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

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Entries Tagged as 'Legal Practice Act'

Applications to set aside costs agreements

September 24th, 2008 · No Comments

This post has been sitting around as a draft waiting to be finished.  There is little chance of that for a long time.  So here is my incomplete annotation to s. 103 of the Legal Practice Act, 1996.  That is the provision which gives VCAT (formerly the Legal Profession Tribunal) jurisdiction to set aside costs [...]

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Tags: Legal Practice Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · costs disclosure defaults · setting aside costs agreements

Latest word on burden of proof in professional discipline 'prosecutions'

August 30th, 2008 · No Comments

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 [...]

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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

Kylie's one-time lawyer goes down, with a 'disgraceful and dishonourable' finding

August 28th, 2008 · No Comments

On 13 August 2008, Deputy President O'Dwyer found charges of misconduct at common law made out against Kylie Minogue's one-time solicitor, the man towards the centre of the government's Operation Wickenby investigation, Michael Brereton. See Legal Services Commissioner v Brereton [2008] VCAT 1723. Mr O'Dwyer found he had transferred more than $2.3 million of [...]

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Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · Trust money · common law · conflicts · duty and interest · prosecutorial failures

Victorian Legal Services Commissioner's 2006-2007 annual report

November 1st, 2007 · No Comments

The Legal Services Commissioner's annual report went online today. You can download the pdf by clicking here. The big news is that she's put 2 new blokes on the staff, but the blokes to sheila ratio has actually decreased (to 1 in 20).
In the year to 30 June 2007, the Commissioner's staff of 45 [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Legal Profession Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Professional regulation · jurisdiction · procedure

The 60 day time limit for instituting VCAT proceedings under the Legal Profession Act

August 3rd, 2007 · No Comments

In Ralph Cosentino v MY [2007] VCAT 1319, Member Butcher continued a tradition of statutory interpretation of a little technical provision about when service of statutory notices is effective. That tradition, of the Legal Profession Tribunal and its predecessors, has always troubled me. Though it does not seem to have been cited by counsel,  a [...]

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Tags: Legal Practice Act · Legal Profession Act · Limitations of actions · VCAT Act

Unconscionability and legal fee estimates, again

July 14th, 2007 · No Comments

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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Tags: Fair Trading Act · Legal Practice Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · VCAT · costs disclosure defaults · costs disputes

Costs ordered against Law Institute in unsuccessful opposition to appeal against sentence of solicitor

June 29th, 2007 · No Comments

The last post referred to part 1 of the last chapter of an intriguing saga. The second and final part of that chapter is the decision on costs: PJQ v Law Institute of Victoria (No. 2) [2007] VSCA 132. The President of the Court of Appeal rejected the following submissions by the Institute:

that the Institute [...]

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Tags: "question of law" · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Legal Profession Act · appeals · costs · procedure · prosecutorial failures · prosecutors' duties

Court of Appeal sets aside unduly harsh outcome in gross overcharging prosecution

June 28th, 2007 · No Comments

PJQ v Law Institute of Victoria[2007] VSCA 122 is the part 1 of the last chapter in a story of good tactical plays characteristic of professional discipline specialist Sam Tatarka in the representation of a solicitor charged with gross overcharging, and applying trust monies to pay his fees without the appropriate paperwork. It sounds like [...]

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Tags: "question of law" · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Misconduct · Professional fees and disbursements · Striking off · appeals · gross overcharging · mental illness · prosecutorial failures · wilful disregard for rules

Confirmed: your client can privately prosecute you for misconduct

June 3rd, 2007 · No Comments

Acting President Bowman handed down a decision on Friday in Cedric Naylor's Case [2007] VCAT 958 approving the existing practice of VCAT, and before it the Legal Profession Tribunal, of entertaining professional misconduct allegations against lawyers by their clients as part of applications to set aside costs agreements. Entertaining them, that is, outside the disciplinary [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Misconduct · Professional fees and disbursements · Unsatisfactory conduct · civil-disciplinary interplay · jurisdiction · procedure · setting aside costs agreements

VCAT's Civil List engenders "a sea of misunderstanding"

May 6th, 2007 · No Comments

Coggin's Case [2007] VCAT 266 is an illustration that the merger of the former Legal Profession Tribunal with VCAT is still being worked out. Senior Member Howell described what had been engendered as 'a sea of misunderstanding'. Unless you are interested in the procedures of VCAT's Legal Practice List, you will find this post very [...]

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Tags: Fair Trading Act · Legal Practice Act · Legal Profession Act · Negligence · VCAT