ByLawyers News and Updates

Interest on unpaid legal costs – TAS

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Under new regulations, the maximum rate of interest on unpaid legal costs that can be charged by Tasmanian lawyers has increased significantly. The Legal Profession Regulations 2018 came into force on 28 November 2018 and replaced the Legal Profession Regulations 2008.

Rule 66 now provides that the applicable rate for interest on unpaid legal costs is that prescribed by the Rules of Court for the purposes of section 165 of the Supreme Court Civil Procedure Act 1932. The current rate is 7.5%. The previous rate was 3.5% and was tied to the Reserve Bank of Australia Cash Rate Target.

All By Lawyers Tasmanian costs agreements have been updated accordingly.

By Lawyers is going global!

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BY LAWYERS IS GOING GLOBAL

By Lawyers is excited to announce that in February 2019 we will be launching our online guides and precedents in the United Kingdom. Our UK team is already on the ground working on content with our UK authors – practising lawyers in the various UK jurisdictions.

In the UK, we will duplicate the successful Australian By Lawyers system to give UK lawyers the same real time access to law, matter plans and precedents that are an integral part of practice for their Australian colleagues.

We also wish to assure our Australian clients that it will be very much business as usual at home for our Australian editorial and publishing teams. We have appointed a new management team for By Lawyers Australia to ensure that our Australian publications continue to expand and improve – and remain always up to date, of course.

We have pleasure introducing Brad Watts as the new Managing Director of By Lawyers Australia.

Many of you know Brad already a contributing author and more recently our senior consultant. Brad will take the reigns of By Lawyers Australia from today, reporting to our Chief Executive Officer, Bobbi Young, Chief Operating Officer Danni Larney and the Global Editor in Chief Guy Dawson. Brad will be ably assisted by our new General Manager Paul Maher, previously Legal Editor, and the rest of our wonderful in-house team – plus the 45 practising lawyers across Australia who are our external authors and who help us keep our content relevant, practical and up to date.

We sincerely thank our Australian subscribers for their support over the last decade and we look forward to continuing to assist them to enjoy practice more.

By Lawyers is very proud to be taking our great Australian product to the world.

Supervised legal practice – A new podcast from By Lawyers and LEAP

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Many small firms have lawyers on the team who are still in their first two years of practice and therefore subject to a condition on their practising certificate that they may only engage in supervised legal practice.

Join our Senior Consultant and Editor Brad Watts and LEAP National Marketing Manager Claire James for a discussion on the ways in which proper supervision is important for both the firm and for junior lawyers and how it can be an essential element of running a successful small law firm, as a means to ensure delivery of high quality client outcomes and a vital risk management tool.

The President of the NSW Law Society recently highlighted the importance of senior practitioners meeting their supervisory obligations to junior practitioners who are subject to the restriction of supervised legal practice in their first 2 years. This podcast discusses the factors which impact – and sometimes impede – proper supervision in small legal practices and how the By Lawyers guides and precedents can help firms comply with their supervision requirements.

The podcast covers the general supervision requirements and also looks at some specific By Lawyers precedents which can assist firms with their supervision obligations, such as Retainer Instructions and To Do lists.

Oh, and with some help from John Grisham, we also learn why Australian lawyers are better than American lawyers!

 

Providing feedback to By Lawyers

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At By Lawyers we love to receive feedback from our subscribers. We are available via email: askus@bylawyers.com.au.

We always respond promptly to issues or suggestions about our guides and precedents.

For LEAP users there are two additional ways to provide feedback:

  • When in a LEAP matter, in the top right hand corner of the screen there is a blue Question Mark icon. Clicking on it reveals a drop-down box for the LEAP Community pages – one of these is ‘Help, support and feedback’.
  • When using any precedent in LEAP, there is  always a ‘Provide Feedback’ button in the ribbon at the top of the document, next to ‘Save to matter as PDF’. This opens to a feedback form where any issues or suggestions regarding the precedent can be provided. Where such feedback relates to a By Lawyers precedent, LEAP send it on to us and we will always address it promptly, directly with the user.

By Lawyers have often introduced new precedents or enhanced our commentaries as a result of subscriber suggestions. Whenever we see a need for the proposed additions or amendments we are happy to oblige, so as to benefit not only the firm that made the request but all of our other users as well. Sometimes our subscribers will not only identify an issue, such as a new precedent that might be needed, but they will also provide us with the resolution – a precedent they have developed themselves and are happy for us to publish for the assistance of others. The law is, after all, a noble profession and helping each other in a collegiate way is one of the hallmarks of being a lawyer.

Our goal at By Lawyers is to help our subscribers enjoy practice more. Responding to feedback is one of the ways we do it.

Wills – Avoiding family provision claims

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Clients often require advice on avoiding family provision claims, when considering their estate planning.  New commentary has been added to the By Lawyers Wills Guides concerning the issues that should be considered when drafting a will in circumstances where a family provision claim against the estate of the testator appears possible.

This new commentary considers two common issues raised by testators when giving instructions for wills:

  1. How to leave their estate to their partner and prevent children or step children from making a claim on the estate; and
  2. How to leave the estate to their partner, whilst ensuring their children by a prior relationship are benefited on the death of that partner.

The commentary discusses some general principles from the cases and provides a range of likely outcomes for a number of classes of claimants under family provision legislation, which will assist practitioners when they are advising clients who are deciding how to distribute their estates to best avoid a potential claim.

In essence, while there is no absolute way of avoiding a family provision claim by an eligible person against a testator’s estate, appropriate consideration when preparing a client’s will can minimise the prospects or quantum of any claim, or at least ensure the testator has a clear understanding of the issues.

Practice management for small law firms

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Practice management is both one of the most important and one of the most frequently neglected aspects of being a lawyer. The imperatives of doing the clients’ work too often mean that practice management takes a back seat and the future direction, expansion and profitability of the firm becomes an afterthought.

The 11 Habits of highly successful small law firms is an article by Richard Hugo-Hamman, the Executive Chairman of LEAP Legal Software, who has been helping small law firms to make more money for over 25 years. This very informative and inspirational article was recently published on LinkedIn and Richard has kindly permitted us to reproduce it within the Reference Materials folder in the By Lawyers Practice Management guide.

The article contains numerous valuable insights for anyone running a small law firm or thinking of doing so. Richard draws on his enormous international experience to distil the key habits that define highly successful small law firms.  In summary he concludes that:

  1. They are efficient;
  2. They enjoy practising law;
  3. They employ smart people and treat them really well;
  4. They have selected areas of law they like and focus on them;
  5. They dedicate time to building the firm as a business;
  6. They are early adopters of technology;
  7. They confront the challenges of getting paid and solve them;
  8. They have standard processes and procedures in place for all matters;
  9. They make compliance a natural consequence of running a firm well;
  10. They become experts in customer service;
  11. They understand their finances.

We highly recommend reading Richard’s article, which calls upon you to ACT!

Trusts – New precedent – Deed of termination

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Following a subscriber request, we have added a new precedent to our Unit Trusts Guide, being a Deed of termination of trust.

There are many reasons a client may wish to terminate or dissolve a trust prior to the vesting date. There are also several methods of bringing a trust to an early end including:

  • complete distribution of the trust property by the trustee;
  • revocation by the settlor or trustee;
  • the beneficiaries or unit holders consent to end the trust; and
  • a Court ordered termination of trust.

When brining a trust to an end there are many important issues for the trustee to consider including:

  • the procedures prescribed by the original trust deed;
  • all possible creditors; and
  • all possible taxation consequences – particularly CGT arising from the sale of any trust assets or in specie distributions.

The need for a deed confirming the termination of the trust was suggested by one of our subscribers. Having considered the issue, By Lawyers have created a simple new precedent Deed poll, terminating the trust. This will allow practitioners to ensure that when their trustee clients terminate a trust it is evidenced and supported by proper documentation.

At By Lawyers we are always grateful for any feedback on our precedents and will happily accommodate subscriber requests for new documents where appropriate.

 

 

SMSFs – New precedents – Retainer instructions

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We have published two new Retainer Instructions precedents in our Self Managed Superannuation Funds Guide.

The Retainer Instructions – Self managed superannuation fund is designed to assist practitioners when taking instructions from clients who are establishing a new fund. It covers all of the essential information required for the superannuation trust deed, including trustee and member details.

The Retainer Instructions – Existing self managed superannuation fund is designed to be used when a client wishes to make changes to an existing self managed superannuation fund that has already been established. It can be used to record instructions for a variety of situations including:

  • changing the fund trustee;
  • amending the rules of the fund;
  • making a new death benefit nomination or reversionary pension nomination; and
  • establishing a limited recourse borrowing arrangement.

Retainer instructions, which appear in “Getting the matter underway’ on all By Lawyers matter plans, are not only a useful precedent for file opening and matter management, they are a critical risk-management tool ensuring that all necessary information is obtained from the client and recorded.

Family Law – FCC costs increases

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There have been costs increases in the Federal Circuit Court for itemised costs in family law and child support proceedings, pursuant to Schedule 1 of the Federal Circuit Court Rules 2001.

The increases are for initiating applications and other hearing-related costs.

An alert has been added to the By Lawyers Children and Property settlement publications.

Conveyancing – GST withholding – Letter to client

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GST withholding obligations for purchasers of new residential properties and some vacant land commenced on 1 July 2018.

The commentaries in all By Lawyers Conveyancing Guides – Sale and Purchase, for each state, have previously been amended to deal with the new GST withholding requirements. See the commentaries for details of when the new provisions apply.

Now included in the precedents for both Sale and Purchase is a new ‘Letter to client regarding GST withholding payment’ which explains to clients the new requirements and outlines for them the procedures involved in complying, whether they are a vendor or a purchaser.

This helpful precedent allows you to quickly and correctly advise the client on this important new development in conveyancing procedure, where applicable.

 

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