Legal Services Directions
Under Section 15 of the Law Officers Act 2011, agencies must report the measures taken during the financial year to ensure compliance with legal services directions issued by the Attorney-General. The Law Officers (General) Legal Services Directions 2012 (the Directions) and Law Officer Model Litigant Guidelines 2010(No 1) (the Guidelines) detail the compliance requirements of all reporting entities. These include:
- claims and litigation brought by or against the Territory or an agency are handled honestly and fairly, consistent with the intent of the Guidelines
- all settlements are on the basis of legal principle and practice where the existence of meaningful prospects of liability is established and based on advice of the ACT Government Solicitor (ACTGS)
- provision of legal services is by the ACTGS or, where outsourced, this occurs with the approval of the Solicitor-General
- ACTGS advice is sought in relation to contracts where the proposal is categorised as high risk, valued at $50 million (or above) or involves non-routine contractual arrangements.
The ACTGS assists directorates and other government agencies to understand and comply with the Directions. Arrangements generally implemented by directorates and agencies to achieve compliance with the Directions have been identified as:
- centralised co-ordination arrangements including outplaced ACTGS lawyers in most directorates for the making of legal service requests and advice handling
- a requirement for staff to follow the relevant Directorate's standard operating protocol, developed in consultation with the ACTGS, and which is designed to ensure compliance with the Directions
- informing staff of the Guidelines and the obligations to comply with these
- acting fairly in the conduct of civil claims and litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution processes
- close liaison between in-house directorate legal units and ACTGS
- early engagement between directorates, the ACT Insurance Agency and ACTGS on civil claims.
Where the ACTGS acts for an agency, a Director-General is able to rely upon the ACTGS to identify those matters where a question arises as to compliance with the Directions. The ACTGS will address or elevate the issue with the instructing agency appropriately. Within this framework, the ACTGS complies with the Directions and assists agencies to do so by:
- monitoring to ensure that any outsourcing of legal services is only effected with the approval of the Solicitor-General and is consistent with relevant procurement arrangements
- maintaining close liaison with agencies to manage major government contracts to ensure timely legal advice is sought
- working with in-house directorate legal units and arrangements including outplacement of ACTGS lawyers in a number of directorates to support operations
- briefing external counsel in accordance with ACTGS internal processes, consistent with the Directions and, at fees not exceeding the maximum approved by the
Attorney-General
- applying legal principle and practice to the settlement of claims
- ensuring Directors-General are aware of the scope of legal services sought by agencies.
Breaches
In addition to ACTGS oversight, Directors-General and Chief Executive Officers of agencies to which the Directions apply were requested in writing for 2021-22 to indicate to the Solicitor-General the management strategies and practices adopted by their agencies to achieve compliance with the Directions.
No breaches of the Guidelines have been notified to, or identified by, the Solicitor-General.
ACT Government Solicitor – Use of Counsel
Where Counsel is identified as required for conduct of a matter ACTGS aims to consider a broad representation of experience and expertise in its selection.
Counsel Engagement by Work type
Figure 6 provides an indication of the general areas of legal service practice in which counsel assistance was engaged.
Figure 7 : ACTGS Counsel Expenditure by Legal Service Area of Law, 2020-21 and 2021-22
Note: Privacy/Information Access is included for 2021-22 financial year. Adoptions has been incorporated into the Child Welfare Litigation work type.
Counsel Engaged
During the reporting period a total of $2 885 136 was expended on use of Counsel. The following details this expenditure by individual.
Table 72: Counsel Fees 2021-22
Counsel
Total Counsel Fees
