Friday, 2 July 2021
Hearsay 13-2021
Hearsay is the Law Society's fortnightly e-newsletter, sent out to all members. Reproduced here is the news section of Hearsay — other sections have been omitted.
Nominations now open for the 2021 ACT Law Awards
The Law Society is pleased to announce that nominations are now open for the 2021 ACT Law Awards. The awards are:
- The President’s Medal, recognising significant personal and professional contributions of a local legal practitioner to the improvement of law and justice in the community.
- The ACT Firm of the Year, recognising the efforts of local firms in contributing to access to justice, and to a diverse and healthy legal profession.
- The Pro Bono Service Award, recognising the vital community legal work done by individual practitioners.
- The Government Law Award, recognising the achievements of practitioners working in government.
- The Young Lawyer of the Year, recognising the achievements of early career lawyers.
Nominations for the President’s Medal must be put forward by a person other than the nominee. For all other awards, individuals (or firms, where relevant) may self-nominate, or be nominated by someone else (subject to the nominees’ consent). Nominations close at 5pm on Monday 26 July. Awards recipients will be announced at our Annual Dinner & Awards Night on Friday 27 August 2021. Read More +
New residential tenancies COVID-19 declaration
A new declaration extending the payment order provision for a further 3 months, the Residential Tenancies (COVID-19 Emergency Response) Declaration 2021 (No 2), has now been notified and is available on the ACT Legislation Register. Read More +
Results of the ACT Law Society member survey
In December 2020, the Law Society commissioned Urbis to undertake a survey of our members, to give us a demographic profile of the local profession, and to help us understand the key issues impacting our members. If you'd like to see the results of that survey, and read about the new initiatives we're pursuing as a result of the survey, members can log in to view the full ACT Law Society Member Survey. Read More +
Review of the Victims of Crime Financial Assistance Scheme, Victims Services Scheme and Victims Levies
The final report of the Projects Assisting Victims’ Experience and Recovery (PAVER) Review has now been tabled in the ACT Legislative Assembly yesterday.
The report identifies 17 key recommendations for Government to consider, with a number of detailed sub-recommendations. Key recommendations include:
- delivering therapeutic support through individualised service packages where victims have greater flexibility regarding what services they can purchase, as well as ways to ensure such a system meets victim needs,
- changing the way Financial Assistance Scheme payments are decided and administered, including evidentiary and eligibility requirements, to improve the timeliness of the application process, and
- combining the two victim services levies into one flat levy paid with a simpler method of application.
Court updates
1 July 2021 fee increases: