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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Nicholson v B&S [2000] VLPT 28 was the first decision to deal in detail with the principles which govern the extremely wide discretions granted by s. 103 of the old Legal Practice Act, 1996. Registrar Howell cancelled a costs agreement, and ordered that one of the bills the client challenged — the only one she [...]

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In Nicholson v B&S [2000] VLPT 28, the Legal Profession Tribunal's Registrar Howell, considered three questions about the burden of proof:

Where there is a dispute about the amount of legal costs, must the client prove that the costs were too great, or must the lawyer prove that the costs were just right?
Where there is an [...]

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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 [...]

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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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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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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 the [...]

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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 Commissioner [...]

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Update, 21 April 2008: see the decision on appeal: McNamara Business and Property Law v Kasmeridis [2007] SASC 90.

Original post: Kesmeridis v McNamara Business and Property Law [2006] SASC 200 is a decision of a Master of the Supreme Court of South Australia. Decisions in such applications in Victoria are heard by the members of [...]

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Gee do plaintiffs adore sprinkling a bit of fiduciary duty action into their pleadings against solicitors. Their counsel see it as moon dust. A sophisiticated plaintiff (who had been party to separate litigation which eventually culminated in a High Court case about contractual certainty) tried it on in a somewhat novel way in Equuscorp Pty [...]

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