Publication by the Legal Services Commission of the fourth printed edition of the Duty Solicitor Handbook in October 2011 was made possible by a grant of financial assistance from the Law Foundation of South Australia Incorporated. This support from the Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.

The then Legal Services Commission Director, Hamish Gilmore, and Deputy Director, Gabrielle Canny, are to be thanked for the ongoing support they provided to this initiative, which has now seen the production of this online edition of the Handbook.

Thanks are also due to former Legal Services Commission Chief Counsel, Barry Jennings QC, who set aside generous amounts of his time to proof read the drafts of all chapters, and to provide the warm introduction to the fourth edition in the Foreword.

The fourth edition was extensively re-written by former criminal lawyer and education officer at the Commission, Danielle Misell. As well as revisiting and updating the commentaries on laws and procedures, Danielle enhanced the authoritative character of this work through the expansion of some chapters and the addition of others, such as ‘Drug Offences’. Expert views, sought by Danielle from many individual Commission lawyers, have been skillfully interwoven with the product of her own diligent legal research.

The origins of the Handbook can be traced to the first (pilot) edition produced at the Commission by Bronwen Waldron for use by staff solicitors. Suggestions arising out of that pilot prompted a revised and expanded version which became the second edition, which was published thanks to the authorial groundwork of Bronwen, and the input of Trish Johnson and Helen Wighton. This edition included The Annotated Summary Offences Act (South Australia) second edition, by Kelvyn Prescott SM (now Judge Prescott). The third edition, produced in 2005, was edited by Eric van Kruyssen, and it was prepared as part of a Duty Solicitor Kit for the Commission's lawyers.

This online edition owes much to the work featured in earlier editions, and to the various contributors to those editions who included: Chris Charles (Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement), Lana Chester, Tanya Chumak, Rob Croser, Luke Davis, Elizabeth Griffith (now DPP, SA), Adrian Hunt, Lucy Keller (now DPP, SA), Mark Kernich, Karen Lehmann, Greg Mead SC, Mark Seddon, Peta Seddon (Cth DPP), and Ron Shanks (now Dept. of Transport).

Special thanks are due to Di Broughton and Ros Emms in the library, for their assistance to me in research and editing; particularly to Librarian, Di Broughton for her long hours of patient work inserting hyperlinks into the text for the initial online version of the fourth edition. Acknowledgements are also due to the Commission’s past and current duty solicitors for their practical suggestions and comments, and to Nick Ramage for his help in co-ordinating the production of both the printed and the initial online version of the fourth edition.

Duty Lawyer manuals prepared by the Legal Aid Commissions of Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales have been the sources of many helpful ideas.

Editor, Christopher Boundy