The English have promulgated a new set of professional conduct rules for solicitors, which commence tomorrow. Here they are, and here's a Law Society page with associated resources. I have only scanned them, but they seem to be beautifully written: clear, detailed, without unnecessary complexity, and graced by helpful commentary. Some of them seem [...]

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The Legal Services Commissioner's website is growing some content. Her annual report for the part-financial year ending 2006 is published there. In summary:

For those who enjoy the suffering of others, commencing at p. 22 there is a list of all the adverse disciplinary findings made by VCAT's Legal Practice List, and it names the [...]

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As reported in today's Australian Financial Review, the NSW Court of Appeal has told the Administrative Decisions Tribunal's Legal Services Division that it got it wrong when it found a Sydney solicitor guilty of gross overcharging. The case is  LN v Legal Services Commissioner  [2007] NSWCA 130  Though the solicitor signed the bill, he did [...]

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In PJQ v Law Institute of Victoria Ltd [2005] VSCA 326, the President of the Court of Appeal laid down the law in relation to applications for stays pending appeals of suspension orders meted out by VCAT (then the Full Legal Profession Tribunal):

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The last post referred to part 1 of the last chapter of an intriguing saga. The second and final part of that chapter is the decision on costs: PJQ v Law Institute of Victoria (No. 2) [2007] VSCA 132. The President of the Court of Appeal rejected the following submissions by the Institute:

that the Institute [...]

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PJQ v Law Institute of Victoria[2007] VSCA 122 is the part 1 of the last chapter in a story of good tactical plays characteristic of professional discipline specialist Sam Tatarka in the representation of a solicitor charged with gross overcharging, and applying trust monies to pay his fees without the appropriate paperwork. It sounds like [...]

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The Ombudsman has been looking into the performance of a regulator, MARA, the Migration Agents Registration Authority. He was critical. His press release is here, the full report here. Reproduced below are the bits about impartiality and the avoidance of conflicts of duties 'in the case where an industry representative body is also the regulatory [...]

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America's Legal Profession Blog had posted yesterday on a conflicts case about what we in Australia would call "the getting to know you factors". The case was Hurley v Hurley, decided on 22 May 2007 by a 5 judge bench of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The background is that a lawyer may be [...]

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In Dalton v Silberberg [2007] VCAT 1069, Deputy President Steel laid down the law in relation to the minimum standards for pleadings by unrepresented applicants in VCAT cases other than simple one-hour hearing cases, and struck out the applicant's points of claim. The decision is also worth reading to ascertain VCAT's Civil List's [...]

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In a landmark decision with profound implications for VCAT's Fair Trading Act, 1958 jurisdiction over lawyer-client disputes about professional negligence and fees, a Deputy President of VCAT has recognised that it did not have jurisdiction to hear a former client's misleading and deceptive conduct claim brought against 'a professional' in the traditional sense of [...]

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