The state’s Law Society had threatened to throw the reforms off course unless demanded changes were accepted. There had been significant concern among some Queensland lawyers that the reform package will dramatically increase the administrative cost of practice.

National consistency

As set out by the Attorney-General’s department in Canberra, the reforms would ‘promote national consistency’ in laws applying to the country’s lawyers, impose national unified measures to ensure lawyers ‘are competent and maintain high ethical and professional standards’, as well as aim at ‘enhancing the protection of clients ... and the public generally’.
There had been widespread confusion over recent day as to whether the Queensland Law Society hierarchy would give unconditional support to the proposed reforms. And a group of the country’s largest law firms had called on the leadership of the Queensland society to clarify its position.

No provisos

But just before last weekend, The Australian newspaper reported the society’s president, John de Groot, saying there would be no provisos on his association’s support.
He told the newspaper: ‘Queensland Law Society supports the National Legal Profession Reform and recommends to the Attorney-General that Queensland participate in the proposed ... scheme.’