Commonwealth AG considers a National Legal Services Board

17/09/2009

Attorney-General Robert McClelland has criticised Australia's disparate and unwieldy regime for regulating the legal profession, with 55 different regulators and nearly 5,000 pages of legislation, during an address this morning on "National Legal Profession Reform" at the John Curtin Institute for Public Policy in Perth.

"I have not met one lawyer that has read, let alone digested, this massive amount of material that regulates their practice", he said. "Australia’s nine largest national law firms waste nearly $15 million each year just duplicating procedures for each jurisdiction’s requirements. That’s hardly an intelligent or sustainable outcome for any profession."

The attorney announced the release of initial proposals by the **National Legal Profession Reform Taskforce **in their regulatory framework paper. The taskforce has proposed the establishment of a National Legal Services Board.

**17 September 2009 **