Legal Ethics Assignment
Question:
The personal conduct of legal practitioners occurring outside the practice of law is no concern of the Court and professional regulators. Referring to the relevant provisions of the Legal Profession Act, 2004 and case law, discuss.
A solid answer would:
· Briefly refer to the provisions of Sections 497 and 498 of the Legal Profession Act, 2004 [LPA] but only insofar as to note that the legislature, in respect of Chapter 4 matters, considers certain outside practice conduct to possibly amount to unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct [ with the consequences which might follow ];
· Raise as a preliminary issue the case of Ziems and what the High Court had to say on the question of personal conduct and what might be expected of a practitioner – eg as per Fullagar J.
· Refer to the show cause provisions of the LPA and cases such as Cummins etc which would highlight [ using fiscal obligations as an example ] the legislature’s and the Court’s recent foray into the issue of personal conduct. This would be supplemented with a short discussion on cases such as Murphy – where there is a differentiation between personal conduct per se and personal conduct which might evidence some underlying unethical conduct [ eg avoiding tax etc ].
· Provide, as a conclusion, a short discussion on cases such as Re H and A Solicitor v Council of the NSW Law Society [2004] which would further highlight the thoughts of the Courts in both Australia and the UK on the circumstances where personal conduct might affect a practitioner’s fitness to practice and/or remain on the Roll.
Students will appreciate that the above is only by way of guidance. The thrust of the answer would be expected to be to the effect that personal conduct is an issue to be considered both when determining fitness to hold a Practising Certificate and, ultimately, fitness to remain on the Roll. As always, simply referring to cases and sections of the LPA would not be sufficient – the commentary that would go with such references would be critical to the ultimate quality of an answer.