Admission

Admission

Admission

Education and practical training requirements:

  * Education:   a law degree or at least three years of Australia recognized legal study (E.g.: JD)
  * Practical training:
      * College of Law
      * 1-2 years of experience working in legal practice (PLT)

Mutual Recognition

A person who is registered in one State or Territory (a jurisdiction) for an occupation is entitled, after notifying the local registration authority of another jurisdiction, for the equivalent occupation to be registered in that other State for the equivalent occupation and, pending such registration, to carry on the equivalent occupation in the other jurisdiction.

MRA(cth) (Re Tkacz case) p130-131
s20 – Grant of MR
s21 – Deadline of grant
s22 (1) – postpone of grant
s23(1) – refusal of grant

Good Fame and Character

Political activity & dishonesty

Re B [1981]:
  * Extreme political activities from 24 to 32 years old and “she has been found to be guilty of infractions of the law and on many other occasions of conduct which warranted her arrest, but which was not thereafter shown to amount to an offence”(Reynolds JA, p136)
  * Dishonest concerning a bail issue – continuous lies about a bail money


Dishonesty:

Wentworth v New South Wales Bar Association [1994]
  * Having a habit of taking fruitless legal action may also prevent admission – could not be relied on to be truthful in court

Morrissey v New South Wales Bar Association [2006]

Readmission

Practitioners must show:
  * they are of ‘good fame and character’
  * they completely accept the decision which resulted in their removal from the rolls
  * they have been rehabilitated

In the past, a ‘good fame and character’ (or similar wording)-based test was applied in State and Territory jurisdictions. However, consistent with the outcomes of the national legal profession Model Bill project, most jurisdictions have recently adopted...