Stays scare me.  I suspect they attract obscure law that my opponents know but I don’t.  Why does the law need the permanent stay? How is it different from a judgment?  When is a stay a permanent stay, and when not? A solicitor friend who is one of the most experienced professional negligence lawyers in [...]

[Read more →]

Vaccaro v Flammia [2008] NSWSC 1322 is a tantalizing case about the admissibility of tendency evidence of dishonesty against a solicitor and about issue estoppel arising from earlier cases brought by others against the same solicitor.  It was decided against the uniform evidence legislation which has been introduced into Victoria by the Evidence Act, 2008 [...]

[Read more →]

I only just caught up with the fact that the Court of Appeal has overturned Justice Gillard’s decision in Kabourakis v Medical Board of Victoria [2005] VSC 493, the subject of an earlier post. See [2006] VSC 301.
VCAT’s Vice President Harbison, sitting in the Legal Practice List for the first time I am aware [...]

[Read more →]

To what extent can you defend a suit by your solicitor for fees and then turn around after settlement, or after the trial of that suit, and sue for negligence? The leading Victorian case on the question is Delahunty v Howell, unreported, Supreme Court of Victoria, Gray J, 12 May 1993 (BC9300688). It was [...]

[Read more →]

In Anfuso’s Case [2007] VCAT 1690, Member Butcher of VCAT’s Legal Practice List gave summary judgment for a solicitor by reference to the principles of accord and satisfaction. The solicitor had sued for her fees in the Magistrates’ Court. She got default judgment against her former client, and got an order that his employer pay [...]

[Read more →]

The latest Australian Law Journal has a critical note about Conlan v Simms [2006] EWHC 401 (Ch), in which an English High Court judge held that a ruling of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was prima facie evidence in a later civil trial that the solicitor had been struck off for dishonesty, watering down the proposition [...]

[Read more →]