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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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