Tweet For a long time after the new national profession legislation is introduced, if it is introduced in its present form, many lawyers are likely to find themselves restricted to charging scale, and not being able to recover their costs until there has been a taxation in the Costs Court, even when they have negotiated [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Legal Services Board v DF [2011] VSC 292 will be of considerable interest to those who draft and work within no-win no-fee retainers. Justice Karin Emerton found that though Victoria’s repealed Legal Practice Act, 1996 implicitly prohibited the charging of uplift fees otherwise than upon a ‘successful outcome’  it was open to parties to [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet The plaintiff in Brott v Shtrambrandt [2009] VSC 467 is not having much luck.  First of all, he cut what he thought was a plea bargain in a professional misconduct prosecution only to have VCAT’s Legal Practice List increase by 50% the penalty he and the Law Insitute had agreed jointly to contend was [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Mr Burmingham is the subject of three posts already.  They dealt with three discrete aspects of his case, Maurice B Pty Ltd v Burmingham [2009] VSC 20: a titillating detail, advocates’ immunity, and the nature of the suit for fees.  But his case was really mostly about what happens when a no-win no-fee costs [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet The other day, I did a very geeky thing which was also a bit unonline. I had a coffee with fellow lawyer blogger, the mysterious Legal Eagle. One result of the coffee was that somehow I charmed her into writing a second case note of interest to readers of this blog — this time [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Now, that’s a cheap headline, I know, but I couldn’t resist. Queensland Legal Services Commissioner John Birton’s recent speech extolling the virtues of his office does read a bit like that, but probably deservedly so. The statistics he quotes speak for themselves: he’s not falling prey to the tendency of some regulators to drown [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet A leading Melbourne labour law firm has confirmed paying its best known partner a $1 million bonus for procuring a settlement of the Dow Corning breast implants class action. Nothing wrong with that, by the way; I mention it only for prurient interest and to provide some context to the work the firm does [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Hoover Slovacek LLP v. Walton, Supreme Court of Texas, 3 November 2006, the Court severed a provision in a contingency fee agreement which entitled the lawyer to three-tenths of the “present value of the claim” forthwith upon termination by the client, whether for just cause or not. Instead, the lawyer recovered three-tenths of [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Thanks to Overlawyered I bring you the story of the US plaintiffs’ lawyer who has advertised for personal injury work arising out of car accidents on a 15% contingency fee basis instead of the normal 33%. The mischievous quirk of behaviour has not been particularly warmly accepted by his peers. This post looks at [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet The Bar has produced a practice guide. It is a great achievement and stands as a beacon for the Law Institute’s future efforts at promulgating knowledge of the practice rules. The Bar actually has something called the Professional Standards Education Committee. Written by Roisin Annesley, it was launched by Victoria Marles, the Legal Services [...]

[Read more →]