A man hired a firm. Then he hired a new solicitor. He had not paid the fees of counsel retained by the first firm, for which the first firm was responsible for paying to the barrister. The first firm handed over its files to the new solicitor upon receiving an undertaking from [...]

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Update, 10 June 2008: The Bar's Ethics Committee dropped the investigation without giving reasons.
Update, 23 November: The press just can't seem to believe that anyone would be called Issac Brott, inevitably reverting to the more plausible Isaac Brott. And nor do they seem to be reading this blog. Here's The Australian again claiming the [...]

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6 Novebmer 2007 Update: Nick Papas is giving a lecture at the LIV on Ethics and Criminal Law on 3 December 2007. The flier reads:
'Practice in Criminal Law often involves high profile cases that attract enormous attention in the media. Media scrums thrust cameras and microphones forward in the hope of some comment.
How should criminal [...]

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I presented a seminar with Glenn McGowan SC on affidavits and written evidence recently. I wrote a long paper, mainly about the state courts, but incorporating some aspects of Federal Court procedure, which I will send to anyone who asks for a copy, and which will probably end up on the blog replete with useful [...]

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22 July Update: what may be the first ever legal blog, and without doubt one of the best, Overlawyered has  a link to the arbitrator's ruling, and links to some old posts dealing with the interlocutory stages of the case. And here's Law.com's article.
Houston plaintiff lawyer John O'Quinn has been ordered to repay clients $40 [...]

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Via Freivogel on Conflicts: The New York County Lawyers' Association has published an ethics opinion on the propriety of hiring investigators to communicate with counterparties in ways which would be unethical for the lawyer hiring them. Prima facie improper with only very limited exceptions, they say. Unless what is contemplated is pre-litigation, it seems to [...]

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In a stinging dissent against the conclusion of a majority of the Supreme Court of Washington that a lawyer had breached a conflict of duties rule in representing multiple parties, one judge set out what sounds a lot like the US version of the Briginshaw standard of proof which prevails in Australian and English disciplinary [...]

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A Delaware attorney has been publicly reprimanded for intemperate written submissions. The judgment goes through the American superior court law on where the boundary between zealous advocacy and impermissibly intemperate attack lies. Great minds differed; the Supreme Court overturned a decision of the Board of Professional Responsibility which found that the language did not warrant [...]

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The Supreme Court of Kansas yesterday published a judgment — In the Matter of E. Thomas Pyle, III — which is interesting on a number of fronts. The first is that Pyle was disciplined for writing a letter which criticised an adverse disciplinary ruling against him. The second is that he was disciplined for failing [...]

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The latest and possibly last chapter in the tribulations of Victoria's most senior female silk is to be found in M v VCAT [2007] VSC 89, a decision of Justice Mandie. The barrister was charged on 4 July 2005 with 24 charges of misconduct, and ended up after a hearing of the first [...]

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