There is often much debate surrounding lawyers and consultants in the liquor, hospitality, tourism and event industries.
There are many reasons why a specialist liquor licensing lawyer should be preferred.
The Law Society of Western Australia recently produced a publication entitled “People Unlawfully Engaging in Legal Work : Protecting the Community” which identifies risks and other problems associated with non-lawyers doing legal work. Non-lawyers acting in the Liquor Commission is an issue referred to specifically in the publication.
Industry consultants are not regulated, whereas lawyers are highly regulated.
Consultants do not have to complete any training or obtain any qualifications, unlike lawyers.
The clients of consultants do not have the benefit of legal professional privilege or a heightened level of confidentially. Nor do they have the protection of obligatory costs and accounting standards and requirements that lawyers must abide by, or other protections that come from professional obligations of lawyers, such as insurances.
Consultants do not operate strictly controlled trust accounts for the proper handling of your money, like lawyers do.
Further, non-lawyers usually have only very limited expertise and are unlikely to be able to assist with the wide range of issues that lawyers potentially can.
You may be surprised to know that lawyers’ costs are usually comparable with the consultants and in fact, sometimes cheaper in the long run.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of lawyers over consultants, please contact Lavan's Liquor Licensing team.
