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 [...]
Entries Tagged as 'trust monies'
Commissioner’s obligation to charge dishonesty if he intends to allege it
December 4th, 2009 · No Comments
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
Disciplinary charges and intentional wrongdoing
October 29th, 2009 · No Comments
Update, 4 December 2009: see now Legal Services Commissioner v Madden (No 2) [2008] QCA 301. What the Queensland Court of Appeal said there about Walter’s Case, the subject of this post, is reproduced at the end of the post.
Original post: Does a lawyer’s Bureau de Spank have to say in a charge in a [...]
Tags: Discipline · Misconduct · Unsatisfactory conduct · natural justice · procedure · prosecutorial failures · prosecutors' duties · reckless disregard for rules · trust monies · wilful disregard for rules
Commissioner’s unexplained delay reduces penalty for serious misconduct
August 6th, 2009 · No Comments
Speaking of the need for speed as Justice Heydon and I were on this blog yesterday, there are two other instances worthy of reporting.
First, the High Court has recently considered the need for speed in criminal proceedings, and were not nearly as excited about it as in commercial litigation. This time, they rolled the court [...]
Tags: Discipline · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · costs · mental illness · procedure · prosecutors' duties · regulators' duties · trust monies
Beak bribe boast bars barro
February 4th, 2009 · No Comments
Legal Services Commissioner v JDG [2008] LPT 17 is a shocking case in which a Queensland barrister was struck off after he lied when confronted by investigators with the true proposition that he had offered to pay a $50,000 bribe to a Magistrate or Crown prosecutor on behalf of a client. He also took $59,000 [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Discipline · Legal Profession Act · Misconduct · Negligence · Professional fees and disbursements · Striking off · Trust money · common law · trust monies
Latest word on burden of proof in professional discipline ‘prosecutions’
August 30th, 2008 · 1 Comment
In this post, I just reproduce what Deputy President Dwyer said recently about the burden of proof, right to silence, and inferences which may be drawn from the fact of the exercise by a solicitor of the right to silence. He said it in the context of a hard-fought hearing into the conduct of Kylie’s [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · Unsatisfactory conduct · VCAT Act · common law · procedure · prosecutorial failures · reckless disregard for rules · trust monies · wilful disregard for rules
Law Institute seeks 50 year ban for 62 year old solicitor
July 11th, 2008 · No Comments
In Law Institute of Victoria v DSS [2008] VCAT 1179, the Institute sought in a misconduct prosecution an order that the solicitor not be allowed to handle trust monies for 50 years. Vice President Judge Ross described the submission as ’somewhat excessive’.
The solicitor had stolen $75,000 from his clients and out of his trust [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Criminal liability · Discipline · Misconduct · Practising certificates · Striking off · common law · costs · mental illness · procedure · prosecutorial failures · trust monies
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
Megafirm partner who stole to make budget gets his ticket back after long holiday
April 26th, 2008 · No Comments
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 [...]
Tags: Admission · Criminal liability · Legal Profession Act · Professional regulation · regulators' duties · trust monies
The barrister and the trust monies saga ends in 6 month holiday
November 25th, 2006 · No Comments
Update: 14 October 2007 The Court of Appeal refused leave to appeal, and the High Court refused special leave to appeal too, on 5 October 2007.
In Victorian Bar Inc v DAP, [2006] VCAT 2293 Judge Bowman, Tony Southall QC and T Harper suspended the barrister’s practising certificate for 6 months and ordered him to pay [...]
Tags: Discipline · Misconduct · costs · procedure · trust monies
Another unrepresented lawyer bites the dust in WA
October 19th, 2006 · No Comments
The lessons against self-representation in discipline cases are coming almost too thick and fast for me to digest them. Here is The West Australian’s short article on the striking off recently of Vijitha De Alwis, a solicitor who played a part in a legal saga involving an attempt to deport a non-citizen Briton convicted of [...]
Tags: Discipline · Professional fees and disbursements · Striking off · trust monies

