Any lawyer or incorporated law firm who does not:
...is not obligated to keep trust account records (s 112(2)(b) Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (LCA)).
To be exempted from the obligations to keep trust accounts, lawyers must give written notice under regulation 4 of the LCA (Trust Account) Regulations 2008 before 31 March each year that they:
If a lawyer who has given notice is no longer entitled to rely on s 112(2), the lawyer or firm must notify the Law Society immediately.
All lawyers will continue to be liable to contribute to the Lawyers’ Fidelity Fund unless they make an election (not to receive money or other valuable property in trust) under s 317(1) of the Act. The election and certification must be on the approved form and lodged with the Law Society no later than 31 March in the year to which the certification relates.
The form must be signed by one of the following who is authorised to sign on behalf of the practice:
The election under s 317(1) ceases to be in force if all the persons who signed the election cease to hold practising certificates or the election is revoked. A revocation of the election must be in the approved form and signed by the authorised person (sole practitioner, partner or director or shareholder).
These requirements do not apply to barristers, who are not permitted to have a trust account.
All lawyers need to read the provisions of ss 110 and 112 carefully before they make the certification. A lawyer will be deemed to have received money belonging to another person if:
The provisions will catch lawyers using third party trust accounts or dealing with funds electronically or otherwise in situations where they might, under previous legislation, have claimed they were not "handling" funds.