Legal Profession Regulations 2007

These Regulations may be cited as the Legal Profession Regulations 2007.

Note

The Part numbering of these

Regulations follows the Part numbering of the Legal Profession Act 2006. Accordingly, regulations in each Part of these Regulations relate to the corresponding Part in the Act. As not every Part of the

Act has corresponding regulations, the Part numbering of these

Regulations is not sequential.

In these Regulations:

court box, for a law practice or other entity, means:

(a) a box located at the Supreme Court and labelled with the name of the law practice or other entity and to which documents can be delivered; or

(b) any other receptacle, approved by the Chief Justice, to which a person can deliver documents to the law practice or other entity.

employee, of an entity, means a person who is employed or engaged under a contract of service or contract for services in or by the entity whether or not:

(a) the person works full-time, part-time, or on a temporary or casual basis; or

entity means a person or body.

named month means one of the 12 named months of the year starting with January.

(1) This regulation applies to an associate of a law practice who is neither an Australian legal practitioner nor an Australian-registered foreign lawyer, if:

(b) the home jurisdiction for the associate can be determined under neither subparagraph (i) nor subparagraph (ii) of that paragraph.

(2) For section 8(4)(b)(iii) of the Act, the home jurisdiction for the associate must be determined in accordance with the following criteria:

(a) the jurisdiction of the associate's place of residence in Australia;

(b) if the associate does not have a place of residence in Australia – the jurisdiction of the associate's last place of residence in Australia.

(1) For section 20(2) of the Act, the kinds of persons specified in column 3 of Schedule 1 to these regulations are persons who are entitled, in the circumstances specified opposite in column 4, to take a name, title or description specified opposite in column 2.

Australian law means a law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory.

government agency means:

(a) a government department of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory; or

(b) a body that is established by or under Australian law for a public purpose or to exercise governmental functions;

and includes an entity (or a class of entities) prescribed by regulation 17(2) as being within the definition government agency in section 90 of the Act.

regulation 4

regulation 11

In this Schedule:

attend, a seminar, includes chair the seminar but does not include giving a presentation at the seminar.

claim, for a CPD point, means count the point towards satisfying a legal practitioner's CPD obligation.

core competencies means:

(a) competency in professional ethics and responsibility (including, for example, conflicts of interest and lawyers duties to court); and

(b) competency in practice management and business skills (including, for example, risk management and business planning); and

(c) competency in professional skills in legal practice (including, for example, plain English drafting and communication and interpersonal skills); and

(d) competency in skills relating to identifying, addressing and preventing bullying, discrimination and harassment in the workplace (including, for example, responding to claims of sexual harassment and developing strategies for a safe workplace culture).

CPD means continuing professional development.

CPD activity, see clause 2.

CPD obligation means a legal practitioner's obligation under clause 4 to accrue CPD points for a CPD year.

CPD points, see clause 3.

CPD year means the period starting on 1 April in a year and ending on 31 March in the next year.

seminar includes a workshop, conference and discussion group.

substantive law competency means competency in substantive law, including, for example:

(a) an area of law prescribed by the admission rules for courses leading to a law degree; and

(a) preparing a presentation for giving (including by videoconference) at a seminar; or

(b) giving (including by videoconference) a presentation at a seminar; or

(c) attending (including by videoconference) a seminar or multimedia or website based program conducted by a person who is qualified by practical or academic experience in the subject covered; or

(d) private study involving the use of audio or video material specifically aimed at increasing or updating the substantive law or core competencies of legal practitioners; or

(i) on a subject for a Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Bachelor of Laws or Master of Laws; or

(ii) on a subject for another university course that is covered in a course mentioned in subparagraph (i); or

(f) writing an article that is published in a legal publication, or a legal article that is published in a non-legal publication, or refereeing or structural editing of such a published article; or

(h) completing a specialist accreditation examination approved by the Law Society; or

(i) attending lectures or writing assignments or a thesis as part of post‑graduate studies.

(b) deal primarily with matters related to the practice of law or a matter mentioned in clause 1, definition core competencies, paragraph (d); and

(c) be relevant to the practitioner's immediate or long‑term professional development needs.

(3) Private study is not a CPD activity unless it is covered by subclause (1)(d).

A legal practitioner accrues points (CPD points) for participating in CPD activities.

Subject to clause 5, for each CPD year a legal practitioner engages in legal practice, the practitioner must accrue 10 CPD points, of which at least 1 CPD point must be accrued in:

Note for clause 4

Under clause 6, CPD points accrued within 3 months before and after a CPD year may be claimed for that year.

February or March of the CPD year, the practitioner is not required to comply with the practitioner's CPD obligation for that CPD year.