A decision of the Supreme Court is another lesson in the perils of self-representation.  What started off as a failure to lodge income tax returns for a few years snowballed into a situation where the barrister’s intercourse with the judiciary and the Bar Association in relation to inquiries made by the Bar Association revealed him [...]

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University of Western Australia v Gray (No 25) [2009] FCA 1227 is a horror story.  Gray won and Justice French ordered the University to pay his costs.  It was a big case.  But the University contended that to the extent that Gray’s lawyers had not placed themselves on the roll of practitioners maintained by the [...]

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I have defended more than one lawyer whose client said the lawyer had failed to advise him properly as to the consequences of a guilty plea.  There are many more gradations of disposition of criminal prosecutions than I had realised, and ‘without conviction’ does not mean that society forgets the transgression ever after for all [...]

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The Herald Sun has been active recently with front page excoriation of VCAT’s professional regulatory review jurisdiction for letting loose on the public again those they have described in unusually large letters as ‘sex fiends’ and ‘insane killers‘.  The two decisions are SL v Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria [2008] VCAT 2077, a decision of [...]

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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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The Crown entered a nolle prosequi on Tuesday on the charges of giving false evidence against Melbourne’s best known female criminal lawyer, Z G-W. In other words, they dropped the charges before trial for want of a reasonable prospect of conviction. The key witness was unable to remember crucial evidence which the Crown obviously figured [...]

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Justice Fullagar narrated the history of practising certificates and barristers in Victorian Lawyers RPA Limited v Henderson [1999] VLPT 13: ‘For brevity we shall refer collectively to the succession of statutes governing legal practice in Victoria from the time of the Royal Assent to the Legal Profession Practice Act 1958 until the present day as [...]

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Almost 3 months ago, a 71 year old sole practitioner who has practiced for 28 years was charged with knowingly possessing child pornography and knowingly transmitting an image of a child having sex. He has not admitted the charges which remain to be tried. He is of course presumed innocent. Nevertheless, the Legal Services Board [...]

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The latest application for review of a decision of the Legal Services Board decision not to grant a practising certificate was in the matter of DAP v Law Institute of Victoria [2008] VCAT 688. The 57 year old solicitor and former Melbourne Cricket Club Committee member was a property lawyer at one of Melbourne’s megafirms [...]

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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 [...]

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