Regulation of the Queensland legal profession: the Quinquennium of Change

Members of the legal profession are accustomed to change. They need to be. Whether it be the constant stream of statutory change, or the increasing number of cases decided by the courts (especially with its newfound electronic accessibility), there is little in legal practice that remains static. As a focus of this article is change, it heralds no new experience for the practising lawyer. But here the change relates to matters at the core of the lawyer’s practice, because in 2007 Queensland saw the enactment of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (‘the 2007 Act’) and the commencement of the Legal Profession (Solicitors) Rule 2007 (‘the 2007 Rule’). Various aspects of these documents were not new; indeed, in some respects the 2007 Act essentially replicated what had been law under a 2004 Act of the same name. Yet it also addressed important topics previously located in other legislation, which it had proven premature to include in its 2004 counterpart. The 2007 Rule represents a more marked shift, if perhaps more in form that in ultimate substance.

Together, in any case, these enactments represent what is arguably the most significant single regulatory impact on the Queensland legal profession, certainly in recent times. It is therefore apt to give some consideration each of them. In so doing, this article does not go through the Act and the Rule in meticulous detail. Instead, it makes various general observations regarding the role and effect of both the Act and the Rule, on occasion illustrated by the specific.