Ownership, Independence & Conflict of Interest Policy

About this policy

This policy sets out the ownership structure of The Profession, the professional obligations its principals carry as practising members of the Australian legal profession, and the processes The Profession has adopted to identify, manage, and where necessary disclose conflicts between its commercial operations and those professional obligations.

This policy is a public document. It is published on The Profession website as part of the platform’s commitment to transparency with its readers, contributors, members, and the broader Australian legal community.

Readers and contributors are entitled to understand who owns and operates The Profession, the professional framework within which its owners practise, and the measures in place to ensure that editorial content is produced and published independently of any private professional or commercial interest.

Scope

This policy applies to:

• The Profession platform, including all editorial content, publications, commentary, and related communications published at theprofession.au or through associated channels;
• All individuals involved in the ownership, governance, and editorial direction of The Profession;
• Decisions about commissioning, editing, accepting, declining, or removing content; and
• Commercial relationships, sponsorships, advertising arrangements, and membership products offered through The Profession.

Related documents

This policy should be read alongside:

• The Editorial Guidelines;
• The Contributor Terms & Conditions;
• The Privacy Policy; and
• The Profession Advertising & Sponsorship Policy.

Ownership & structure

Who owns and operates The Profession

The Profession is owned and operated by practising Australian lawyers. Its founders and principals hold current practising certificates and are subject to the professional conduct obligations applicable to their respective branch of the legal profession in Australia.

This is not incidental to The Profession’s identity — it is central to it. The platform was founded on the view that independent, credible coverage of the Australian legal profession requires people with genuine knowledge of, and accountability to, that profession.

The Profession does not have external investors, institutional backers, or commercial owners whose interests could conflict with its editorial independence. Its principals are practising lawyers, not media proprietors or financial sponsors.

The Bar

The founding principals of The Profession practise at the Bar. As barristers, they are subject to:

• The Legal Profession Uniform Conduct (Barristers) Rules 2015 (NSW) and equivalent rules in other jurisdictions;
• The cab-rank rule and its obligations of independent professional judgment;
• The duties owed to the court as officers of the court;
• The ethical obligations administered by the relevant Bar Association or equivalent body; and
• The general duties of honesty, candour, and good faith applicable to all Australian legal practitioners.

These obligations do not cease when The Profession’s principals are performing their editorial and publishing functions. They carry their professional obligations with them in all their professional capacities.

Professional accountability

Ownership and operation of The Profession by practising lawyers creates an accountability structure that goes beyond ordinary media publishing. The Profession’s principals are subject to:

• Disciplinary jurisdiction of the relevant Bar Association or Law Society;
• Oversight of the Legal Services Commissioner (or equivalent) in each jurisdiction where they hold a practising certificate;
• The inherent jurisdiction of the courts over their conduct as officers of the court; and
• The reputational and professional consequences that flow from any conduct inconsistent with the standards of the profession.

These accountability structures provide a level of oversight and constraint on The Profession’s conduct that would not apply to a platform operated by non-lawyers.

Editorial independence

The principle

Editorial independence is the foundation of The Profession’s value to its readers. The Profession is committed to publishing content that is selected, commissioned, and edited on the basis of editorial merit and relevance to the Australian legal community — and not on the basis of the commercial, professional, or personal interests of its owners, advertisers, sponsors, or any other party.

This commitment is not aspirational. It is a condition of the trust that practitioners, academics, law students, and the broader legal community place in The Profession as a source of independent commentary and insight. That trust, once lost, cannot be recovered. The Profession’s principals are acutely aware of this, and it informs every editorial decision.

What independence means in practice

In practical terms, editorial independence means:

• Content decisions — what is commissioned, accepted, rejected, featured, or removed — are made exclusively on editorial grounds.
• No advertiser, sponsor, commercial partner, or paying member has any right to influence, approve, or veto editorial content.
• No owner, principal, or staff member may use their editorial position to benefit, promote, or protect their private legal practice, their clients, or their professional interests.
• Content about firms, barristers, solicitors, or legal matters in which a principal of The Profession has a direct or indirect interest must either be recused from or disclosed in accordance with this policy.
• Critical coverage of the legal profession — including criticism of individuals, firms, regulators, or institutions — is not suppressed on the basis of relationship, seniority, or professional connection.

Commercial relationships and independence

The Profession may enter into commercial relationships, including advertising arrangements, sponsorships, membership products, and event partnerships. The following principles govern the relationship between those commercial activities and editorial independence:

• Commercial arrangements do not confer any right to have content published without editorial assessment. All content published by The Profession — whether independent, sponsored, or paid — must meet the same standard: it must be genuinely interesting, genuinely useful, and of genuine benefit to The Profession’s readership. The fact that content is sponsored does not lower the editorial bar. It raises the obligation of transparency.
• The Profession publishes sponsored and paid advertorial content, including showcase articles produced in partnership with commercial sponsors. All such content is clearly and prominently labelled as sponsored or paid at the time of publication. It is never presented as independent editorial content, and readers are always given the information necessary to understand its commercial basis.
• The Profession will not publish sponsored or paid content that it does not genuinely consider to be of value to its readers, regardless of the commercial consideration offered. Commercial relationships are not accepted where they would require the publication of content that is purely promotional in substance. That is the line The Profession will not cross, regardless of what is paid.
• Commercial relationships will not be used to suppress, delay, or modify editorial coverage of a partner or sponsor.

Conflict of interest: identification & management

What is a conflict of interest

A conflict of interest arises where the personal, professional, financial, or other private interests of a principal or staff member of The Profession may — actually or potentially — affect, or be perceived to affect, the exercise of independent editorial judgment.

Conflicts of interest do not necessarily involve impropriety. They arise from circumstances, not character. The important obligation is to identify them honestly and manage them appropriately.

A conflict of interest may arise where a principal or staff member of The Profession:

• Acts, or has acted, for a party that is the subject of proposed editorial content;
• Has a professional, commercial, or personal relationship with a party that is the subject of proposed content;
• Has appeared against, or alongside, a barrister or solicitor who is the subject of proposed content;
• Has a financial interest in a matter, firm, or entity that is the subject of proposed content;
• Has a personal relationship — familial, social, or otherwise — with a person who is the subject of proposed content; or
• Has expressed a public or private view on a matter that is the subject of proposed content in circumstances where that prior position may affect the appearance of impartiality.

The overflow problem: Bar practice and The Profession

The Profession is acutely aware of a specific structural tension inherent in its ownership model: the same individuals who make editorial decisions about the Australian legal profession are also active participants in it.

This overlap — which we call the overflow problem — means that every editorial decision carries the potential for an actual or perceived conflict between The Profession’s editorial interests and its principals’ professional interests. This is not a defect in our model. It is the honest acknowledgement of a tension that any practitioner-owned publication must confront and manage.

The overflow problem can manifest in several ways:

• A principal of The Profession may be briefed in a matter involving a firm, individual, or issue that is also the subject of proposed editorial coverage;
• Relationships formed through professional practice — with other barristers, solicitors, judges, or clients — may create a perception of partiality in coverage of those individuals or institutions;
• The professional reputation of The Profession’s principals may create incentives, real or apparent, to avoid critical coverage of people or institutions with whom they have or seek professional relationships; and
• Commentary published in The Profession could, in theory, be inconsistent with positions taken, or required to be taken, in a principal’s professional practice.

The processes set out in this section are designed to address these risks directly.

Conflict identification process

The Profession has adopted the following process for identifying conflicts of interest before editorial decisions are made:

Step 1 — Pre-decision review

Before any decision is made to commission, accept, feature, or publish content that involves a named individual, firm, organisation, matter, or identifiable group, the editorial decision-maker must consider whether they or any other principal of The Profession has a conflict of interest with respect to that content.

This review occurs:

• When content is first proposed or commissioned;
• When content is received for editorial assessment; and
• Before publication, particularly where content has been updated or the subject matter has evolved.

Step 2 — Disclosure to editorial team

Where a potential or actual conflict is identified, the relevant principal must:

• Disclose the conflict to the other principal(s) of The Profession immediately;
• Describe the nature of the conflict — professional, financial, personal, or reputational — in sufficient detail for an informed assessment to be made;
• Not exercise editorial judgment in relation to the content until a determination has been made about how the conflict should be managed.

Step 3 — Conflict management determination

On disclosure, The Profession will apply one or more of the following management responses, based on the nature and severity of the conflict:

• Recusal — the conflicted principal removes themselves from all editorial decisions relating to the relevant content, and those decisions are made exclusively by the other principal(s);
• Disclosure — the conflict is disclosed within or alongside the relevant content, providing readers with the information necessary to assess the independence of editorial judgment;
• Non-publication — in circumstances where a conflict cannot be adequately managed by recusal or disclosure, the content will not be published;
• Third-party editorial review — in appropriate cases, editorial judgment is delegated to an identified external editor or advisor who has no conflict with the relevant content.

Step 4 — Record keeping

All identified conflicts and the management responses applied to them will be documented in The Profession’s internal conflict register. This register is maintained as a standing record and will be reviewed as part of The Profession’s annual policy review.

Professional conduct obligations

Applicability

The principals of The Profession do not set aside their professional conduct obligations when performing their publishing and editorial functions. The applicable professional conduct rules — including those governing honesty, candour, and duties to avoid conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice — apply to the conduct of The Profession’s editorial activities in the same way they apply to all professional activities of its principals.

This is an unusual feature of a practitioner-owned publication, and it provides a significant additional layer of accountability. Where The Profession’s conduct as a publisher would, if carried out by the same individuals in their professional capacity, constitute a breach of professional conduct rules, The Profession treats that conduct as impermissible regardless of whether it is technically required by those rules in the publishing context.

Duties that bear specifically on publishing

Several professional conduct obligations are of particular relevance to The Profession’s publishing activities:

Honesty and candour

Australian barristers are subject to absolute duties of honesty and candour. The Profession applies these obligations to its editorial content. The Profession will not publish content it knows or believes to be false. Where content is found to contain errors, corrections will be published promptly and transparently. The Profession does not engage in the deliberate distortion or misrepresentation of facts, positions, or events.

Not bringing the profession into disrepute

The professional conduct rules applicable to Australian lawyers include obligations not to engage in conduct that is likely to bring the legal profession into disrepute. The Profession interprets this obligation to apply to its publishing activities. This does not mean The Profession will avoid critical coverage of the profession — critical coverage, honestly conducted, is part of the legitimate function of any publication covering the law. It means The Profession will not publish content that is designed to scandalise, sensationalise, or damage the profession’s standing in a manner that is unconnected to genuine public interest.

Duties to the administration of justice

As officers of the court, The Profession’s barrister-principals are subject to duties to the administration of justice that are not suspended by their editorial activities. The Profession will not publish content that:

• Is intended or likely to prejudice ongoing proceedings;
• Constitutes an improper attack on judicial officers;
• Would, if published by a lawyer in their professional capacity, constitute contempt of court; or
• Undermines or is designed to undermine the authority or integrity of the courts.

Where doubt exists about whether proposed content engages these obligations, legal advice will be sought before publication proceeds.

Confidentiality

The professional obligation of client confidentiality is absolute and survives the conclusion of the retainer. The Profession will not publish any content that contains, reflects, or is derived from information that is confidential to a client of any principal of The Profession, regardless of whether that information might otherwise be in the public interest. The editorial function of The Profession does not create an exception to the professional confidentiality obligations of its principals.

Independence safeguards

Structural measures

The Profession has adopted the following structural measures to support editorial independence:

• Editorial decisions are made by the editorial team, not by commercial, membership, or administrative personnel. Where these functions overlap — as they necessarily do in a small publication — the editorial function takes precedence in the event of any conflict;
• Advertising, sponsorship, and commercial partnership arrangements are managed separately from editorial content decisions. All content — whether independent or sponsored — is assessed against the same editorial standard: it must be genuinely interesting, genuinely useful, and of genuine benefit to readers. Commercial payment does not substitute for that assessment;
• Content produced or commissioned by or about a party with a commercial relationship with The Profession is subject to enhanced scrutiny, and any such relationship must be disclosed where it is relevant to the reader’s assessment of the content;
• Contributors are required to disclose conflicts of interest as a condition of submission, and editorial decisions about contributed content are made by principals who are not themselves in conflict with the relevant content.

Complaints and accountability

The Profession takes complaints about its editorial conduct, accuracy, and compliance with this policy seriously. The following process applies:

• Any person who believes that The Profession has published content that breaches this policy, contains material inaccuracies, or reflects an undisclosed conflict of interest may lodge a complaint by contacting the editorial team at editorial@theprofession.au;
• Complaints will be acknowledged within five business days;
• The editorial team will review the complaint and respond with its findings within a reasonable time, having regard to the complexity of the issues raised;
• Where a complaint is upheld in whole or in part, The Profession will publish a correction, clarification, or disclosure as appropriate, within a timeframe commensurate with the significance of the matter;
• Where a complaint raises issues that The Profession’s principals consider require independent review — including where a complaint relates to the conduct of a principal — The Profession will engage an independent external reviewer.

Annual review

This policy will be reviewed annually, and updated as necessary to reflect changes in The Profession’s structure, the applicable professional conduct rules, or the experience of applying this policy in practice. The date of the most recent review will always be published on The Profession website alongside this policy.

Readers, contributors, and members are encouraged to contact The Profession if they have suggestions for improving the processes and safeguards described in this policy.

Public declaration

The Profession is built and run by practising lawyers. That is not a marketing claim. It is a statement of fact with real professional and legal consequences.

Our owners hold Australian practising certificates. They are subject to the professional conduct rules of the Australian legal profession. They owe duties of honesty and candour that cannot be contracted out of, set aside, or ignored in the exercise of their editorial functions.

We have structured The Profession to manage the inherent tension between ownership by active practitioners and the requirement of independent editorial judgment. We have published that structure in this document so that our readers can assess it for themselves.

We do not claim to be perfect. We claim to be transparent. Where we have a conflict of interest, we will identify it and manage it. Where we publish an error, we will correct it. Where this policy is inadequate, we will improve it.