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Entries Tagged as 'Legal Profession Act'

Victorian judges more amenable to sophisticated costs orders in cases of partial success only

August 15th, 2008 · No Comments

Costs have traditionally followed the event. Put up 5 reasons why you should get damages and win on 1 of them, and the starting point has been that you get the costs of the whole proceeding, including of the 4 causes of action which failed. Recent decisions of a Full Federal Court constituted [...]

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Tags: Legal Profession Act · Party party costs · Wasted costs

Is interest a form of relief VCAT can grant?

August 14th, 2008 · No Comments

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

VCAT rewrites unrepresented man's misconceived application

May 27th, 2008 · No Comments

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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Tags: Fair Trading Act · Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · VCAT

Court of Appeal wreaks havoc with most current Legal Services Commissioner investigations

May 22nd, 2008 · 1 Comment

Update, 17 June 2008: The Age has caught up with this story. It's a funny old article. Weirdest is this comment 'A prominent senior counsel said the system was unfair, and any complaint should be forwarded immediately to the subject of the complaint.' In my experience, the Commissioner does almost invariably send [...]

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Tags: Discipline · Legal Profession Act · Legal Services Commissioner · appeals · judicial review · natural justice · regulators' duties

Megafirm partner who stole to make budget gets his ticket back after long holiday

April 26th, 2008 · No Comments

The latest application for review of a decision of the Legal Services Board decision not to grant a practising certificate was in the matter of DAP v Law Institute of Victoria [2008] VCAT 688. The 57 year old solicitor and former Melbourne Cricket Club Committee member was a property lawyer at one of Melbourne's [...]

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Tags: Admission · Criminal liability · Legal Profession Act · Professional regulation · regulators' duties · trust monies

VCAT cancels bill and leaves solicitor wholly unremunerated for sloppy work

March 4th, 2008 · 5 Comments

Praag v W & T Lawyers [2008] VCAT 307 was a rare thing: a case in VCAT's Legal Practice List actually prosecuted pursuant to the Legal Profession Act, 2004. Mr Praag was his late mother's executor. Before her death, she lived in Canberra. Her assets were a house in Canberra and [...]

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Tags: "professional negligence" · Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · costs disclosure defaults

WARNING: costs agreements and bills require amendment

January 21st, 2008 · No Comments

Update, February 2008: the rate has increased from 8.75% to 9%.  For more, see this post.
Original post: Since 6 December 2007, the maximum interest chargeable on bills has dropped from 12% (the penalty interest rate) to 8.75% (the Reserve Bank Target Rate +2%), and the period of non-payment after which you can begin charging [...]

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Tags: Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs · costs disclosure defaults

How to calculate interest on post-5 December 2007 bills in Legal Profession Act, 2004 (Vic.) matters

January 20th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Update, 8 February 2008: from 5 February, the rate has been increased to 7%, so on bills from then on, interest at the rate of 9% per annum may be claimed so long as the bill states that that is the rate which will accrue. Remember, interest accrues on post-4 February bills at 9% and [...]

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Tags: Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Solicitor client bills of costs

Cases, cases

December 15th, 2007 · No Comments

Update, 19 February 2008: Fellow Melbourne law blogger Legal Eagle has kindly written a case note on Equuscorp v Wilmoth Field Warne.
Update, 21 December 2007: Another two advocates' immunity cases:
1. Symonds v Vass [2007] NSWSC 1274, 36,000 words, after nearly 3 weeks of trial. See Ysaiah Ross's case note in his article [...]

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Tags: Admission · Advocates' Immunity · Barristers' immunity · Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · Retainers · setting aside costs agreements

Sudden eruption of unconscionability amongst solicitors further documented

December 10th, 2007 · 2 Comments

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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Tags: Fair Trading Act · Legal Profession Act · Professional fees and disbursements · VCAT · costs disclosure defaults