Under the Legal Profession Act, 2004, clients have a year to apply for taxation of their solicitor’s bill.  Before, it was 60 days, but it was easy to get an extension: s. 3.4.38(5).  Now, it’s longer, but it’s harder to get an extension: you have to make an application to a judge in the Practice [...]

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Graymarshall Pty Ltd v Department of Environment, Climate Change & Water [2010] NSWLEC 54 is a decision of NSW’s Land and Environment Court about the application of the privilege against penalties (related to, but separate from, the privilege against self-incrimination). A regulator issued a notice compelling the production of information to a company. The statute [...]

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If you are a solicitor and someone other than your client or former client has lodged a disciplinary complaint against you in Victoria, you should not disclose the subject matter of any communications to which legal professional privilege attaches, or might arguably attach, unless you are instructed to do so by your client or former [...]

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In Deputy Commissioner of Taxation v Law Institute of Victoria [2010] VSCA 73, the Court of Appeal unanimously overturned the trial judge’s decision in Law Institute of Victoria Limited v Deputy Commissioner of Taxation (No 2) [2009] VSC 179, which I posted about here.  I posted about round 1, before that, here.  Justice of Appeal [...]

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The distinction between ‘professional misconduct’ and ‘unsatisfactory professional conduct’ is usually elusive.  Guidance from an appellate court in relation to cognate legislation is therefore valuable.  It seems that one instance of ‘incredibly sloppy’ work involving innocent false representations being made to the other side, if it is comprised of a series of closely related bits [...]

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Section 8 of the Evidence Act, 2008 says it does not affect the operation of the provisions of other Acts.  So, although the compellability and competence provisions and the admissibility provisions of the new Act are often spoken of as a code, those who say so are thinking about the continuing operation of the common [...]

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Relatively recently, I posted on the question of whether a Bureau de Spank desiring to rely on a practitioner’s dishonesty or other form of conscious wrongdoing must expressly allege it in the charge, and discussed Walter v Council of Queensland Law Society Incorporated (1988) 77 ALR 228 at 234; [1988] HCA 8.  Now, in Legal [...]

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A former client of mine, dissatisfied with the adverse outcome in a complaint he lodged making serious allegations against a senior member of the profession has tipped me off to an own motion investigation conducted into the Bureau de Spank by the Victorian Ombudsman.  The results, reproduced below, will not assist morale at the Bureau [...]

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Note: I drafted this post last financial year.  Since then, the value of a penalty unit increased today by about 3%, to $116.82, with the result that the dollar figures referred to below will be commensurately too low.  See the details at Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes. Original post: I acted for a fellow whom the [...]

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In Legal Services Commissioner v RAP [2009] VCAT 1200, the Bureau failed to establish a charge of professional misconduct at common law against a solicitor in respect of conduct which occurred otherwise than in the course of, and unconnected with, legal practice.  (Another charge, not the subject of this post, succeeded.) The allegation was that [...]

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