The Barrister’s Role in Moving Uncontested Admissions to Legal Practice

The script that is currently used by many movers is out-of-date and risks making representations that the mover cannot verify.

1. “Recommendation”

Movers, working from some long-standing script, say that the person holds “the board’s recommendation”. 

This echoes the language of Rule 15 of the Supreme Court (Admission) Rules 2004.

But the actual certificate in Form 22 does not use the word “recommends”, nor a synonym.

On an unconditional certificate, it says that the person:

… has complied with the [rules] as she is required to comply with in order to be admitted to the Legal Profession and that she is a fit and proper person to be admitted.

While that is useful, it is not a positive statement – a recommendation – as per Rule 15.

So I don’t say anything of a “recommendation”, given what is before me in black-and-white from the Board.

2. “Complied in all respects”

A second thing commonly said by movers is that the person “has complied in all respects with the rules relating to admission”.

For some years, it has been impossible for the mover to verify this independently. 

Rule 6 refers to academic qualifications attained by the satisfactory completion “of a tertiary course approved by the Chief Justice and the board”, which is the common way of obtaining the primary degree as a basis for admission. There is no easy way of discovering any such list. Perhaps it is available on request.

The practical legal training requirements are defined in a similar way in Rule 7. 

The admission guidelines promulgated under Rule 9AA take you to pedagogical requirements that no person moving an admission, except perhaps an academic with a lot of time on her hands, could ever verify.

Any verification would need to be by reference to the course material taught in a particular year at a particular institution, when courses within a degree program were taken by a particular candidate. 

3. What to say?

This imposes something of a quandary for the mover.

When it comes time to say something about compliance with the rules, you should be making some submission.

For some time I have simply adopted a formula inspired by the Northern Territory Full Court in Re Mallett (1989) 95 FLR 63, pages 65.9-66.1.

I say:

The certificate of the board evidences her compliance with the rules.

I know that this does not follow the usual script in Queensland.

But it is principled, accurate, and does not involve me making representations that I cannot verify other than by reference to the certificate anyway. 

I have never been challenged on this.

4. Where are the barristers on admissions?

A final thought – in the first group of admittees recently, being admittees with high First Class Honours and other awards, I was one of only three barristers moving admissions.