Solicitors and barristers are obliged not to make allegations of criminality, fraud or other serious wrongdoing in ‘court documents’ without an adequate factual foundation. The rule for Victorian barristers is rule 34. This post explores what ‘court documents’ are, what ‘fraud’ means in this context, and what an adequate factual foundation is, in part by [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Ethics'
The obligation not to allege ‘fraud’ without an appropriate evidentiary foundation: what is ‘fraud’?
January 27th, 2010 · 1 Comment
Tags: Ethics · Vic Solis' Conduct Rules · litigation ethics
$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
‘Snapping on’ judgment in default
December 10th, 2009 · No Comments
I must say I was brought up believing that there was nothing at all wrong with rushing down to the court’s registry and entering default judgment if an appearance, or defence, was not filed by the due date. Apart from anything else, you force the other side to set out enough on oath about their [...]
Tags: Abuse of process · Ethics · Party party costs · 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
Conflict applications to restrain opposing solicitors from acting not interlocutory
August 19th, 2009 · No Comments
In Legal Practice Board v Lashanky [2008] WASC 294, the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s Justice Chambers said that applications to restrain solicitors from acting are not interlocutory applications, so that affidavit evidence may not be given from information and belief (i.e. the hearsay prohibition is not relaxed as it is for interlocutory applications):
‘29 Under [...]
Tags: Ethics · conflicts · current client and past client
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
Litigation takes speed
August 5th, 2009 · 1 Comment
Adjournment applications and applications to amend out of time in civil proceedings just got more difficult. I have a feeling that the first time I said anything in court after I came to the Bar was an expression, to the Supreme Court’s Master Efthim, of how melancholy I felt about regrettably having little choice but [...]
Tags: Ethics · litigation ethics
Schapelle Corby’s former lawyer struck off
June 11th, 2009 · 2 Comments
Robin Tampoe, the former Gold Coast lawyer hired as one of Schapelle Corby’s lawyers by Ron Bakir, has been struck off the roll of solicitors by Queensland’s Legal Practice Tribunal. The decision is here. Removal from the roll is the ultimate sanction in the world of professional discipline, though in circumstances where it is not [...]
Tags: Client Legal Privilege · Discipline · Ethics · Misconduct · Striking off · duties of confidentiality
Restraints on use of information obtained by compulsion
June 2nd, 2009 · No Comments
The rule in Home Office v Harman governs the use of documents and information obtained by people generally by various forms of compulsion in litigation: the court rules about interrogatories (a form of statute), Court orders for discovery, witness statements served pursuant to an order to do so. But when I carefully checked this point [...]
Tags: Legal Services Commissioner · Professional regulation · duties of confidentiality · regulators' duties
Johns v Australian Securities Commission
June 2nd, 2009 · No Comments
This is a little adjunct to my post ‘Restraints on Use of Information Obtained by Compulsion’, a place to store away for future reference the little case note of Johns v Australian Securities Commission (1993) 178 CLR 384; [1993] HCA 56 penned by Justice McKerracher in Apache Northwest Pty Ltd v Agostini [2009] FCA 534. [...]
Tags: Legal Services Commissioner · duties of confidentiality · regulators' duties

