If you don't remove your supervised legal practice condition
If you are not being supervised
Removing your supervised legal practice condition
Once the required period of supervision is complete, you must apply to us to have the condition removed from your practising certificate. You don’t have to hold a current practising certificate to make this application.
- Download our template application form and supervisor letter
- Ask your supervisor(s) to complete the supervisor letter confirming you have completed your period of supervised practice. We will accept electronic signatures from your supervisors.
- Complete the application form and statutory declaration.
- Send both the application form and your supervisor(s) letters to us via our lawyer enquiry form, selecting ‘Supervised legal practice’ and ‘Apply for an exemption or removal of my supervised legal practice condition’ from the categories.
- It can take several weeks for us to process these requests. If you would like to have the condition removed before your next practising certificate is issued, please follow the steps above before renewing via LSB Online.
If you don't remove your supervised legal practice condition
If you don’t have your supervised legal practice condition removed, you must continue to be supervised. The condition will remain on your certificate until we’ve received your application and decided that it can be removed. This means that you can’t practise unsupervised or supervise another lawyer until your certificate no longer carries the supervision condition.
If you supervise someone else while you still have this condition on your practising certificate, the other person can’t claim the time that you supervised them. You may also face disciplinary action for practising outside the conditions on your certificate.
If you are not being supervised
If you have a supervised legal practice condition on your certificate but you no longer have anyone supervising you, you must stop practising law. This might happen if your supervisor leaves the practice or can’t continue to supervise you and they haven’t arranged an alternative for you. You will need to arrange for another appropriate lawyer to supervise you. If you are unable to find a new supervisor please contact us via the lawyer enquiry form, selecting ‘Supervised legal practice’ from the categories, as we may be able to help you.
If you continue to practise without supervision you may face disciplinary action for practising outside the conditions on your certificate.
We have developed a range of FAQs to support you
We may approve this in some cases where the remote supervision relates only to location. You should always create a remote supervision plan at the start of your supervision period. However we may apply some discretion and ask you for evidence of how you were supervised. This may be time consuming so to avoid delays in removing your SLP condition a remote supervision plan is strongly recommended.
There are extremely rare scenarios where someone can be supervised external to their place of practice. If you propose a scenario where you will be supervised by a practitioner at an external entity you should seek approval from us before engaging in this kind of remote supervision arrangement.
Electronic signatures
We accept electronic signatures from supervisors on the supervisor letter.
Multiple supervisors
If you have been supervised by different supervisors over your SLP period (i.e. you have changed jobs or your supervisor changed) you will need to get all your supervisors to complete a letter.
If you have been supervised by multiple supervisors at the same organisation (i.e. you report into several partners in the same firm) you only need to get one supervisor to complete a letter.
Leaving an organisation
If you are leaving an organisation we recommend you ask your supervisor to complete their letter before you finish your role. The supervisor letter template will need to be updated to remove reference to sighting the statutory declaration.
Your supervisor is leaving
If your supervisor is leaving the organisation we recommend you ask them to complete the letter before they finish their role. The supervisor letter template will need to be updated to remove reference to sighting the statutory declaration.
If your supervisor is leaving and there is no supervisor to replace them please contact us urgently. You cannot practice unsupervised.
I can’t get a letter from my supervisor, what do I do?
If you are not able to contact your supervisor, or there is a problem getting your letter, please contact us and we may be able to assist you. Use the lawyer enquiry form, selecting ‘Supervised legal practice’ from the categories.
Yes. However make sure you keep good records of the hours worked and obtain supervisor letters from relevant supervisors at each location.
Where you have engaged in legal practice overseas you may be able to apply for an exemption from SLP using the template for exemption on our website.
These applications will be considered in line with our supervised legal practice policy.
Where you work full-time ordinary periods of leave do not need to be deducted from the period of supervised legal practice.
Any additional periods such as long service leave, unpaid leave and parental leave will not contribute to your period of supervised legal practice.
You will need to pro-rata the time that you have engaged in supervised legal practice. For example, someone engaging in supervised legal practice 2.5 days per week, without any additional periods of leave would complete their supervised legal practice period in 4 years.
To calculate your full time equivalent (FTE) you should times the working days in a period by the percentage of supervised legal practice you engaged in. For example someone engaging in supervised legal practice 3 days per week has a FTE of .6.
Use our SLP time calculator here to help you estimate the SLP time you have completed before applying for SLP removal.
No. You can apply to have your SLP condition removed even if you are not employed.
No. The required period is 18 months or 2 years supervised legal practice (depending on how you qualified for admission). This period cannot be reduced to be completed in a shorter timeframe.