At today's COAG meeting in Hobart, COAG promised to establish a taskforce to work on regulation of the legal profession, specifically on the objective of uniform laws across jurisdictions.

COAG agreed that this taskforce, to be appointed by the Attorney-General, would make recommendations to prepare draft legislation within 12 months, for further consideration by COAG.

Initially, the specialist taskforce will include Roger Wilkins AO, Secretary of the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, Bill Grant, Secretary-General of the Law Council of Australia, Laurie Glanfield AM, director-general of the NSW Attorney-General's department and Louise Glanville, executive director of the Victorian Department of Justice.

Michael Lavarch, professor of law at Queensland University of Technology will chair the group, which will also include representatives from legal, business and consumer groups, from each state and territory.

The agreement came under the onus of the Business Regulation and Competition Working Group, who found that continued efforts for regulation reform as part of the microeconomic reform agenda are important in meeting the challenges of the global economic crisis.