Under workplace health and safety laws, your employer has significant obligations to provide a safe workplace, and that includes emotional and psychological safety, as well as physical safety.
A workplace that tolerates bullying, harassment, or serious overwork is not a safe workplace.
There is also a specific conduct rule that specifies that a lawyer must not engage in conduct that constitutes discrimination, sexual harassment or workplace bullying.
Agreed Pricing, also known as Value Pricing, is an arrangement in which a lawyer and a client agree on a price up front for the lawyer’s services in a matter. It is based on an agreed scope of services and the price is a fair reflection of the client’s perception of value. It is also seen in productised services where a lawyer offers a defined scope of service for a publicly stated price.
There is a wide range of online CPD resources available. We provide funding to the Law Library of Victoria to help them offer two online CPD courses covering legislation and case law. These are free to all Victorian lawyers. For more information, visit the Law Library website.
Each year the Victorian Bar and the Law Institute of Victoria (LIV) carry out audits of lawyers’ CPD compliance on our behalf under a delegation. These verification audits can relate to any of the three previous years.
If you’re selected for an audit, you will be contacted by the LIV or the Victorian Bar and asked to verify, within 21 days, that you’ve met your CPD obligations. You will need to provide supporting documentation to show that you have complied.
Supporting documentation may include:
The CPD year runs from 1 April to 31 March. The process for seeking an exemption is different depending on whether you held a practising certificate for the entire CPD year.
You can seek an exemption from completing some or all of your CPD activities for the year under certain circumstances. Some reasons to seek an exemption include:
The CPD rules for barristers and the rules for solicitors outline the types of professional development activities you can undertake and earn CPD points for. The CPD Rules were developed by the national professional associations, the Law Council of Australia and the Australian Bar Association and approved as Uniform Rules by the Legal Services Coun
Continuing professional development (CPD) obligations are intended to ensure that lawyers are continually updating and improving their skills and knowledge in order to maintain the quality of the service expected by, and delivered to, their clients and the community.
High quality legal service is of central importance when it comes to maintaining the public’s trust and confidence in the legal profession, which in turn supports the maintenance of the rule of law.
