Z v Dental Complaints Assessment Committee [2008] NZSC 55 is an important case which considers in depth just how quasi-criminal professional discipline proceedings should be.  It is a decision of New Zealand’s Supreme Court, their equivalent of our High Court, now 6 years old.  It considers the disciplinary prosecution of a dentist, acquitted of sexually [...]

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Recently, it has been suggested that misconduct unconnected with legal practice (which the High Court has referred to as ‘personal misconduct’) may constitute professional misconduct at common law: New South Wales Bar Association v Cummins [2001] NSWCA 284; Legal Services Commissioner v RAP [2009] VCAT 1200, the subject of this post.  This post considers whether [...]

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Many new decisions of interest are coming out and I will not have time to blog them any time soon as I have to go to University and concentrate on my latest and hopefully last field of study, Shareholders Rights and Remedies.  Here are some pointers in case you want to read this slew of [...]

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As a lawyer, I am often tempted to do the wrong thing.  It is a very desirable thing to win.  But I have never felt tempted to forge a judge’s signature.  It is thought that a lawyer in the Office of Public Prosecutions did exactly that.  He is charged with attempting to pervert the course [...]

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Ziems v The Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (1957) 97 CLR 279; [1957] HCA 46 is a much-cited decision in the law which governs the pointy end of professional discipline of lawyers: striking off the roll.  A majority held that where a lawyer is convicted of even a serious criminal offence [...]

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Legal Services Board v GW [2010] VSC 105 is a decision of Justice Robson.  A Victorian solicitor stole a million bucks from his clients and went to jail.  The Legal Services Board made no application for compensation under s. 86 of the Sentencing Act, 1991 because, wearing its Fidelity Fund hat, it thought the solicitor [...]

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Update, 4 December 2009: A single judge of the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Julie Ward (NSW’s equivalent of Victoria’s Justice Kyrou, having been appointed from the ranks of solicitors last year), declined to follow the decision discussed below, Sheikholeslami v Tolcher [2009] NSWSC 920.  Twelve thousand words is a pretty good effort for an evidentiary [...]

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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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Note: I drafted this post last financial year.  Since then, the value of a penalty unit increased today by about 3%, to $116.82, with the result that the dollar figures referred to below will be commensurately too low.  See the details at Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. Original post: I acted for a fellow whom the [...]

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In Legal Services Commissioner v RAP [2009] VCAT 1200, the Bureau failed to establish a charge of professional misconduct at common law against a solicitor in respect of conduct which occurred otherwise than in the course of, and unconnected with, legal practice.  (Another charge, not the subject of this post, succeeded.) The allegation was that [...]

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