Solicitors who are parties to litigation and don't hire other solicitors to represent them are the only people who are generally entitled to claim legal costs from the losing party even though they don't have to pay lawyers anything. Engaging in litigation involving themselves is therefore a profitable activity if they win. The [...]

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and this is what The Times thinks lawyers should be reading on their summer holidays:

The Art of the Advocate, by Richard Du Cann, QC, Penguin;
Famous Trials, selected by John Mortimer, QC, Penguin;
The Tyrannicide Brief, by Geoffrey Robertson, QC, Vintage;
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, Pan Books;
The Firm, by John Grisham, Arrow.

An absurd proposition certainly, [...]

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Ms Garde-Wilson's back in business. In fact she never went out of business, since following the non-renewal of her practising certificate, she held a deemed practising certificate pursuant to the Legal Profession Act, 2004, s. 2.4.5(3) pending her VCAT merits review application. The assertion that she had ceased to be a fit and [...]

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Stephen Witham (pictured) moved into Michael Flaherty's flat. The relationship quickly soured when Witham assaulted Flaherty's girlfriend, and stood over people for drugs and money. So Flaherty got some mates together, hit Witham about with baseball bats, hogtied him with ropes and cable ties, wrapped him in a doona, popped him in [...]

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Dedicated readers will already have been following the saga of the misconduct prosecution of Kylie Minogue's one-time lawyer. Casual readers can lap it all up here. Deputy President Dwyer's reasons for refusing to stay the disciplinary proceedings have hit the internet: Legal Services Commissioner v MB [2008] VCAT 1341. For some reason, the [...]

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In Stanoevski v Council of the Law Society of NSW [2008] NSWCA 93, Justice of Appeal Campbell, with whom Justice of Appeal Hodgson and Acting Justice of Appeal Handley agreed, has provided important guidance on who bears which burdens of proof in cases where a legal regulator seeks to cancel a practising certificate or have [...]

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In Nicholson v B&S [2000] VLPT 28, the Legal Profession Tribunal's Registrar Howell considered whether the costs disclosure provisions of the Legal Practice Act, 1996 constituted a code which demonstrated an intention of the parliament to displace the common law. 'Nope', he said:
'I have considered whether the provisions of Division 1 of Part 4 of [...]

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In VCAT's Legal Practice List the other day, defending a firm alleged to have charged too much at the rate of $230 an hour, I made the point in cross-examination that London tax silks were wont to charge £600 per hour. As I uttered the words, I was visited by self-doubt. The amount sounded [...]

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Lawyers Weekly has an article by some folk at Allens noting Justice Branson's decision in Rich v Harrington [2007] FCA 1987, a mega anti-discrimination suit brought by Christina Rich, a former partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Australia against the other partners. There are so many privilege cases which come out, it's hard to know which ones to [...]

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The government has finally introduced the Evidence Bill, 2008 which, when passed, will make Victoria the 4th jurisdiction (after the Commonwealth, NSW, ACT, and Tasmania) to adopt the uniform evidence legislation. If the Bill is passed and not proclaimed beforehand, it will commence at the end of 2009. It is a good development, because some [...]

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