The Commission has received a reference from the then Attorney General and Minister for Justice, the Honourable F.J. Walker, Q.C., M.P., to inquire into and review the law and practice relating to the legal profession. The terms of reference are set out in full in appendix 1 of this Report.
This is the fourth Report published in the course of our Legal Profession Inquiry. It deals with a wide range of issues relating to solicitor’s trust accounts, and it contains our final recommendations on these issues.
Earlier in the Inquiry we published a Discussion Paper containing our tentative suggestions on these matters. That Paper and other Papers issued in the course of the Inquiry are listed on page vii below.
The Discussion Paper and this Report have been prepared by a Division of the Commission By virtue of the Law Reform Commission Act, a Division is deemed, for the purposes of the reference in respect of which it is constituted, to be the Commission.
At the time of publication of the Discussion Paper, the Division consisted of the following Commissioners:
The Chairman of the Commission, Professor Ronald Sackville, presided over meetings of the Division but was not. a member of it. The previous Chairman of the Commission Mr. Justice J.H. Woottem was closely involved in earlier stages of the Legal Profession Inquiry although he was no longer on the Commission when the Discussion Paper was published.
Mr. Conacher and Judge Martin ceased to be members of the Commission prior to the commencement of work on this Report - Mr. Gressier was closely involved in the early stages of its preparation but retired from the Commission in December 1983 upon his appointment as Master in Equity of the Supreme Court of New South Wales. Mr. Disney then took over principal responsibility for the preparation of the Report with the assistance of Professor Sackville.
The Commission wishes to acknowledge the considerable assistance which has been provided to it in the course of preparing this Report In particular, the Law Society of New South Wales has provided extensive information and comment at our request and we have also had the benefit of comment from two honorary consultants, namely Mr. John Dorter (solicitor) and Mr. Jack O'Donnell (Auditor General for New South Wales). Officers of law societies throughout Australia, and in New Zealand, England and Canada have responded helpfully to our requests for information. Assistance provided at earlier stages of our work on solicitor’s trust accounts is acknowledged in Chapter 1 of this Report.
A large number of persons and organisations made submissions to us on matters relevant to the Legal Profession Inquiry, including solicitor’s trust accounts. They are listed in Appendix II of our First Report on the Legal Profession. In addition, a number of articles, papers and editorials have commented on tentative suggestions which we made in Discussion Papers. Some of these articles and papers are listed in Appendix III of the First Report. We list m Appendix IV of that Report some of the many persons and organisations, both in Australia and overseas, that have responded to our requests for information or advice. We are most grateful to all those who have assisted us in these ways.
The Commission expresses its appreciation of the important contribution made by Its research, administrative, secretarial and library staff. Extensive research assistance in the preparation of this Report was provided by Michael Hogan. At an earlier stage preliminary research was undertaken by Julia Hall. Secretarial assistance was provided principally by Lorna Clarke, Margaret Edenborough and Kerry Gill.
