Costs recovery in pro bono cases in Victorian state courts: Part 3

I was asked to talk to my colleagues at the Victorian Bar recently in relation to costs recovery in pro bono cases. It is now more certain that costs may be recovered from the other side by victorious litigants who engage their lawyers on the basis of a greater variety of pro bono arrangements. That …

Latest on assignability of tortious professional negligence claims

A man tried to sue for professional negligence in his capacity as an assignee of the alleged victim of that negligence.  The case was determined on a limitations point, but in Kovarfi v BMT & Associates Pty Ltd [2012] NSWSC 1101 Justice McCallum of the Supreme Court of NSW gathered together the authorities in relation to …

Costs disclosure obligations and consequences of not complying: part 2

This is part 2 of a serialisation of a paper I gave on costs disclosure obligations under the Legal Profession Act, 2004 and the consequences of not complying.  Part 1 is here.  This post is not exhaustive of the answers to the question ‘To whom need disclosures not be given?’  For more answers to that …

Both sides apply to restrain the other’s lawyers from acting

I prepared an application to restrain a firm of solicitors from acting in a Corporations List matter in the Supreme Court recently, and so have been reading the latest cases about conflict injunctions. The very latest is TJ Board & Sons Pty Ltd v Castello [2008] VSC 91, where the plaintiff applied unsuccessfully to restrain …

VCAT cancels bill and leaves solicitor wholly unremunerated for sloppy work

Praag v W & T Lawyers [2008] VCAT 307 was a rare thing: a case in VCAT’s Legal Practice List actually prosecuted pursuant to the Legal Profession Act, 2004. Mr Praag was his late mother’s executor. Before her death, she lived in Canberra. Her assets were a house in Canberra and $50,000 cash. Mr Praag …

On blogging

The other day, I did a very geeky thing which was also a bit unonline. I had a coffee with fellow lawyer blogger, the mysterious Legal Eagle. One result of the coffee was that somehow I charmed her into writing a second case note of interest to readers of this blog — this time on …

Cases, cases

Update, 19 February 2008: Fellow Melbourne law blogger Legal Eagle has kindly written a case note on Equuscorp v Wilmoth Field Warne. Update, 21 December 2007: Another two advocates’ immunity cases: 1. Symonds v Vass [2007] NSWSC 1274, 36,000 words, after nearly 3 weeks of trial. See Ysaiah Ross’s case note in his article in …

No term implied into retainer to comply with the Legal Practice Act, 1996

I have always been curious about the extent to which a term might be implied into a retainer giving contractual force to the rules of conduct whether found in rules of the Law Institute or found in the regulatory Acts. In Equuscorp Pty Ltd v Wilmoth Field Warne (No 3) [2004] VSC 164, Byrne J …

That goddam dictum of Denning about file notes and conflicts of evidence

Many a smug lawyer has grinned at me across a mediation table and trotted out some version received by Chinese whisper of Lord Denning’s typically over-reaching dictum in his dissenting judgment in Griffiths v Evans [1953] 1 WLR 1424 at 1428; [1953] 2 All ER 1364 at 1369 said to prove conclusively that the absence …