Guidelines for External Examiners
Statutory Obligation
Section 241 of the Legal Profession Act 2006 (ACT) (the Act) requires all ACT law practices that received or held trust money in the trust accounting year, to have their trust account records inspected by an external examiner.
The examinable records are those relating to the receipt or holding or trust money in the trust accounting year ended 31 March.
Section 67 of the Legal Profession Regulation 2007 (ACT) (the Regulation) provides exemption from the annual examination requirement where the only trust money received or held by a law practice in the trust accounting year was transit money.
Appointment of External Examiners
Where an examination is due, s 66 of the Regulation requires each practice to notify the Society of the practice’s appointment of its external examiner.
The appointment must be made no later than 8 April following the end of the trust accounting year to which the examination relates. Notification of the appointment of a new examiner must therefore be submitted no later than 8 May following the end of the trust accounting year.
A practice can only appoint an individual to be its external examiner if that individual has been designated by the Society as being eligible for appointment. The list of individuals with current designation is published on the Designated external examiners page.
Scope of the Examination
The examination must assess the practice’s compliance with the provisions of the Act and Regulation concerned with the handling of trust money and the associated record-keeping requirements.
A non-exhaustive list of trust record types can be found in s 210(2) of the Act.
The examination of trust records extends beyond the documents themselves, but to the affairs of the practice more broadly, as noted in s 245 of the Act:
An external examiner appointed to examine a law practice's trust records may examine the affairs of the practice for the purposes of and in relation to an examination of the trust records.
Checklist
The Society has developed a Checklist (see below) that can be used by examiners against which compliance with the specific requirements of the regulatory regime can be evaluated.
This is designed to be a tool that is available for use by all examiners, though examiners may choose to adopt their own version of the checklist.
Report Content
Subsection 68(2) of the Regulation states:
An external examiner's report on an examination must include the information, and be given in the way, approved by the law society council.
A link to the report content requirements can be found below.
