President of the Law Society of NSW, Doug Humphreis, spoke at two events in Armidale and Tamworth, organised by the North and North West Regional Law Society, and met with local solicitors in New England on Thursday.
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He discussed issues affecting members of the legal profession and the community of the North and North West Regional Law Society, which covered the area between Moree in the West to Tenterfield, and included Armidale, Inverell, and Tamworth.
“Rural solicitors must be conversant with a range of areas of general practice for the good of their local communities ...
- Doug Humphreys
“The issues that rural solicitors deal with are markedly different from their city cousins and we must do all we can to support them in their work,” he said.
With a rural background, Mr Humphreys thought the role of a country solicitor held a strong significance in regional areas such as New England, especially in the smaller towns.
He said part of his job was to meet with them and talk about particular problems present in country areas, and hoped some of those could be solved by the recent $148 million funding package announced by the NSW Government.
"Access to justice is a significant part of the remit of the NSW Law Society, and is one of the things I've pursued this year," he said.
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"It has been very heartening this year that there was an announcement by the government that there will be seven additional District Court judges.
"As part of that, we anticipate that there will be extra sittings of the District Court in this region, including Armidale and Tamworth and other places where there are court rooms that are not fully utilised."
Mr Humphreys thought it would be good for victims, witnesses and the community because matters could be determined and finalised rather than languishing for up to two-years in some cases.
The fact is, police just do not sit in the Police Station all day eating donuts.
- Doug Humphreys
But he said there was a cautionary note.
"Although the government announced weeks ago that they were employing these District Court judges, this week they announced that they are going to employ over 1500 extra police, and many of those are going to come to the country," he said.
"What I'm concerned about now is that there is going to be an inability in the Local Court, which is the engine room of justice in NSW, to be able to cope with the additional product of these additional 1500 police, unless there substantial resources put in [there] as well."
Mr Humphreys also visited the University of New England’s School of Law in Armidale with president of the North & North West Regional Law Society Natalie Scanlon.
