Frequently asked questions about the electronic conveyancing regulatory guideline
Our Sexual Harassment Complaints team have specialised training in managing sexual harassment complaints. You can make a formal complaint, which is managed by the team via our regular complaints process, or you can provide an informal report or information anonymously.
If you are not sure which pathway is right for you, you can speak to our sexual harassment complaints specialists to understand more about the process before deciding whether to make a formal complaint.
To make a complaint to the VLSB+C:
Find out more about each of the reporting pathways below:
We have developed a resource that provides information about what you might consider doing if you are experiencing sexual harassment, including at the time of an incident and immediately afterwards. Find out about options for reporting sexual harassment, including the various pathways and potential outcomes.
Access our experiencing sexual harassment resource.
Access a guide providing information about what you might consider doing if you witness or hear about sexual harassment in legal workplaces. It covers actions that bystanders can take to respond to sexual harassment.
Access our witnessing sexual harassment resource.
Since 12 December 2023, organisations and businesses have been required to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate workplace sexual harassment, sex discrimination, hostile work environments and victimisation as far as possible, pursuant to the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (C’th).
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has developed a suite of practical guidance materials to help organisations and businesses to understand their responsibilities and the changes they may need to make to satisfy the positive duty. The most comprehensive legal resource on the positive duty are the Guidelines for Complying with the Positive Duty (2023), which provide examples of practical actions that organisations and businesses can take as well as detailed information about: what the positive duty is and who must meet it; what it means to take ‘reasonable and proportionate measures’; and how the positive duty will be enforced.
The Guidelines also set out seven standards and examples of practical actions outlining what the AHRC expects organisations and business to do to satisfy the positive duty. Those standards are:
The AHRC has also published A Resource for Small Business on the Positive Duty (2023) to provide more targeted information for the small business community about the new positive duty, which may be of particular assistance to smaller law practices.
Businesses in Victoria have had a ‘positive duty’ to combine both prevention and response measures in their approach to managing sexual harassment since the commencement of the Equal Opportunity Act 2010 (Vic).
The Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission's 2020 Guideline: Preventing and responding to workplace sexual harassment provides practical, easy-to-implement advice for employers to help them comply with their legal obligation to keep every employee safe from sexual harassment.
VEOHRC has identified six minimum standards that Victorian employers must meet to comply with their positive duty to eliminate sexual harassment. These include steps to prevent sexual harassment, as well as appropriately responding to sexual harassment when it does occur.
These standards are:
The guideline also includes a step-by-step guide for dealing with sexual harassment complaints, a risk matrix tool, and a gender equality framework to help employers take action on the underlying issues that drive sexual harassment.
As the authoritative and comprehensive resource on Victoria’s positive duty for employers and workplace sexual harassment, this guideline may be considered in judicial proceedings when deciding whether employers have complied with the law.
Also available is an innovative online Sexual harassment support and response tool. This free and confidential interactive chat tool guides employers, people who have experienced sexual harassment, and bystanders through information about sexual harassment and their rights and responsibilities, if they encounter sexual harassment at work.
Source: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
Work-related gendered violence, including sexual harassment, is a serious occupational health and safety issue. The WorkSafe guide is intended to help employers prevent and respond to work-related gendered violence.
Sexual harassment is a common and known cause of physical and mental injury. Where there is a risk of work-related sexual harassment causing physical or mental injury, employers have an obligation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 (Vic) to control that risk. This obligation is in addition to the obligation of employers under the Equal Opportunity Act and the Sex Disccrimination Act 1984 (Cth).
Those with management and control of a workplace must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the workplace is safe and without risks to health.
You can download a copy of the guide from WorkSafe’s website. For more information, see Gendered Violence: WorkSafe Victoria.
The LCA's Model Framework was developed as a guidance material to assist the profession to proactively prevent and respond to sexual harassment.
Legal workplaces can adopt it in its entirety or use it, along with a helpful checklist, to augment or refine existing policies.
You can download the Model Framework on the LCA website.
Sexual harassment is unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, which a reasonable person would anticipate, in all the circumstances, would make the other person feel offended, humiliated or intimidated. It can be physical, verbal or written (including through online spaces and social media platforms).
Examples of behaviour that could be workplace sexual harassment include:
Sexual harassment constitutes ‘workplace sexual harassment’ when it occurs in locations and spaces that are in some way connected to work, including:
Sexual harassment is not just an individual problem, it is a systemic issue driven by the broader discrimination, disrespect and inequality that women experience in everyday life.
Anyone can be sexually harassed. However, most harassers are male, and the majority of their targets are women.
Certain groups also experience disproportionately high rates of sexual harassment, including LGBTIQ people, young women, women with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, and women from multicultural and multifaith backgrounds.
Source: Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission
Our Sexual Harassment in the Victorian Legal Profession study showed that one in three survey respondents had experienced sexual harassment at some point in their career. However, there are significant differences between the experiences of women and men in the profession, with 61% of female respondents and 12% of male respondents reporting experiencing sexual harassment in Victorian legal workplaces.
The study consisted of two surveys, conducted in August and September 2019. The first survey was sent to all Victorian legal practitioners, with more than 2,300 lawyers responding about their experience of sexual harassment in the profession. The second was sent to principals of law practices to collect data about how sexual harassment is managed in their workplaces.
Our study found that:
Our regulatory strategy aims to tackle the issues raised in our report with both proactive and reactive measures.
You can read more about our report here.
We have developed a resource that provides information about what you might consider doing if you are experiencing sexual harassment, including at the time of an incident and immediately afterwards. Find out about options for reporting sexual harassment, including the various pathways and potential outcomes.
Access our experiencing sexual harassment resource.
Access a guide providing information about what you might consider doing if you witness or hear about sexual harassment in legal workplaces. It covers actions that bystanders can take to respond to sexual harassment.
Access our witnessing sexual harassment resource.
There are a number of ways you can report sexual harassment. You can report anonymously, or you can report on the record. Whatever you choose to do, there are supports available to help.
If you are in danger or want to report a crime, you should contact Victoria Police on 000.
If you wish to discuss a matter confidentially with us, or make a report or complaint relating to sexual harassment by a lawyer, please contact our sexual Harassment Complaints Team.
During the annual practising certificate renewal process we asked lawyers to tell us about their ancestry, country of birth and the languages they speak. Information was provided on a voluntary basis and 86% of lawyers answered one or more of the diversity or language questions.
Many lawyers have elected to display the languages they speak on our register of lawyers. By including this information, as well as the areas of practice a lawyer specialises in, consumers will be able to make more informed choices about the right lawyer to support them.
Below you will find the de-identified diversity information for the legal profession in Victoria.
78% of lawyers who responded to this question were born in Australia. This was followed by the United Kingdom, Malaysia, New Zealand and China.
The majority of lawyers report either Australian or Western European ancestry. The top reported ancestries are:
31% of lawyers report speaking languages other than English. Lawyers report speak 145 different languages. The top languages spoken are:
We are committed to providing an accessible, responsive service to all Victorians. While the majority of people communicate with us in a courteous manner, a small number of individuals can sometimes be angry, frustrated or distressed or act in other ways that may be challenging.
We recognise that people who demonstrate challenging behaviour often have a legitimate grievance and we will continue to deal with complaints on their merits. Our officers will treat people who contact us with courtesy, and we expect this courtesy to be returned.
Our staff can encounter a spectrum of challenging behaviour, from slightly confronting to clearly unreasonable, and our responses will be graduated as follows:
1. PREVENT where possible. We aim to prevent challenging behaviour by practising good complaint handling and communication skills.
2. RESPOND to challenging behaviour. We recognise that people who contact us may feel upset, distressed or angry. Our officers will respond to angry or emotional behaviour in the first instance by attempting to defuse the situation. We will give people reasonable time to express themselves, and listen and acknowledge what they are saying, and how they feel.
3. MANAGE behaviour that is or becomes unreasonable. Behaviour becomes unreasonable when, because of its nature or frequency, it raises health, safety, resource or equity issues for the VLSB+C, our officers, or other people who use our services. Examples of behaviour or language that may be considered unreasonable include:
Behaviour can also become unreasonable if it consumes a disproportionate amount of staff resources through unreasonable requests or communication. Examples of requests that may be considered unreasonable include:
Examples of communication that may be considered unreasonable include:
If a person’s behaviour becomes unreasonable, officers will apply appropriate and proportionate strategies for managing the behaviour. For example:
4. LIMIT access. As a last resort we can consider limiting access to our services if other strategies have not worked and the person continues to engage in unreasonable behaviour. Depending on the type of behaviour, we may consider limiting:
We give serious consideration to the needs of individuals with a disability or mental health issue and take those needs into consideration in making decisions about restricting access to our services due to unreasonable behaviour.
If we have decided to limit your access and you object to our decision you may wish to contact an external oversight agency such as the Victorian Ombudsman, or, if you believe you have been discriminated against, the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission.
The Victorian Legal Services Board + Commissioner (VLSBC) sees the value in innovation. As the regulator, we encourage lawyers to look for new ways to streamline and improve their practice. We also wish to encourage the development of legal services that are more affordable and accessible to a greater range of people in the community.
Fear of the regulator’s disapproval is sometimes cited as a reason why lawyers are reluctant to innovate and change the way they provide legal services. We seek to overcome this perceived barrier by providing an avenue for conversation with innovators in legal services and information provision.
The Legal Profession Uniform Law (Vic) 2014 (“Uniform Law”) allows considerable flexibility for lawyers to step outside the usual models of practice, and permits exemptions or conditions on how the rules and regulations apply in a limited number of areas. By working together, we can not only assist you as you develop service models and innovations that comply with the law, but we can also gather insights to help us understand whether any reviews or amendments to the Uniform Law are needed in order to help the profession develop a better range of services.
As a modern regulator, we need to regulate in a way that helps maintain the health and effectiveness of the profession, while still dealing with complaints and conduct that falls outside the acceptable boundaries. Our main focus is on whether consumers experience benefit or harm from a particular model of service rather than taking an overly technical approach to compliance. We also want the profession to have enough flexibility to modify how legal services are done, so that it can continue to serve the community in the best way possible.
How does it work? If you have a new idea, you can contact us via the lawyer enquiry form and selecting the topic Innovation. We can then have a conversation about the proposed service model or idea, discuss any concerns we might have and talk through the development of your proposal.
For example, some people have approached us about the use of chatbots and the development of online legal information and self-help tools. We can discuss our general views about your proposal given the regulatory provisions, and help you make connections to find resources. We also involve the professional liability insurer, (the LPLC) where appropriate, and we can obtain other expert views in assessing your service. We are also able to give you a Regulatory Guidance letter from the Commissioner which sets out our views.
A Regulatory Guidance letter expresses our view on how the rules of Ethics and the Uniform Law would apply to a particular model of practice or idea. The provision of legal services is always subject to the duties owed to clients, the Court and the administration of justice, and a Regulatory Guidance letter is not a waiver of any provision of the Uniform Law or Rules (unless an exemption is specifically granted). It is also not a private ruling binding on the Commissioner.
So far, applicants have contacted us about online dispute resolution platforms, use of chatbots, different pricing and remuneration models, managing possible conflicts of interest through information barriers and online self-help platforms. In the coming months, we will share more stories and general guidance as they are developed.
The Fitzroy Community Legal Centre contacted us through the Innovation Inbox. They had recently merged with another legal centre, and wanted to ensure they could perform an increased number of one-off community advice sessions.
Lawyers are subject to strict rules to ensure that confidential information from one client doesn’t spread to another client who might be able to make use of that information against the first client. This rule has presented some significant difficulties to organisations like community legal centres because of the volume of demand for their services.
The merger with the second centre gave the management group an opportunity to think differently about how to handle that problem through putting in place Information Barriers that would prevent inappropriate access to another person’s information. We worked with the CLC as they designed their new system and provided a statement of regulatory guidance in relation to the final policy.
“The VLSBC remained a constructive and supportive resource throughout the merger of Darebin Community Legal Centre and Fitzroy Legal Service. The fact that they were willing to field numerous questions and review draft policies was an invaluable contribution. The VLSB+C’s support of our Information Barrier policy provided us with confidence that we had successfully struck the difficult balance of complying with our legal and professional obligations and enabling meaningful and accessible legal assistance to as many people as possible within the constraints of our working environment, staff capacity and resources.”
Jennifer Black, Principal Lawyer, Fitzroy Community Legal Service
If you have an idea for a new way of doing business that benefits your clients, please contact us, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us via the lawyer enquiry form now.
Law Institute Journal Article: https://www.liv.asn.au/Staying-Informed/LIJ/LIJ/April-2020/Innovation--What%E2%80%99s-holding-us-back
Legal Forecast On Speaker: https://www.thelegalforecast.com/tlf-on-speaker
Reimagining Justice podcast: https://www.andreaperrypetersen.com.au/regulation-innovation-technology-ethics-lawyers-consumers/
Centre for Legal Innovation panel discussion: https://www.cli.collaw.com/clic/2020/07/15/reinvent-legal-business-series-beyond-the-legal-innovation-hype-there-is
Centre for Legal Innovation podcast: https://www.cli.collaw.com/podcast/2019/09/09/episode-4-the-new-emerging-role-of-legal-industry-regulation-and-regulators
Legally Yours video discussion on ‘Legal Pricing and the Law’: https://vimeo.com/458902153
