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 [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Criminal liability'
Can conduct unconnected with practice constitute misconduct at common law?
August 21st, 2010 · No Comments
Tags: Criminal liability · Discipline · Misconduct · common law
Can’t keep up
August 7th, 2010 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Discipline · Negligence · Out of court settlements · autrefois acquit · doctors · procedure · prosecutorial failures
Ever wondered the consequences of forging a judge’s signature?
July 28th, 2010 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Ethics · litigation ethics
Ziems v Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of NSW
June 15th, 2010 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Striking off
Thieving soli out of jail cops Fidelity Fund’s Sentencing Act compo application
April 12th, 2010 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability
Self-incrimination certificates
September 11th, 2009 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability
Criminal records
August 31st, 2009 · 1 Comment
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 [...]
Tags: Admission · Criminal liability
Offences created by the Legal Profession Act, 2004
August 13th, 2009 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Legal Profession Act · prosecutors' duties · regulators' duties
VCAT explores definition of professional misconduct at common law unconnected with legal practice
August 7th, 2009 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Criminal liability · Discipline · Ethics · Legal Profession Act · Misconduct · common law · litigation ethics · prosecutorial failures
Sex offence doctor’s VCAT success stayed pending appeal
August 4th, 2009 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Admission · Criminal liability · Professional regulation · VCAT · doctors

