The distinction between ‘professional misconduct’ and ‘unsatisfactory professional conduct’ is usually elusive. Guidance from an appellate court in relation to cognate legislation is therefore valuable. It seems that one instance of ‘incredibly sloppy’ work involving innocent false representations being made to the other side, if it is comprised of a series of closely related bits [...]
Entries Tagged as 'appeals'
NSW Court of Appeal on difference between ‘professional misconduct’ and ‘unsatisfactory professional conduct’
February 8th, 2010 · No Comments
Tags: Discipline · Legal Profession Act · Misconduct · Unsatisfactory conduct · appeals · negligence as disciplinary breach
Supreme Courts’ inherent jurisdiction to discipline lawyers to be invoked sparingly
February 1st, 2010 · No Comments
In AM v Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal [2010] NTSC 02, a Full Court of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory heard an appeal by way of rehearing into a decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal (see my earlier post on the case). One of the grounds of appeal was that the Tribunal had not had [...]
Tags: Discipline · appeals · jurisdiction · procedure
$19,500 fine for making complaint against lawyer without adequate evidentiary foundation
January 26th, 2010 · No Comments
A Full Court of the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory delivered judgment in AM v Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Authority [2010] NTSC 02 a week ago. The Darwin lawyer, AM, lodged a complaint with the NT Law Society alleging that a competitor firm, Cridlands, which used to act for her client, had acted in the [...]
Tags: Discipline · Ethics · Misconduct · appeals · litigation ethics
Commissioner’s obligation to charge dishonesty if he intends to allege it
December 4th, 2009 · No Comments
Relatively recently, I posted on the question of whether a Bureau de Spank desiring to rely on a practitioner’s dishonesty or other form of conscious wrongdoing must expressly allege it in the charge, and discussed Walter v Council of Queensland Law Society Incorporated (1988) 77 ALR 228 at 234; [1988] HCA 8. Now, in Legal [...]
Tags: Discipline · Ethics · Legal Profession Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · Practising certificates · Professional regulation · Striking off · Trust money · amendment · appeals · concurrent duties · conflicts · current client and past client · duty and duty · jurisdiction · natural justice · procedure · trust monies · wilful disregard for rules
Criminal prosecutions (-not) by disciplinary authorities
April 22nd, 2009 · No Comments
The Building Practitioners Board is the Bureau de Spank for builders. It initiated an inquiry into whether a builder had breached a provision of the Building Act, 1993 (Vic.). The provision prohibited builders from building without a permit. Breach is a crime, but the Board is not entitled to prosecute offences under the Act, for [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Discipline · civil-disciplinary interplay · judicial review
Review of decisions to exclude lawyers from ASIC and NCA examinations
February 19th, 2009 · 2 Comments
This is a note about a decision by a judge who is only a year older than me, Justice Nye Perram, a novel and somewhat unsettling circumstance: Collard v Australian Securities & Investments Commission (No. 3) [2008] FCA 1681. I looked him up because the judgment is so beautifully written, and found a welcome [...]
Tags: Discipline · Judges · Legal writing · appeals · regulators' duties
Dentist does worse on appeal to VCAT than before the Dental Practice Board
December 19th, 2008 · No Comments
In Von S v Dental Practice Board [2008] VCAT 2302, a dentist sought merits review in VCAT of a decision of the Dental Practice Board to suspend his registration for 3 months. He had practised for two and a half months without being registered (a crime punishable by a maximum fine of $11,000), practised without [...]
Tags: Discipline · Insurance · Unqualified practice · appeals
Kylie’s one-time lawyer before VCAT’s Legal Practice List
July 9th, 2008 · No Comments
Update, 18 July 2008: Make that a $200,000, not $20,000, loan from rock impressario Michael Gudinski. I like the way he gave evidence to VCAT’s Legal Practice List by mobile phone from a US Billy Joel concert. Leonie Wood’s report for The Age is here.
Update, 15 July 2008: Apparently the Law Institute’s trust account [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Discipline · judicial review · trust monies
Court of Appeal wreaks havoc with most current Legal Services Commissioner investigations
May 22nd, 2008 · 5 Comments
Update, 29 May 2009: The saga continues.
Update, 17 June 2008: The Age has caught up with this story. It’s a funny old article. Weirdest is this comment ‘A prominent senior counsel said the system was unfair, and any complaint should be forwarded immediately to the subject of the complaint.’ In my experience, [...]
Tags: Discipline · Legal Profession Act · Legal Services Commissioner · appeals · judicial review · natural justice · regulators' duties
And another Court of Appeal sets aside another gross overcharging conviction
June 29th, 2007 · No Comments
As reported in today’s Australian Financial Review, the NSW Court of Appeal has told the Administrative Decisions Tribunal’s Legal Services Division that it got it wrong when it found a Sydney solicitor guilty of gross overcharging. The case is LN v Legal Services Commissioner [2007] NSWCA 130 Though the solicitor signed the bill, he did [...]
Tags: Discipline · Misconduct · Professional fees and disbursements · appeals · gross overcharging · prosecutorial failures

