About us

Our office

The Office of the Crown Solicitor (OCS) is one of the largest specialised transactional law practices in Tasmania.

OCS provides legal services to Tasmanian Government agencies in most areas of commercial, construction and property law relevant to government activity, including assisting agencies with:

• Procurement of goods and services (including tendering and probity)
• Major projects and construction (including roads, bridges and buildings)
• Information technology matters
• Transactional property matters (including acquisition, disposal, leasing and licensing)
• Property matters generally (including Crown land)
• Public housing matters
• Grant and funding matters
• Banking and finance matters
• Asset sales (including pre-disposal due diligence)
• Information privacy
• Intergovernmental agreements and memorandums of understanding
• Protection and licensing of crown copyright, trade marks and other intellectual property
• Legal risk identification and management
• Governance matters
• Training and general legal information and advice

See Our practice for more information.

OCS occasionally helps with the development of drafting instructions in relation to legislation – particularly legislation that affects an OCS practice area.

With the permission of the Attorney-General, OCS also acts on an ad hoc basis for some Tasmanian State entities that are not part of the Crown.

OCS does not accept instructions from, or provide legal advice to, the private sector or members of the public.

History

The Office of the Crown Solicitor of Tasmania can trace its origins back to early colonial times.

The first Crown Solicitor of Tasmania, Alfred Stephen, was appointed to the position on 19 May 1825. Alfred Stephen was also Tasmania’s first Solicitor-General, having been appointed to that position some 10 days before his appointment as Crown Solicitor. He was just 23 years of age at the time of these appointments.

Up until the early 1980’s, the Crown Solicitor worked within the Solicitor-General’s Department. Historically, the Solicitor-General’s Department undertook most of the Crown’s legal work including criminal prosecutions, civil litigation, general advising (including constitutional law) and transactional legal work. By convention, prior to the 1980s, the Crown Solicitor was typically an experienced litigator.

In the early 1980s the Office of the Crown Solicitor was established as the Crown’s commercial and property law practice, separate from other areas of Crown Law, with the Crown Solicitor leading the practice.

List of Tasmania’s Crown Solicitors

With special thanks to former Crown Solicitor, Alan Morgan, for his work in researching and compiling the history of OCS.