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Clauses 14 and 15 add new sections to the Ordinance, providing for notaries public and solicitors to enter into multi-disciplinary practices. The Report on Legal Services proposed that solicitors should be permitted to enter into such practices, and it is consistent with this approach to permit notaries public to do likewise. Multi- disciplinary practices offer several advantages: they offer clients the convenience of "one-stop shopping" for a broad range of services; they may reduce costs for the consumer and provide a quicker and more effective service; and they may enable lawyers to operate more efficiently, and to be in a better position to compete with other suppliers of professional services.
Clause 16 adds a new section 56A to the Ordinance, which invalidates any non- statutory scale of charges prescribed by the Law Society that must be charged solicitors for undertaking non-contentious business. This follows from the Administration's belief that mandatory scale fees are wrong in principle, as being unfair to consumers and anti-competitive.
Clause 17 of the Bill amends section 74 of the Legal Practitioners Ordinance to broaden the composition of the Costs Committee, and to prohibit it from setting scale fees for conveyancing work. The Costs Committee is currently empowered to make rules, with the prior approval of the Chief Justice, to provide for the remuneration of solicitors in respect of non-contentious business. At present, the Committee consists of a High Court judge (who is chairman); the Registrar or a deputy registrar of the Supreme Court; the Director of Lands or the Director of Intellectual Property (or either Director's representative); and the President and one Vice-President of the Law Society, and one member of the Law Society. The Bill amends the constitution of the Committee so that, in addition to the current membership, it will include four to six other persons. At least one of these must be someone who represents the interests of consumers of legal services, and the others must have substantial experience in banking, accounting or some other commercial activity. The effect will be that some members will represent the solicitors profession or consumer interests, and others (including the representatives of the Judiciary) will act as independent arbiters.
Clause 18 of the Bill adds a new section 34A to the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance, which invalidates any contractual provisions that require a purchaser to pay the vendor's legal costs, if the sale is of a unit in an uncompleted development, or if the sale is by the developer of a completed development. This implements another of the proposals in the Report on Legal Services.