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Consulting on our criminal law fee structure

We want to hear from panel practitioners doing summary crime work about what changes should be made.

Published:
Tuesday, 11 June 2024 at 2:42 pm

We are currently reviewing the fees we pay in criminal law matters and are seeking feedback from private practitioners undertaking summary crime work.

We are working towards making some targeted changes to ensure our fees better reflect the time and expertise that criminal law work requires.

Exploring targeted changes to our fee structure

We continue to receive feedback from the profession that our current fees do not reflect the time, commitment and expertise that criminal law work requires.

We are undertaking work to make modest and targeted changes to start to address these concerns.

Based on initial feedback, we are intending to focus on summary crime fees, overnight fees in circuit trials, and fees for expert psychiatric and psychological reports.

Unfortunately, without more government funding we are not able to achieve comprehensive changes to our fee structure.

Understanding the issues

Practitioners on our criminal law panel undertake thousands of criminal law grants each year.

We value the experience and insights you will bring to our review on what targeted changes may be made to the summary crime fee structure.

Your feedback will help us better understand what changes might have the most benefit to our clients and the practitioners who assist them.

In addition to helping us ensure that we are targeting any initial changes in the right way, the consultation will also help us understand what changes to prioritise in the future.

We are committed to working together to identify and advocate for further changes.

Hearing from you

The Law Institute of Victoria will host an online consultation session for its members at 4 pm on Friday 21 June 2024.

If you are an LIV member and haven’t received an invitation to the consultation, please contact Dagmara Krysiak at dkrysiak@liv.asn.au for the Zoom registration details.

If you are unable to attend the consultation, you can also email your feedback directly to carrie.oshea@vla.vic.gov.au

More information

Check out our current criminal law fees

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