What distinguishes Australian lawyers from others?
Australia has a common law legal system and most jurisdictions maintain a split between solicitors and barristers even if at times it can seem informal. This is common to the entire common law world and is not distinctive to Australia. Australia inherited its legal system from the United Knindom as it was orginally a group of states and territories which were all part of the British empire like countries such as Canada, India, the United States and New Zealand. It is this common law tradition which is part of the distinctive legal culture of Australia and separates it from the civil law coutries such as China, Russia and most of the European countries. Having said this, the Australian legal system has become increasingly reliant on legislation as successive parliaments have ‘churned out laws like sausage factories’ in the words of former Chief Justice of Australia, Murray Gleeson. This has made the use of statute in legal practice much more important than the analysis of common law because there is now simply such a large volume of statute and regulation that it would be impossible for one person to understand all of the statute and all of the common law which could potentially apply in a particular situation. For this reason, Australian Lawyers ahve become more skilled in the use of statute as this trend has developed. Australian lawyers also operate in a federal legal system which only really has a direct comparison with Canada and more loosely with India and the United States. This system of federal constitutionalism is very rare in the world and not even known to countries which imparted much of the common law to Australia such as the United Kingdom. Areas of law such as taxation, immigration, family law and company law all operate at a federal level in Australia and areas such as property, crime, torts and contracts tend to be more focused at the state level of the legal system. Australian lawyers therefore need to have a broad understanding of both the federal system and the state system in which they operate to know the full regulatory environment in which they work.
How can an Australian Lawyer help me?
Australian lawyers are online now to answer your queries about any area of law which could possibly be raised by your situation. If you would like some brief advice on a legal issue or need to have a legal question answers, we would be more than happy to help. You can also post your legal question to the contact form to the right or to the question box below.
