Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 9. 1st May 1974

The wastefulness of the law

The wastefulness of the law

More than half of the income of an average solicitor is earned from conveyancing. Most of that work is largely routine and adds an unnecessarily large cost to house purchases.

The fees can be maintained because the legal profession has a monopoly, or virtual monopoly over conveyancing. If all land were under the Torrens system of registration, as it should have been years ago, and systems analysts were put to work, conveyancing would be little more difficult than processing order forms to wholesalers.

Who pays for this expensive squandering of valuable time? The community, through increased housing costs and rents. The community suffers in many ways.

It pays to train lawyers, thereby giving them expertise and in turn, an interest in preserving the current system. It loses a proportion of the scarce young innovative minds which should be directed to more important issues. It gives them a monopoly and pays the high fees.