Lawyers: public liability requirements in Western Australia

Verified for Western Australia

• Licence liability condition: Yes. The Uniform Law provides that "An Australian legal practitioner must not engage in legal practice in a jurisdiction unless the practitioner holds or is covered by an approved insurance policy". Barristers may be covered by an approved Bar Association policy rather than the solicitors' scheme. WA · effective 2022-07-01 Western Australia Government · 2026-08-24
• Licence evidence required: A certificate of insurance. The prohibition is on practising rather than on applying, so the cover must be live throughout. WA · effective 2022-07-01 Western Australia Government · 2026-08-24
• Licensing body: The legal profession regulator for the jurisdiction, under the Legal Profession Uniform Law, applied in Western Australia by the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2022 (WA). WA joined the Uniform Law scheme considerably later than NSW and Victoria. The credential is a local practising certificate, granted and renewed annually. WA · effective 2022-07-01 Western Australia Government · 2026-08-24

What contracts commonly ask for

Principals and head contractors set their own insurance requirements, and those are frequently higher than a licence condition. The requirement that binds is the higher of the two, and both have to be read from the actual document.

• What the limit figure on a certificate means
• Cover for the principal for your work
• When a certificate falls short of the contract

What this cover costs

This site publishes no cost benchmark for this cover. A benchmark needs a real sample of documents, and none is published until the sample is large enough to compute a median honestly. A benchmark from a handful of policies is a guess with a decimal point.

Sources

• Law Society of New South Wales — Law Society of NSW — professional indemnity insurance
• Victoria Government — Victoria — consolidated legislation
• Queensland Government — Queensland — consolidated legislation
• Western Australia Government — Western Australia — consolidated legislation
• South Australia Government — South Australia — consolidated legislation
• Tasmania Government — Tasmania — consolidated legislation
• Australian Capital Territory Government — Australian Capital Territory — consolidated legislation
• Northern Territory Government — Northern Territory — consolidated legislation