Continuing projects
The Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Symposium Series: An ongoing partnership with the Griffith Socio-Legal Research Centre.The Lawyer’s Work, Lawyer’s Conduct Symposium
The Commission and the Griffith Law School held the Lawyer’s Work, Lawyer’s Conduct Symposium on 11 November 2005. Our aim was simple—to bring legal practitioners together with legal academics and regulators to establish linkages between people who have mutual interests but rarely meet and talk with each other; to identify research topics relevant to our shared interest in improving standards of conduct within the profession; and to explore potential partnerships in furthering that research.
The participants affirmed the need for the process to be ongoing—hence the idea of an ongoing series of symposia which enable practitioners, academics and regulators to discuss ethical and conduct issues arising in the course of contemporary legal practice in Queensland and identify potential research collaborations.
The Commission and the Griffith Law School agreed to conduct three symposia in 2006–07 under the broad heading Lawyers, Clients and the Business of law.
Read the report of the Lawyer’s Work, Lawyer’s Conduct symposium 
(131kB pdf) held on 11 November 2005.
Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Series
- Creative Practice or Profiteering?
The first symposium of the Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Series was held under the title Creative Practice or Profiteering? It focused on billing practices for charging outlays and issues surrounding litigation lending and the 50/50 rule in the context of personal injuries proceedings.
Read the report of the Creative Practice or Profiteering symposium (185kB pdf) held on 7 September 2006, including the program, the scenarios, the presentations by the four panellists and a report of the group discussions. - Conflicts of Interests: perspectives from diverse legal settings
The second symposium of the Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Series was held under the title Conflicts of Interests: perspectives from diverse legal settings. It focused on the importance of conflicts of interest as an ethical issue and the challenges it has long posed for practitioners.
Read the report of the Conflicts of interests: perspectives from diverse legal settings (127kB pdf) held on 15th March 2007, including program, scenarios, presentations by three panellists and a report of the group discussions. - Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct
The third symposium of the Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Series was held under the title Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct. It provided an opportunity for the legal community to reflect on and discuss the important concept of "unsatisfactory professional conduct" as it appears in the Legal Profession Act 2007. Read the report of the Unsatisfactory Professional conduct symposium (183kb pdf) held on 19 July 2007, including the program, the scenarios and the presentations by the two panellists.
Other continuing projects (as at February 2008)
1. The Lawyers, Clients and the Business of Law Symposium Series: An ongoing partnership with the Griffith Socio-Legal Research Centre.
2. Analysis of the Commission’s complaints database: An ongoing in-house project that, among other things, seeks to identify the practitioners and practices most at risk of complaint.
3. Interactive ethical scenarios project: An ongoing partnership with the Centre for Biological Information Technology at the University of Queensland (and other project partners on a scenario by scenario basis) that is designed to give lawyers and law students opportunities to engage on-line and seek to resolve real world ethical problems arising in the course of legal practice.
4. Ethical Culture Check for Law Firms: The ethical health check for law firms is an on-line instrument that allows firms to think about their ethical culture and how well it supports the people who work within their firm to aspire to and sustain high standards of professional practice and perhaps to identify some ways in which it can be strengthened and improved.
5. Women in the Law in Queensland: An ongoing collaboration with the University of Queensland on the likelihood of complaints against female solicitors as compared to male solicitors.
Completed projects (as at February 2008)
1. Survey on unsatisfactory professional conduct: A project undertaken with the support and assistance of the Griffith Law School that tested how lawyers, law students and members of the public understand and apply the concept of unsatisfactory professional conduct to a range of factual scenarios that are typical of complaints the Commission receives every day about the conduct of lawyers.
Last updated 9/04/2008 11:47:42 AM