The New Uniform Legal Regime in WA: CPD Core Competency Areas
With the Legal Profession Uniform Law expected to commence in WA on 1 January 2022, now is the time to prepare for the new and changed duties and obligations that will come into effect under the new regime. Join members from the Legal Practice Board of WA and the Law Society of WA’s Costs Committee to examine ethical issues under the new Uniform Law, explore critical trust account and records keeping considerations, and then how the new rules may impact costs for your practice. 2111W02
Description
Attend and earn 3 CPD points including:
1 point in Competency Area 1: Practice Management
1 point in Competency Area 2: Professional Skills
1 point in Competency Area 3: Ethics & Professional Responsibility
This program is based on WA legislation
Chair: Craig Slater, Barrister, Francis Burt Chambers; Member, Ethics Committee and Professional Standards Scheme Committee, and Convenor, Quality Practice Standard Committee, Law Society of WA
Competency Area 3: Ethics & Professional Responsibility
2.00pm to 3.00pm A Crash Course on the New Uniform Law and Ethical Issues
- Overview of the changes practitioners need to be aware
- What you need to do to ensure your practice is compliant
- Update on other recent ethical considerations and complaints against lawyers
Presented by Sabina Schlink, Special Counsel, Piper Alderman; Board Member & Deputy Chair, Legal Practice Board of Western Australia
Competency Area 2: Professional Skills
3.00pm to 4.00pm Trust Accounts: Liability, Obligations, Record Keeping & Practical Case Studies
- How to manage your obligations and responsibilities with respect to trust money
- What trust accounting records must be established when receiving trust money by a law practice?
- What to look out for when reviewing the trust accounting records
- Practical case studies
- Examples of cases were the legal practitioner was held responsible
- What should have been the process?
- What actually happened?
- The consequences of each case for the law practice, the legal practitioner and staff
Presented by Anna Young, Senior Trust Account Inspector, Legal Practice Board of Western Australia
4.00pm to 4.15pm Afternoon Tea
Competency Area 1: Practice Management
4.15pm to 5.15pm Costs and Your Practice under the Proposed Legal Profession Uniform Law
- Background to the Uniform Legal Profession laws, from a national perspective
- Major changes & issues in relation to costs and how they will impact your Practice
- The importance of valid costs agreements and good disclosure
- Solicitor and client costs: How to avoid and deal with solicitor and client costs issues
- Costs disclosure
- Costs agreements
- Billing
- Assessing solicitor and client costs
Presented by Maria-Luisa Coulson, Managing Director, Coulson Legal; Chair, Costs Committee, Law Society of WA; member, Professional Affairs Committee and Legal Practitioners Complaints Committee, Legal Practice Board of WA
Presenters
Craig Slater
Craig Slater is a barrister at Francis Burt Chambers Perth where he specialises in commercial litigation. He advises on the Corporations Act and trade practices legislation. He has appeared as counsel in trials arising from disputes over contracts, misleading or deceptive conduct, the dissolution of partnerships, winding up corporations and commercial disputes generally. Craig was the 2013 President for the Law Society of Western Australia. He was until 2014 a member of its Council and the committee administering Law Mutual insurance. He remains a member of its Ethics Committee and Professional Standards Scheme Committee; and is the convenor of its Quality Practice Standard Committee which administers the Society’s QPS Scheme.
Sabina Schlink
Sabina Schlink is a special counsel at Piper Alderman and a director of the corporate advisory company One Stop Corporate Solutions. She is also the Deputy Chair of the Legal Practice Board and Convenor of the Admissions and Registrations Committee of the Board and sits on its Management Committee. Sabina is also an honorary lifetime member of the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association and a former member of the Legal Practitioners Complaints Committee and the Supreme Court of Western Australia Library Committee. She was also a long-term member of the Attorney Generals Working Party on changes to the laws of Succession in Western Australia and has sat on a number of Boards in the charitable sector.
Anna Young
Anna Young is the Senior Trust Account Inspector and has been with the Legal Practice Board of WA since July 2000. She is a qualified CPA with a Bachelor of Business majoring in Public Accounting, Masters in Business Administration majoring in Management, Graduate Certificate in Forensic Investigation and a Certified Fraud Examiner. In her current position she has been involved in identifying and documenting major defalcations dealing with trust money and has been an expert witness in these prosecutions which required attendance at SAT and the District Court. Previous employment experience has been in senior positions within the banking industry, managed a finance organization, managed the accounting function of a large multi-disciplinary organization and has undertaken various contract accounting positions.
Maria-Luisa Coulson
Maria-Luisa is one of Western Australia’s top experts in the law of costs, having acted as counsel in some of WA’s leading costs decisions and appeals. She has had papers published, has given expert evidence on costs, and regularly lectures in relation to legal costs to lawyers and to law students at Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia. As a member of the Law Society of WA’s Costs Committee, of which she was elected Chair in 2020, Maria-Luisa is involved in the development of costs practice, procedure and reform. In 2020, she was elected to the Legal Practice Board (“LPB”) and since that time has served on the LPB’s Legal Profession Complaints Committee and the LPB’s Professional Affairs Committee.
Venue
Parmelia Hilton
Level 1, Meeting Room, 14 Mill Street
Perth 6000
WA
Australia
Directions
Nearby Public Transport:
Train Stations - The Esplanade Station
Bus Interchange - St Georges Terrace Cloisters Green
Parking information
Parmilia Hilton - Valet Parking only - Click here to view rates.
Convention Centre - 100 metres from Parmelia Hilton. Click here to view rates.