Mellis Napier, Slaney Poole revive Law Society of South Australia, pushing education and access
Thomas Slaney Poole, acknowledged as one of the South Australia's best supreme court justices, helped revive the Law Society of South Australia.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Mellis Napier (chief justice, 1942-67) and T. Slaney Poole (supreme court justice 1919-27) revived the Law Society of South Australia after an earlier short life in 1851 and an official start in 1879. The law society provides professional services, resources, support and benefits to its members and the legal profession in general. It undertakes community education concerning the law and the legal profession and promotes activities designed to improve access to justice.
By 1844, there were 20 legal practitioners in the colony but the law in South Australia from 1837 to 1850 was often very much “hit and miss”, prompting the Legal Practitioners Act of 1845.
Justice George Crawford, who brought authority to the supreme court (1850-52), dealt very heavily with irregular legal practices and advocated an association of members of the profession.
A committee was formed but progress was delayed by arguments over the admission of undesirable characters. The association began in June 1851 when 32 members met by invitation.
But the law society was not officially formed until 1879 when an adjourned meeting settled the rules and bylaws of the original 1851 Law Club of South Australia. Bundey (chair), Ayers, Moulden, Labatte, Barlow, Bakewell, Sheridan and Hardy were committee names that flow down through the streams from early legal partnerships such as Knox and Hargrave.
Only half of the 113 practitioners joined in 1879. By 1933, there were 220 legal practitioners in South Australia. The 1911 Female Practitioners Act opened the way for women but Sesca Anderson (later Zelling) didn’t become a society secretary until 1947-48. (Amy Nikolovski was elected the society's fourth female president in 2019.)
In 1915, the society was incorporated to allow a statutory committee to investigate complaints against practitioners. This was strengthened by the Legal Practitioners Act 1981, allowing the society to appoint inspectors to examine trust accounts maintained by legal practitioners and to provide professional indemnity insurance.
The society started its practical legal training course in 1994 and operate a legal practice centre in Franklin Street, Adelaide, from 1999. The society is also a partner with Adelaide University and the state attorney general in the South Australian Law Reform Institute, started in 2010 and based at the Adelaide Law School.
