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 appropriate, [...]

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My experience of working in and representing big firms is that they consider they have an entitlement to swap lawyers in and out of files, even if that involves the loss of accumulated knowledge and a need to spend time on (and therefore charge fees for) the newbie coming up to speed.  One of the [...]

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I have previously expressed my disquiet about the Western Australian QC who told the Australian media that Schapelle Corby’s lawyers were trying to bribe the judges hearing her case.  It seems the Bureau de Spanque de l’Australie de l’Ouest had in fact got right onto it, initiating an own motion investigation. The resultant prosecution has [...]

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In Legal Practitioners Complaints Committee v Mark T QC [2009] WASAT 42 the prosecutor, the Committee, framed its case on the existence of a retainer, or on a prospective retainer.  The Tribunal did not allow it to morph into an allegation of breach of an equitable duty of confidence.  So the question arose as to [...]

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Ever since Heydon v NRMA Ltd [2000] NSWCA 374; (2000) 51 NSWLR 1, the solicitor’s penumbral duty of care, orthodoxy since Hawkins v Clayton (1988) 164 CLR 539, has been looking shaky. The reference to the penumbral duty of care is a reference to the proposition that lawyers may owe duties in tort [...]

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Justice Byrne construed a no-win no-fee costs agreement in Maurice B Pty Ltd v Burmingham [2009] VSC 20. It was drafted by the solicitors and presented as a printed document for signature.  His Honour construed it so as to resolve any ambiguities in favour of the client, invoking Clare v Joseph to reiterate the courts’ [...]

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Imagine this.  A beneficiary thinks a trustee is diminshing the trust estate by spending too much on lawyers. They have no standing to seek a taxation of the trustee’s solicitor’s bill, and the trustee’s solicitor’s file is unavailable to them by virtue of legal professional privilege enjoyed by the trustee.  The beneficiary has no contractual [...]

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In Zhang v VP302 SPV [2009] NSWSC 73, a solicitor negotiated a contract for the purchase of property by his clients. The vendor’s solicitor sent a draft contract.  The purchasers’ solicitor went through it with his clients.  They specified changes they required.  The purchasers’ solicitor put the changes to the vendor’s solicitor.  The vendor’s [...]

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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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Update, 14 February 2009: A judge of the Supreme Court of South Australia said this in Everingham v Mullins [2000] SASC 448:
‘12 The appellants maintain that Stanleys undertook an entire job and were not entitled to be paid when they were reluctant to continue the third set of proceedings. The Magistrate found: (par 28)
“There had [...]

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