LAW7410 - Trust and Office Accounting

All materials produced for teaching this course of study, including all lectures delivered, all audio and visual aids* to presentation of lectures, and any supplementary materials are protected by copyright.

You are permitted to use these materials only for your personal study and research. Use of any part of the materials for other purposes, including sale of your personal lecture notes, without express permission of the copyright owner may infringe copyright. The copyright owner may take action against you for infringement.

*includes overheads, powerpoint slides and any online materials.

Go to the online resources for this Unit...

Introduction

Welcome to the Trust and Office Accounting Unit in the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice, Skills & Ethics (PDLP) Online Course.

Purpose

Nearly all your work as a lawyer involves charging clients substantial professional fees. This is a highly sensitive area of your professional practice, and it is incumbent upon you to have a clear understanding of the basic financial processes involving your client so that you can confidently explain to your clients the nature of the charges and the reasons for the accounting procedures. This Unit aims to provide you with the ability to do this.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit you should be able to

explain to your clients the basic financial interactions they may have with your firm
describe how Trust Accounts are managed in a law practice
explain basic accounting terminology and concepts involved in the day to day administration of Trust Accounts

Modules

This Unit is divided into 5 Modules. If you click on any of the titles below it will take you to a brief introduction for that Module.

Teaching Staff

Trusts Accounts will be taught by Dr Matthew Harvey from the Law Faculty at Monash University who can be contacted as follows:

Email: Matthew.harvey@law.monash.edu.au

Costs will be taught by Ms Megan Austin who can be contacted as follows:

Email: Megan.Austin@law.monash.edu.au

Attendance

You must attend all face to face sessions to pass this Unit. If you have any difficulties in attending please contact your Lecturers as soon as possible.

Please note that if you are exempt from completing the part of this subject known as Trusts Accounts then you do not have to attend the second face to face session on 5 November 2008 nor complete the assessable tasks (3.2 and 5.1). Students who are not exempt need to attend all face to face sessions and complete all assessable tasks in this subject.

Other

If you have any other enquiries please contact the following

Administrative - please contact Wendy Panaccio
Technology - please contact the Webmanager

Assessment

Assessment overview for this Unit

If you have any academic questions with respect to this assessment, please email your lecturers. If your question is administrative in nature please contact either Wendy Panaccio (Deputy Manager, Postgraduate Studies) or Gaye Lansdell (Course Convener).
.

Please note that assessments handed in late are subject to a penalty of 10% per day from both the skill (where appropriate) and the content. Please consult the Course Handbook provided in hardcopy at the commencement of the online course about assessment regulations. Please note that individual teachers or sessional staff are not authorised to provide extensions or accept special consideration applications - you must speak to the Course Convener.

Plagiarism

The University applies strict policies on plagiarism. If a piece of assessable work contains significant plagiarised material it may be graded at zero. Furthermore, conscious or intentional copying can be regarded as cheating and dealt with under the University's Disciplinary Procedures. It is also an offence for a student to permit their work to be copied by another student for submission.

It is critically important that graduates do not plagiarise. The program emphasises professional ethics and plagiarism by a solicitor has been treated as grounds for suspension from practice.

You must therefore take particular care that all the work you submit for assessment is genuinely your own work (apart from legitimate legal sources such as precedents). You are encouraged to discuss the requirements of an assessable task with your colleagues but the final product submitted must be your own.

You should bear in mind that your instructor is reading a relatively small number of pieces of work and improper similarities between the work of two or more graduates are strikingly obvious.

You should also bear in mind that it is improper to allow your work to be copied and both the copier and the copy-ee may receive a zero grade for the work.

Worksite

If you are an enrolled student you can now enter the Unit worksite by clicking on the link "Go to the online resources for this Unit" in the blue box at the top right hand side of this page. Once you have logged in using your Monash "Authcate" password you will go to the Unit Organiser.