ALECOMM

"Do the state Law Society's turn a Blind Eye on Professional Misconduct ?"

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Category: Uncategorised

Created: Wednesday, 06 November 2013 08:33

Written by Alecomm2

The NSW Law Society is the "professional body" that is "Endowed with co-regulatory duties with the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner, we set and enforce professional standards, license solicitors to practise, investigate complaints and administer discipline to ensure that both the community and the profession are properly served by ethical and responsible solicitors."

And recently, to try and clarify the role of both regulators, we sent a list of questions seeking answers to whom is responsible for what, and under what regulation.  This was actioned after the NSW Office of Legal Services Commission declined to adequately investigate matters that are purported to be their responsibility under NSW Law Society's website.

A brief phone call was received from a senior Ethics Advisor, requesting to deal with the matter via phone conversation.  Unfortunately we require formal clarification, as it seems that the NSW OLSC are failing to adequately dispense their duties

and we suggested we resend the list of questions that we required clarification on.

This was some six weeks ago now, and we still have not heard from the NSW Law Society, so do we take it upon ourselves to guess that nobody is responsible for dispensing of legislative duties that are inferred by the legislation and the NSW Law Society, or is it that nobody really has any answers for us.

Attached are the list of detailed questions we seeked clarification of in order for us to be able to assist our clients and send our matters for investigation to the appropriate authority.  We are still awaiting a response.

Please note, we have also recently contacted the Tasmanian Law Society to ask them where we can find publications of guidelines and ethics information about their solicitors, as it appears that you need to be a solicitor in order to access information on their site - and this makes it extremely difficult for us to assist in formal complaints on behalf of our clients, particularly when we cannot specify what legislation or guidelines or policies are being inadequately dispensed.

The Tasmania Law Society has failed to either provide us with where we can obtain this information, or how we can access it on their site.  In fact, we haven't heard from them at all either.

One must wonder if there is a pattern emerging here, where state Law Societys are a law unto themselves, accountable to nobody, and hindering any possibility of oversight into the competence and ethical responsibilities of their colleagues.