Australian Capital Territory Current Acts Australian Capital Territory Current Acts(1) A person (the legal practitioner ) commits an offence if—
(a) someone else (the client ) engages a multidisciplinary partnership to provide services (the required services ) that the client might reasonably assume to be legal services; and
(b) the legal practitioner is—
(i) a legal practitioner partner of the partnership; or
(ii) an employee of the partnership who is an Australian legal practitioner and provides the required services on behalf of the partnership; and
(c) the legal practitioner fails to ensure that a disclosure, complying with the requirements of this section, is made to the client in relation to the provision of the required services.
Maximum penalty: 50 penalty units.
Note A reference to an Act includes a reference to the statutory instruments made or in force under the Act, including any regulation (see Legislation Act
, s 104).
(2) The disclosure must be made by giving the client a written notice—
(a) setting out the services to be provided; and
(b) stating whether or not all the legal services to be provided will be provided by an Australian legal practitioner; and
(c) if some or all of the legal services to be provided will not be provided by an Australian legal practitioner—identifying those services and indicating the status or qualifications of the people who will provide the services; and
(d) stating that this Act applies to the provision of legal services but not to the provision of the nonlegal services.
Note This Act is defined in the dictionary.
(3) A regulation may make provision in relation to the following matters:
(a) how a disclosure must be made;
(b) additional matters required to be disclosed in relation to the provision of legal services or nonlegal services by a multidisciplinary partnership.
(4) The additional matters may include the kind of services provided by the multidisciplinary partnership and whether or not the services are covered by the insurance or other provisions of this Act.
(5) A disclosure under this section to a person about the provision of legal services may relate to the provision of legal services once, more than once or on an ongoing basis.