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FOR THE RECORD

National issues discussed in DarwinI am writing this column on the last day of the Financial Year. Most practitioners would have now received their practising certificate renewals (having renewed twice during the financial year "thanks'’ to the transitional provisions of the Legal Profession Act), and have, where necessary, renewed their Professional Indemnity and completed their initial trust account "external examination". CPD obligations have, for the most part, been met.

A major priority of the Council and Secretariat has been developing acceptable systems and proce­dures, and where possible assisting practitioners in compliance with the requirements of the LPA.

Complaints matters had a continued focus, a highlight of the year being the establishment of the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. Transitional issues, such as where conduct occurred before commencement of the LPA, occu­pied the attention of the Society, Tribunal and Government.

The Council was very happy to negotiate an acceptable two year arrangement with QBE (Insurance) Ltd, and with Marsh Pty Ltd as broker. This is dependant on an acceptable claims ratio being main­tained, hence an improved Claims Management system is being put in place. The Quality Practice Review Procedure has been an important part of this, and will remain so. I will shortly be reporting on how it will be enhanced for 2008-2009.

The Law Society recently hosted the Conference of Regulatory Officers (CORO), and the Law Council of Australia Executive and Directors held a concurrent meeting in Darwin. Major topics discussed at one or more meetings feature in my list below of some

important "national" matters.

• There is support for improved harmonisation of the Legal Profession Acts of various jurisdictions, and in particular of the costs, trust accounting and prac­tising certificate provisions. This extends to operational matters.

• Practitioners would have seen my recent "Update" on anti Money Laundering issues, which will shortly confront practitioners, whether or not they see a need for them. Priorities of the Law Council and Law Societies are advising Government on some of the prob­lems and complexities involved, and also doing our best to smooth the way for the legal profession.

• The possibility of a Charter of Rights for the Commonwealth (to be considered at a Law Society discussion on 15 July 2008). Should there also be one for the Northern Territory?

• The Commonwealth Review of the Intervention (the Society is currently working on a short submission which covers major matters).

• Recruitment and retention of lawyers to rural and remote areas, and to the profession gener­ally.

• Harmonisation of Occupa­tional Health and Safety Laws.

• Development of a Gender Appearance Survey and develop­ment of a Model Equal Opportunity Briefing Policy.

On a local level, some major issues include:

• Proposals for a revised dispute resolution system currently being considered by the Judges of the Supreme Court, with the "lead" being taken by Mildren J.

Barbara Bradshaw,Chief Executive Officer bbradshawfflaw socnt. asn. cm •

• The Domestic and Family Violence Act, commencing on 1 July 2008, the Youth Justice Amendment (Parental Respon­sibility) Act, designed to impose more responsibility on parents of offending children, which also commences on that date. The Care and Protection of Children Act will commence in October 2008. All raise a number of operational and educational issues which will require detailed consideration by practitioners in the family and chil­drens arena.

As I write it appears that an NT Election will be called shortly and there will be major "law and order" focus from both parties.

On a more local note, the Law Society Annual General Meeting is being held on 15 October 2008, and I would ask you to consider matters to be brought before the meeting, and, if interested, whether or not you wish to stand for Council. More information will follow shortly, and in the meantime let me know if you have any queries.

Continued page 6

2/2008 — Page 3

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS & ETHICS

The status of complaintsIt has been a very busy 12 months, and whilst it seemed the numbers of complaints have increased, upon examining the statistics, this was only a fairly marginal increase.

As you may be aware, the Law Society Northern Territory recently hosted the Annual Conference of Regulatory Officers (CORO). In the course of preparing for the "Complaints & Discipline Stream", I took a good look at our statistics, as well as those of our interstate counterparts (for the year ended 2007). All jurisdictions do generally share similarities in the make up of the classification of complaints, and the areas of law where the complaints traditionally arise.

In the NT in 2006/2007, a total of 37 complaint files were opened (down by 45% from the previous year) with 34 complaints dismissed, in the 2006/2007 financial year Of the 34 complaints dismissed three were opened in 2004/2005, 18 were opened in 2005/2006 and 13 were opened in 2006/2007. Therefore, approximately a third of the complaints received in 2006/2007 were dealt with in the year they were received. However, it appears that the complaints made were more serious.

In 2007/2008 up to beginning of June 2008, a total of 44 complaint files have been opened but, up to the beginning of June, only 12 complaints had been dismissed with seven of the dismissal files having been opened in 2006/2007. Therefore, only five of the complaints dismissed in 2007/2008 were opened in 2007/2008. Unfortunately, this means for us only about 11% of complaints for the current financial year have been dismissed. Accepted, some of those complaints relative to 2007/2008 will be dismissed, but

not anywhere near the dismissal rates in previous years. The nature of the complaints being made are tending to be more serious. The way in which we deal with complaints has changed, at least with respect to conduct arising following the commencement of the Legal Profession Act.

Effectively, complaints for the 2007/2008 financial year are up by about 20% from 2006/2007 (although the result will still prob­ably be a lower number than in 2005/2006, which was 61).

This raises the issue as to what disci­plinary bodies or Law Societies do to reduce complaints. Part of the process is perhaps to first examine the nature and the seriousness of complaints, as well as breaking them down into the areas of law from whence the complaints arise, and then classifying complaints as to their nature.

When examining the data from each jurisdiction, there were some differences between the classifica­tions for each jurisdiction, but in preparing for CORO the complaints were able to be compacted to six classifications.

Those classifications are:

• Personal Conduct (PC)- negligence, misleading behav­iour, unethical conduct, breach of confidentiality and conflict of interest.

• Costs and Payment Issues(CAPI) - failure to pay third parties, overcharging, no cost disclosure.

• Communication andSendee (CAS) - failing to carry out instructions, acting without instructions, delay, lack of commu­nication and discourtesy.

• Non-Compliance (NC)- failure to comply with under­taking, practising without PC, not

one year on

Jacqueline Presbury,

Professional Standards & Ethics Solicitorpss@lawsocnt. asn. cm

complying with LPA and regula­tions.

• Trust Account Issues (TAI) - includes breaches of the LPA, misappropriation.

• Other (O)

The results from each State or Territory, whose data was able to be accessed, relative to the classi­fications, using the codes identified above, revealed that the category of "Personal Conduct" was the most common class of complaint.

Principally, the statistics showed that the major areas for complaint are with respect to family law and conveyancing matters. Family law is a fairly emotive area, and buying and selling property also produces some emotions.

What can possibly be done by the Society to assist practitioners in dealing with family law clients, as well as conveyancing clients, in an effort to reduce these complaints? The Society invites practitioners to provide input into the type of educative assistance (or other assistance) which it could offer

Continued page 6

2/2008 — Page 4

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & THE LAW

.jason - Possible but not probableHave you ever heard of tire Inter­national Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN? Well, ICANN is the world's peak Internet regulatory authority and controls the Top Level Domains (TLDs), that is ".com”, ".net”, "org”, ".edu”, ".gov” and country identities such as "au” and ".nz”.

Last month, ICANN made a deci­sion which has been described as the biggest change to the Internet since the time it was created: Individuals and companies can now apply for rights to generic TLDs. That means TLDs can be comprised of any combination of characters (including some other languages).

What does this mean? Anything can be typed after the dot! Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of ICANN described the change as representing "a whole new way for people to express themselves on the Net.”

There is no restriction on the way you express yourself, your company, your industry group. Web addresses could be based on brand names such as "microsoft”, ".nike” or ".toyota”. They could be based around groups or sports such as ".lawyers” or ".sailing” or ".rugby”. There really is no limit, I could apply for "jason”.

There is a lot of talk about the boom in the Internet domain registry business, and the potential for more cybersquatting, but there will be some deterrents. It is expected that new TLDs will cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The TLD cost alone should help prevent the regulatory problems associated with cypersquatters, and intellectual property matters. But if that is not enough, individuals and companies who get a new TLD are required to become a registry

operator (there are registry opera­tors for existing TLDs). The cost of building and owning a registry or outsourcing this function to an existing provider will be a signifi­cant cost of its own.

There is still some work to be done before you will be using any of the new TLDs. The final version of the implementation plan is still to be approved by ICANN, and is scheduled to be published in early 2009.

This plan will provide more detail on the application process for TLDs, which will include an objection based mechanism for trademark owners and objections based on public morality and order.

More information: www.icann.org

CPR instructions on your PhoneThe Australian Red Cross has launched a very innovated new tool developed by a Tasmanian company for your mobile phone - cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructional animation.

For just $3 you can download the animation and stay up to date with CPR skills. You activate the animation with a single key press,which then takes you through how to do CPR, both visually and with audible instructions. If you want to know if your phone can run the CPR animation, check out the frequently asked questions page on the Red Cross site.

While very cool, the animation is not a substitute for first aid training. Also, it will take a little time to download and install on your phone, so you really need to do all this ahead of time.

Visit: www.redcross.org.au

Jason Schoolmeester

Just for funLouis Armstrong and Danny Kaye - seriously, doesn't get much better than this.

Visit http://www.youtube.eom/v/ jm6ktYqOYxk&hl=en or simply go to youtube.com and search for "armstrong kaye”.

2/2008 — Page 5

CEOs column...cont.Finally I welcome new practitioners such as the recent '‘Bar’ recruits, Susan Porter, Kelvin Currie, Alastair Wyvill, and Michaela Milner, and I wish retirees such as Jim Noonan and Lex Silvester all the best. More on these in the next Balance.

I would ask you to mark in your diary the Kriewaldt lecture on

12 August 2008. I an delighted that the Chief Justice of Australia, the Hon Murray Gleeson, will be making his speaking engagement at the Kriewaldt one of his last judicial duties.

I would also ask you to note the 2008 Law Society Gala Ball in your diary. It will be one of the most gala on your social calendar.

CLCs Darwin ConferenceThe National Associa­tion of Community Legal Centres will hold its 29th annual conference in Darwin on 17-20 August.

The theme of this year’s conference is, 'Just is as just does - CLCs working for Justice’.

The conference will have a strong focus on Indigenous rights, and the service CLCs are delivering to Indigenous communities.

Keynote speakers include Barbara Shaw from the Mt Nancy Town Camp in Alice Springs; Maureen Colley, Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman; Priscilla Collins, Chief Executive Officer, North Australian Aboriginal JusticeAgency; Donna Craig, Co-Director, Environ­mental Law Centre, Macquarie University, Sydney; Malamdirri McCarthy MLA, Member for Amhem and Chair of the NT Statehood Steering Committee, Northern Territory Parliament and

Joe Morrison, Executive Officer, North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance (NAILSMA).

Conference organizers are hoping to bring a delegation from Asia and the Pacific, who will speak about the chal­lenges they face and their perspectives on human rights, climate change and other issues.

The conference, which will include a welcome reception, will be held on Sunday 17 August from 5.30pm - 7.00pm. The Minister for Justice and Attorney-General of the Northern Territory, Dr Christopher Bums MLA, is hosting the Conference Welcome Reception at the NT Parliament House (cnr Mitchell and Herbert Streets). A conference dinner will also be held on Tuesday 19 August at tlie Darwin Sailing Club, Atkins Drive, Fannie Bay, from 7.00-11.00pm.

For further details visit www.naclc.org.au.

2/2008 — Page 6

Law Society Gala BallFridbuj 29 Tluqust 2°°8> 7.60pm a! DArurin

Qonvention QentreInvilAlions will be forujArded to a11 L<auj Society members sHorlly

The status of complaints, one year on...cont.

to practitioners. The CPDs are a way forward to educate practitioners and to assist them in their practice.

With the introduction of the Legal Profession Act to reflect the model of a true inter-jurisdictional travelling certificate, this Society, as a smaller jurisdiction, has certainly felt the pressure of what is now required of us in our role under the LPA. Our staff numbers have had to increase to deal with the extra workload. In

tlie overall scheme small jurisdictions, such as the NT, are just as important as the larger ones in ensuring file concept of the "National Practice” of the profession. The LPA has increased enor­mously the regulatory role of this Society.

The notion of a "National Practising Certificate” is an evolving process which requires all juris­dictions to work in unity to achieve the intended outcome.

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