Page 1Supervision Practices Check 2013The Legal Services Commission has developed a varied and ever expanding series of online surveys which allow participating law firms to review the effectiveness of their ‘ ethical infrastructure ’ the policies and procedures, customs and practices both formally stated and otherwise that nurture and sustain a workplace culture that encourages and rewards ethical behaviour and discourages, deters, detects and deals with ethically questionable behaviour. We developed the original version of this survey in collaboration with Professor Jeff Giddings of the Socio Legal Research Centre at Griffith University (SLRC) in 2011 and have updated this version with additional questions developed in collaboration with Michael McNamara of the Griffith University Law School. Supervision practices is an important topic. Many complaints arise because of poor supervision or management systems that do not promote good supervision practices. Firms can use this survey to help them review their supervision practices by reflecting on their systems and culture as they answer the questions, and by considering the results. We focus on direct supervision where there is a direct line of responsibility between the supervisor and supervisee. This ethics check survey helps firms explore what counts as reasonable supervision through their reflection on questions about, for example, the supervision support structures in their organizations and the perceptions and practices of supervisors and supervisees. The survey takes less than 30 minutes to complete. While we welcome the participation of individuals, we encourage the participation of firms as a whole because when significant numbers of people from each of the different levels and classifications complete the survey, the results paint a more complete picture of a firm's culture by allowing you and your firm to compare how staff at different levels within the firm answer the same questions. CONFIDENTIALITY The survey complies fully with the relevant national ethical standards. It is designed to preserve the anonymity all who complete the survey, both individuals and their firms. We do not collect IP addresses and we will not be able to identify your firm unless it chooses to identify itself. Law firms that undertake the survey of their own volition assign themselves a secret code known only to the firm and the people who work for it and who are completing the survey at the firm's request. We will publish and regularly update the survey results. We comply with the national standards for the ethical conduct of surveys and we will not publish any reports that tend because of a small sample size to identify any of the individual people who completed the survey or their law firm. We do not name law firms when we publish results even if a firm has told us their identity. We only publish non identifiable and aggregated data for the benefit of the profession and the public. Non identifiable and aggregated data may also be used for research in a PhD thesis by Michael McNamara. The survey is conducted using SurveyMonkey's server which is based in the United States of America. Information you provide on this survey will be transferred to SurveyMonkey's server in the United States of America. By completing this survey, you agree to this transfer. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: We want to thank April Chrzanowski of Griffith University for her advice on statistics and design, and Giles Watson of the Queensland Law Society, Professor Susan Saab Fortney of Texas Tech University, David Durham of Lexon Insurance and Associate Professor Tony Foley of the Australian National University for their valued comments and suggestions on the questions in the original survey of which this is a substantial adaptation. The project team of the LSC and Griffith University takes full responsibility for the final product. Welcome
