INSUR ANCE
RENEE STEVENS LEGAL RISK MANAGER | LAWCOVER
practicesupportservices@lawcover.com.au 1800 650 748 Switch: (02) 9264 8855
www.lawcover.com.au
The importance of effective supervision: Managing the risks S
upervision of staff is an integral part of running any law practice with employees. Even though good supervision is so important, it is a skill that we are rarely taught. Our style of supervision will often be emulated from our own experiences with supervision, for better or worse. The lack of adequate supervision of staff has been the source of a substantial number of claims against law firms over the years. Many of those claims result from negligent drafting or a failure by inexperienced and under-supervised solicitors to properly advise clients.
When supervision is lacking In Victorian Legal Services Commissioner v Olayemi (Legal Practice) [2019] VCAT 1283, a young solicitor in a busy immigration law practice had
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the carriage of a nomination and visa application for a client. Upon receiving a refusal letter and decision record from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, he realised that he had made a mistake in the visa application. The mistake related to the incorrect selection from a drop-down menu as part of the online application which, according to the evidence, was an easy mistake to make but fatal to the application. Instead of sending the client the original refusal letter and decision record, the solicitor panicked and falsified the documents, creating fictitious reasons to cover up the mistake, which he then sent to the client. Only when the client accused the law practice of fabricating the documents did the solicitor confess the truth to his principal.
