As fireworks heralded the start of 2010, the Rudd Government’s Fair Work Act came into full effect providing both challenges and opportunities to law firms. Gadens workplace relations partner Kathryn Dent said the opening up of unfair dismissal claims to businesses with less than 100 employees will lead to an increase in legal advisory work.
“Certainly there will be more work from an advisory perspective,” Dent said. “Whether that also translates to work representing employers at Fair Work Australia is a separate question because lawyers have to seek permission to appear before Fair Work Australia in relation to unfair dismissal.”
Reasons a lawyer may represent a client before Fair Work Australia include:
• if it will enable the matter to be dealt with more efficiently
• if it would be unfair to not allow a person to be represented because a person is unable to represent themselves effectively
• if it would be unfair not to allow the person to be represented taking into account fairness between the person and other persons in the same matter
• if a person from a non-English background has difficulty reading
• if a small business party to the matter has no specialist human resources staff
• if the other party is represented by an officer or employee of an industrial association or another person with workplace relations advocacy experience
Dent, who will be speaking at the upcoming ALB Masterclass on employment law, said that the removal of the exemption of small business employers will mean that law firms will be advising clients that they do not necessarily already have a relationship with.
Most small business owners will turn to the web to find employment specialists to help them with unfair dismissal claims, Dent said, making it important for law firms to publish regular updates which would be picked up by search engines. As with any other business, word-of-mouth marketing also plays an important role in generating new business for law firms.
Dent added that the increase will also be due to the referral of state IR powers to the federal system. From 1 January, all states except WA have transferred their IR powers to the federal government, leaving only public-sector employees such as judicial officers and law enforcement officers in the state system.
Attendees of the ALB Masterclass series - Rolling out Fair Work 2010, taking place 23-25 February in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, will learn how to capitalise on the changes in IR laws to increase business opportunities.
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