Employment of Paralegals/Specialist Law Clerks

20 August 2024

A gentle reminder to legal practitioners

Members of SAET have become increasingly concerned as to the inappropriate use of Paralegals/Specialist Law Clerks by legal practitioners. For instance, communications to chambers regarding legal proceedings containing information of substance: “I am instructed that …”

Such concerns have been raised with our Legal Practitioner Stakeholder Group. Discussed with that group was the Guideline regarding the Employment of Paralegals/Specialist Law Clerks, published by the Law Society of South Australia. Following these discussions, it was thought wise that I should provide a gentle reminder to legal practitioners about that Guideline:

Employment_of_Paralegals.pdf (lawsocietysa.asn.au).

Also discussed with the Legal Practitioner Stakeholder Group was the case of:

Legal Services and Complaints Committee -v- Lawson [2024] WASC 158 (6 May 2024) (austlii.edu.au).

In that judgment, the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Western Australia removed Mr Lawson’s name from the roll of practitioners after it had been shown that he had falsely represented that he had undertaken certain work – and had billed the work as such – when in fact the work had been done by his employed law graduate.

The Honourable Justice Steven Dolphin

President
South Australian Employment Tribunal