In a long-wnded way, I tentatively suggest that, so long as the applicant has the sense to invoke s. 108 of the Fair Trading Act, 1999, then penalty interest is available under the Supreme Court Act, 1986, just like in the Supreme Court, so long as the dispute is a consumer-trader dispute. That is, a [...]

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In Walsh v PJCC&A Pty [2008] VCAT 962, beneficiaries of an estate were critical of the testator's lawyers before death. They became his executors after his death, and appointed the firm they worked for as their solicitors. The beneficiaries sued the firm, and its solicitor-executors for unconscionable conduct and misleading or deceptive conduct. [...]

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I only just caught up with the fact that the Court of Appeal has overturned Justice Gillard's decision in Kabourakis v Medical Board of Victoria [2005] VSC 493, the subject of an earlier post. See [2006] VSC 301.
VCAT's Vice President Harbison, sitting in the Legal Practice List for the first time I am aware [...]

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Slobodan Catovic did not want to pay his solicitor's bill. He misconceivedly invoked the Legal Profession Act, 2004 provision which allows clients to apply to set aside costs agreements, but that is not what he wanted to do. Senior Member Howell satisfied himself that Mr Catovic had intended to bring an application under [...]

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It is well established in VCAT that when doctors and lawyers engage in professional activities in the course of their retainers, e.g. by giving advice, interviewing witnesses, and representing clients, they do not engage in trade or commerce: see for example Stagliano v Duke [2007] VCAT 1070, which I posted about here. Most Fair [...]

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Updated, 4 January 2008: See the underlined additions below (with thanks for the references to Jason Pizer's book at p. 246).
Original post: Now two unrepresented folk have managed to convince VCAT's Legal Practice List's Member Butcher in a Fair Trading Act, 1999 claim that yet another solicitor has been acting unconscionably towards his clients in [...]

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There's a seminar coming up in exactly a week's time at the Law Institute at which Alan Hebb is going to speak on disputes in VCAT's Legal Practice List. He's a good bloke and has more experience there than anyone else. He was very often briefed as Counsel Assisting the Tribunal, both at [...]

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I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser's excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for the new edition with interest. I got myself a copy the other day. It's good, and there are substantial additions since [...]

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The law of unconscionable conduct has been rolled out again as a vehicle to adjust lawyers' fees in the same way as they might be in a civil costs dispute under the Legal Profession Act, 2004, but in a case to which that Act's regime did not apply. It has happened once before to my [...]

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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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