Stephen Warne on professional negligence, regulation and discipline around the world

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Entries Tagged as 'Fiduciary duties'

Issac's holiday; plea bargaining in disciplinary charges examined

October 10th, 2008 · No Comments

Issac's style of legal letter writing is legendary. There are some quite extensive private collections out there. I recall one letter said to have been penned by the man himself which began 'Dear Sir, you are a petulant lunatic,' and after some substantive words continued 'You are a very small cog in a very big [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Fiduciary duties · Misconduct · Practising certificates · Trust money · concurrent duties · conflicts · procedure

Robyn Tampoe, Schapelle Corby's solicitor

July 6th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Update, 7 July 2008: Watch the video of Tampoe slagging off his client here.
Original post: Lawyers and their regulators should care about the Corby case, because at the relevant time, a lot of people loved Schapelle and Schapelle does not now much like her lawyers. One of them has hit back, calling the Corbys [...]

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Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Client Legal Privilege · Ethics · Fiduciary duties · Misconduct · advertising · duties of confidentiality · duties regarding witnesses · duty to court · litigation ethics

Pastor-solicitor-property developer profiled in the Sunday Age

June 10th, 2008 · No Comments

The latest lawyer profile in a weekend zine is the Sunday Age's portrait of a fundamentalist preacher cum solicitor cum property developer's stoush with some parishoners who say he allowed them to have a part of a property investment which would yield profits over the one year of the investment of 25% to 45%, only [...]

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Tags: Fiduciary duties

Negligent misstatement limitation period lecture

June 9th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Update, 20 November 2008: The latest decision is Pegasus Management Holdings S.C.A. v Ernst & Young (a firm) [2008] EWHC 2720 (Ch).  A CMS Cameron McKenna Law Now note may be read here.
Original post: The Law Institute is putting on a lecture at lunchtime on 24 June 2008 by an ex-megafirms lawyer who has [...]

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Tags: Fiduciary duties · Limitations of actions · Negligence · defences

2nd edition of Professional Liability in Australia reviewed

October 18th, 2007 · No Comments

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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Tags: Advocates' Immunity · Barristers' immunity · Book reviews · Causation · Discipline · Duties to third parties · Ethics · Fair Trading Act · Fiduciary duties · Forensic immunity · Legal Profession Act · Legal writing · Limitations of actions · Misconduct · Negligence · Professional regulation · Proportionate Liability · Retainers · Striking off · Uncategorized · Wasted costs · conflicts · defences · doctors · duties of confidentiality · legal professional privilege · two bites at the cherry

Arbitrators slice $40 million off plaintiff lawyers' breast implant proceedings fees

July 20th, 2007 · No Comments

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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Tags: Ethics · Fiduciary duties · Misconduct · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · Taxations · costs disclosure defaults · gross overcharging · litigation ethics

The latest on fiduciary relationships

July 16th, 2007 · No Comments

In the Citigroup Case referred to in the next post, Justice Jacobsen summarised the law relating to fiduciary duties. I have reproduced the whole of the relevant passage, which includes a restatement of the law (at [297]ff) relating to solicitors' fiduciary duties to give prospective clients full disclosure about the disadvantages of time costing if [...]

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Tags: Fiduciary duties · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · costs disclosure defaults

Updates: big words, Texan legal writing, conflicts of duties

May 27th, 2007 · No Comments

In my post "Judge uses big word", I commented on President Mason's use of "tergiversation". Now David Starkoff at Inchoate has noted another's analysis of the odds of each of the High Court judges other than Justice Kirby being responsible for the appearance of "epexegetical" (which seems to mean "explanatory in a way [...]

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Tags: Ethics · Fiduciary duties · Judges · Legal writing · concurrent duties · conflicts · current client and past client · duties of confidentiality · duty and duty · duty and interest · interest of associate

No absolute bar in England to representing and opposing same client in two different matters

March 18th, 2007 · No Comments

Goubran shares my view that a solicitor can act for and against the one man at the same time. Just not in relation to the same thing. In fact, there is a degree of relation which makes it impermissible, and Goubran sets out the practically meaningless judicial utterances on the test for the requisite degree [...]

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Tags: Ethics · Fiduciary duties · Uncategorized · concurrent duties · conflicts · current client and past client · duties of confidentiality · duty and duty

Role of professional conduct rules in conflict of duties injunctions

March 18th, 2007 · No Comments

On the relationship of the conduct rules to injunctions to restrain lawyers acting in the face of a conflict of duties, Goubran cites some useful authorities. I have always been astonished by what I thought was the Australian courts' universal and complete disregard in these kinds of applications to the professional conduct rules' conflicts provisions. [...]

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Tags: Ethics · Fiduciary duties · concurrent duties · conflicts · current client and past client · duties of confidentiality · duty and duty