Queensland Law Society Media Release

Queensland Law Society rejects Attorney-General’s criticism of lawyers

The Queensland Law Society supported and applauded the introduction of a nationally consistent Act for the legal profession, QLS chief executive officer Ms Noela L’Estrange said today.

Ms L’Estrange, who is also a member of the federal Consultative Group on national reform of the profession, said that the QLS fully supported consultation and discussion on the issues involved in the restructure.

However, emotive and general criticism of lawyers from the nation’s First Law Officer, federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland, was detrimental to the process and would only serve to alienate Australian legal practitioners.

“Suggesting that ‘as soon as you go through a lawyer’s door you have grabbed a tiger by the tail’ is hardly an appropriate way to win the profession’s support for what will be momentous changes to its structure,” Ms L’Estrange said. “And stating that using a lawyer to resolve a dispute left the client ‘well and truly up the creek without a paddle’ is a ludicrous comment totally at odds with the reality.

“The facts paint a completely different picture of customer satisfaction. The most recent statistics, from the Queensland Legal Services Commission’s 2007-08 annual report, show that there were 6926 solicitors practising in this state and that some 1123 public complaints were received.

“Of these complaints, 722 were deemed as ‘actual’ complaints worthy of investigation. If we make the fair assumption that, on average, each solicitor dealt with 10 matters during that period, this indicates that only 1.04% of matters led to a complaint that warranted investigation.

“If this is regarded as a ‘failure rate’, then it would not appear to support any proposal for increased regulation. It would, however, support the proposition that customer satisfaction amongst the users of Queensland legal services is extremely high.”

Ms L’Estrange said the QLS objected strongly to the Attorney-General describing the clients of law firms as “punters”. “Our lawyers see clients as real people seeking professional advice for real legal problems,” she said. “To describe them as ‘punters’ is objectionable. Queensland lawyers are hard-working professionals who ably fulfil their duty, which is to act always in the best interests of their clients.”

And to complain about lawyer “gobbledegook” was scarcely a wise comment when much of that gobbledegook was prescribed by government regulation. “Don’t forget that it takes four years of concentred legal study to be able to interpret and work with the laws written by Australian governments,” she said.

Ms L’Estrange also said that the debate on national legal profession reform was placing undue emphasis on saving money for large national or semi-national law firms.

“Mr McClelland said that the majority of benefits from the proposed reforms would not assist what he called ‘suburban solicitors’. Some 88% of our 7000 QLS members do not work in large law firms, so if there is to be no real benefit for them from this process, is the system really ‘broken’ enough to warrant the proposed changes? In our view, many people who retain lawyers do so on a local level, with a local practitioner.

“And we have not seen the research which substantiates the claim that a national legal profession will save Australia’s large law firms some $15 million a year. Nor have we seen figures to prove that a national legal profession will reduce the cost of regulation.

“It is critical that our members, most of whom do not work for large law firms, are not unduly burdened or charged for increased regulation.”

Ms L’Estrange said the reported comment by the Attorney-General that the bulk of Australia's legal services were provided by large firms was not supported by any statistics of which she was aware.

“The majority of lawyers do not work in ‘large firms’,” she said. “And if we are speaking in terms of legal costs, then we still don't have the data to conclude that ‘the bulk of legal services’ are performed by large firms.

“Could we now please have rational and informed discussion on this and the other issues inherent in such an important process?”