Duncan Lawyers is an Australian law firm, working mainly with government (national, state and local) and statutory bodies, both in Australia and internationally. Our core competence is legislation and related policy development.
Our principal is Campbell Duncan. Campbell has worked as a barrister, parliamentary counsel, legislation officer, solicitor and consultant. Since 1999 he has worked on overseas projects in 22 countries as well as Australian projects.
Campbell Duncan speaking at a workshop in Cambodia, October 2017
Biographical information
Foe more about Campbell Duncan and the firm, go to our biographical information page.
Newsletters and commentary
We issue a newsletter which can be accessed here. We also make comment on current legal issues (with a particular focus on legislation), which can be accessed here.
Contact
➤ Melbourne office
343 Little Collins Street
Melbourne Vic
➤ Mail address
PO Box 4
Collins Street West
Vic 8007
Australia
campbell@duncanlawyers.com
Headlines
Legislation and contracts - oil and water?
Two sources of legal obligation - can they be reconciled? Public law and private law? “Third parties” (aka members of the public) cannot enforce contracts, but what about contracts for the benefit of the public?
We take a look at these issues in our March 2023 Newsletter.
Legislative lexicon
Legislation should be easy to read. Whether or not this objective is ever achieved, there is a lot of specialised terminology used by those who design, draft and interpret legislation.
Duncan Lawyers has prepared a lexicon of legislative terminology. We will be writing further on this topic in the near future.
Conference paper - the legislative ecosystem
The legislative ecosystem was analysed in a paper presented to the Australian PCC/CALC (Pacific Region) Conference in Canberra in April 2018.
The conference, Towards 2050: Drafting for the 21st Century, was organised by the Australasian Parliamentary Counsel’s Committee in association with the Commonwealth Association of Legislative Counsel (Pacific Region).
The plurality and the minority
It seems that that majority has moved on from plurality. But what about top hat and tails? And what is the meaning of this placitum? What indeed. We keep an eye on the latest in legal language in our occasional legislation commentary.
University complaints, reviews and appeals
We Universities operate in a complex regulatory environment. Their decisions are subject to complaint, review and appeal processes, both internal and external.
We take a look at this in our September 2021 Newsletter.
Paper presented in Singapore
What is the difference between primary and secondary legislation — is it more than just the the outcome of process? One can’t always generalise, but that didn’t stop us trying at a conference in Singapore (2012). More about this on our publications page.