirby Anderson (Mr Shine’s office) 3239 6400 or 0418 197 350 kirby.anderson@ministerial.qld.gov.au