Conveyancers need solicitors support in Queensland

Chris Merritt, Legal Affairs editor | August 29, 2008 | The Australian

THE great unknown in the conveyancers' battle to break into Queensland is whether they can find solicitors who will be willing to front their businesses.

To come within the requirements of the Queensland Legal Profession Act, every incorporated legal practice must have a solicitor director who supervises all the legal work.

"It can't just be for show. It has to be genuine," Legal Services Commissioner John Briton said.

These solicitors are not required to hold any equity in the business, but they must hold a principal-level practising certificate.

"This means they are the sort of people who could be sole practitioners or principals in law firms," Mr Briton said.

If a solicitor agrees to become the solicitor-director, the incorporated legal practice would also need to meet the normal regulatory requirements that apply to law firms. It would need to have the same level of professional indemnity insurance that is compulsory for legal practices.

"The way we look at this is that an incorporated legal practice is a law firm that just happens to be a company, not a partnership," Mr Briton said. "So an incorporated legal practice that does conveyancing is no different to a partnership that employs conveyancers who are not legally trained.

"That is quite proper so long as they are supervised or the lawyer is doing the component of conveyancing that counts as legal work," he said.

There is, however, some uncertainty about exactly how much of each conveyancing transaction is legal work.

If the role of the solicitor-director in supervising the legal work of an incorporated legal practice turned out to be a sham, the lawyer concerned could be banned from practice. Without a solicitor-director, an incorporated legal practice would be unable to continue to practice law -- which includes providing conveyancing services.

Mr Briton said conveyancing was an area that drew a lot of complaints against solicitors.

"The firms that get into trouble about conveyancing are generally small practices that do high-volume conveyancing," he said.

Mr Briton said the incorporated legal practice structure would make it possible for conveyancers "to jump the border" and work in Queensland provided they met all the regulatory requirements imposed on incorporated legal practices.

They would be unable to do business in the same way they currently work in other states, he said.

"They will need to accept that a solicitor will be calling the shots when it comes to legal work," Mr Briton said.