From the Editor

New conduct rules apply to all SA practitioners

JUSTIN STEWART-RATTRAY

The Society implemented new legal profession rules for SA legal practitioners on 1 January 2022. The new South Australian Legal Practitioners Conduct Rules (SALPCR), which replace the SA version of the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules, provide a comprehensive set of legal profession rules which bind all SA legal practitioners including those who choose to practise exclusively as barristers.

The SALPCR are the product of a review carried out by the Society as to the content and application of the legal profession rules in SA. Consideration of content included participation in the Law Council of Australia’s (LCA) review and redrafting of the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules. For that review, the Society contributed to some important changes to the rules especially those relating to conflict of interest and sexual harassment and discrimination.

In reviewing the application of the old rules one of the main issues was to ensure that the rules are expressed in such a way to make it clear that they apply to, and have disciplinary ramifications for, all SA legal practitioners regardless of the context in which they practise. The changes to the structure and terminology used in the SALPCR ensure that they harmonise with the disciplinary provisions of the Legal Practitioners Act, especially with section 70 which provides that conduct consisting of a contravention of the legal profession rules is capable of constituting unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. As section 70 does not exclude any class of practitioner from its ambit, and we have a fused profession in South Australia, it was decided necessary to amend the structure and terminology of the legal profession rules adopted by the Society (noting that the definition of “legal profession rules” is “the Society’s professional conduct rules”) to properly reflect those elements.

The Society consulted closely with the SA Bar Association and the Legal Profession Conduct Commissioner in the development of the new rules.

The SALPCR now consists of two sections, Part A and Part B.

Part A consists of a new South Australian version of the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules (ASCR) which replaces the word “solicitor” with “legal practitioner” and incorporates amendments which were the outcome of the LCA’s review such as the new rule 11A (which provides for specific conflict of interest requirements for practitioners providing short term legal assistance) and the revised rule 42 (which deals with sexual harassment and discrimination). The rules in Part A apply to all SA legal practitioners other than those to whom Part B applies. Although they do contain some SAexclusive content (see rule 16A), Part A uses the same numbering as the LCA’s Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules for consistency and ease of cross-referencing.

Part B applies to South Australian legal practitioners who hold a Category BA practising certificate or who have otherwise elected to practise exclusively as a barrister by qualifying for the barrister contribution under the South Australian Professional Indemnity Insurance Scheme. It comprises an amended version of the South Australian Bar Association Rules which are constructed to provide a rule regime that specifically applies to practitioners who choose to wholly practise as barristers.

Detailed information about new Rule 11A and the amendments to Rule 42 will be published in the May edition of The Bulletin. B