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 [...]

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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 [...]

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In Legal Practitioners Complaints Committee and MT QC [2009] WASAT 42, Judge Eckert’s 3 member tribunal considered the application to the Western Australian Legal Practice Act, 2003 of the laws relating to the power of state governments to make legislation regulating overseas conduct (i.e. ‘the law of extraterritoriality’).  Her Honour is Deputy President of the [...]

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In Byrne v Marles [2008] VSCA 78, the subject of this earlier post, another issue arose. Justice Nettle confirmed that a complaint made to anyone other than the Commissioner is invalid as a trigger for the operation of the Legal Profession Act, 2004, but that if it finds its way to the Commissioner otherwise [...]

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The Legal Services Commissioner’s annual report went online today. You can download the pdf by clicking here. The big news is that she’s put 2 new blokes on the staff, but the blokes to sheila ratio has actually decreased (to 1 in 20).
In the year to 30 June 2007, the Commissioner’s staff of 45 [...]

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In a landmark decision with profound implications for VCAT’s Fair Trading Act, 1958 jurisdiction over lawyer-client disputes about professional negligence and fees, a Deputy President of VCAT has recognised that it did not have jurisdiction to hear a former client’s misleading and deceptive conduct claim brought against ‘a professional’ in the traditional sense of [...]

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Acting President Bowman handed down a decision on Friday in Cedric Naylor’s Case [2007] VCAT 958 approving the existing practice of VCAT, and before it the Legal Profession Tribunal, of entertaining professional misconduct allegations against lawyers by their clients as part of applications to set aside costs agreements. Entertaining them, that is, outside the disciplinary [...]

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VCAT’s Acting President Judge Bowman today handed down a long and important decision in relation to the relationship between alleged failures to follow the procedures for investigating complaints against professionals laid down by legislation and the jurisdiction of the disciplinary tribunal to hear charges laid as a result of such investigations. After eight months’ thought, [...]

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Senior Member Howell determined today in M v JC Lawyers [2007] VCAT 273 that VCAT had jurisdiction to entertain a costs dispute about solicitor-client fees of post-proceedings negotiations under the threat of mutual applications to reopen under the change of circumstances provisions the final orders of the Family Court made 9 years previously.

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Update, 23 December 2009: Doubt is cast on the correctness of Hunt AJA’s comments by Hodgson JA, the other justices of appeal agreeing, in Council of the NSW Bar Association (2008) 72 NSWLR 236 at 249 ([40]).
Original post: The following passage from the NSW Court of Appeal’s decision in Lindsay v Health Care Complaints Commission [...]

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