The Legal Services Commissioner's annual report went online today. You can download the pdf by clicking here. The big news is that she's put 2 new blokes on the staff, but the blokes to sheila ratio has actually decreased (to 1 in 20).
In the year to 30 June 2007, the Commissioner's staff of 45 [...]

[Read more →]

I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser's excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for the new edition with interest. I got myself a copy the other day. It's good, and there are substantial additions since [...]

[Read more →]

This is a workmanlike little post, designed simply to trap into the world of this blog for when I need them next in court the legal principles discussed in Acting President Bowman's decision in ZGW v Legal Services Board [2007] VCAT 1406, casenoted in the previous post. The parties' arguments are also reproduced below [...]

[Read more →]

Update, 21 August 2007: Latest case on the implied undertaking:  Street v Hearne [2007] NSWCA 113.
When a person comes into possession of documents through legal compulsion, they are under an implied obligation not to use them for any purpose but the purpose for which the compulsion operates. Most lawyers know the rule insofar as [...]

[Read more →]

The Legal Services Commissioner, Victoria Marles, is to speak at the Australian Legal Practice Management Association's conference in Melbourne on 26 October 2007. I feel for her, with the 4 p.m. Friday shift. With her NSW counterpart Steve Mark, she will speak on what is left to do in creating a truly national [...]

[Read more →]

        
My friend Jason Pizer had the launch of the third edition of his book this week, and I went along and enjoyed the company of VCAT's Acting President John Bowman, Deputy President Marilyn Harbison, and Justice Chris Maxwell, President of the Court of Appeal.  It's the VCAT equivalent of Williams, the looseleaf 'Bible' of [...]

[Read more →]

ZG-W v CCW (a firm) (2007) VSC 235 is the latest in the saga of the Legal Practice Board's practising certificate cancellation of Melbourne's best known female criminal lawyer. She has succeeded in having the Board's lawyers enjoined from acting further for the Board on the relatively rare basis that it would bring the administration [...]

[Read more →]

The English have promulgated a new set of professional conduct rules for solicitors, which commence tomorrow. Here they are, and here's a Law Society page with associated resources. I have only scanned them, but they seem to be beautifully written: clear, detailed, without unnecessary complexity, and graced by helpful commentary. Some of them seem [...]

[Read more →]

The Ombudsman has been looking into the performance of a regulator, MARA, the Migration Agents Registration Authority. He was critical. His press release is here, the full report here. Reproduced below are the bits about impartiality and the avoidance of conflicts of duties 'in the case where an industry representative body is also the regulatory [...]

[Read more →]

Melbourne's best known female criminal lawyer was convicted some time ago of contempt of court for refusing to answer questions on oath in a Supreme Court murder trial of her husband's murderers: as I reported here. She has sought review of that decision in VCAT, and sought judicial review from the Supreme Court as [...]

[Read more →]