The data used in this study were drawn from written and oral testimony presented to the Australian Federal Parliamentary Joint Committee on the NCA, interviews of NCA personnel and police officers, and official reports. The author concludes that, in the context of organized crime law enforcement, the sub-cultural tensions between police officers and lawyers have limited the capacity of the NCA to fulfill its functions. There are tensions resulting from police complaints against lawyers who they believe do not understand operational criminal investigation procedures, lack management skills, exclude the police from decisionmaking, and fail to acknowledge the efficacy of traditional police investigation practices. Traditional police modus operandi are characterized by autonomy, secrecy, a rigid chain of command, immediacy of decision-making, and good investigatory intuition. When officers are on secondment to the NCA, investigations are suddenly marked by dependency, openness, command ambivalence, time delays, and formalism. The tensions that have resulted in the NCA, for whatever reasons, have thwarted some agency investigations, wasted management time, exacerbated public concerns over agency policies, and led to a shakeup in the NCA. 16 notes and 40 references