Professions and federation: the emergency of a national market in legal services and a national legal profession

Abstract

[Introduction]: As we approach the mid point of the Centenary of Federation, the fine speeches about the emergence from separate squabbling colonies, each a maket in itself protected by custom barriers, into a strong nation based on a single economy, ring in our ears....If the establishment of a national uniform market was the chief goal, besides common defence under the imperial umbrella and a now-discredited desire for uniform restrictive racially based immigration laws, why has it taken nearly one hundred years for a genuine national market to emerge for professional services. The rules of admission for practice to the profession of law, in common with the rules and requirements for admission to practice in other professions, were matters for the states. No doubt there were strong concerns in the smaller states that opening an unrestricted market for legal services would see the dominant bars of Sydney and Melbourne overwhelm the other states. I understand that for many years the admission rules in Queensland, which made it particularly difficult for a person whose practice was based in Sydney, were referred to as the ‘dingo fence’. Perhaps lawyers did not contemplate the concept of a national market. we have, depsite federation, traditionally looked at state borders in legal terms as being almost as significant as national borders.....Indeed, the error in this approach was only recognised recently in John Pfeiffer Pty Ltd v Rogerson. We now know that the concepts of private international law are inappropriate in considering the interaction between the various ‘law areas’ within the Australian federation. The prevailing view until Pfeiffer, however, was dominant. Chief Justice Mason in Breavington v Godleman was effectively in dissent when he asserted that: ‘Australia is one country and one nation. When an Australian resident travels from one State or Territory to another State or Territory he does not enter a foreign jurisdiction’. For the purposes of admission to practise law, we remained a set of isolated and distinctly separate fiefdoms.