Tweet Legal Profession Complaints Committee v DL [2010] WASAT 133 is one of those cases where psychiatric evidence called in aid of the disciplinary defendant, a solicitor, was used in support of the Tribunal’s decision effectively to strike the solicitor off.  In relation to mental illness, the ‘protective not punitive’ mantra of the law of [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Update, 9 August 2010: The Bureau briefed silk and an affidavit from the informant in the child pornography offences made all the difference.  The solicitor again did not turn up, and the Chief disbarred him, ordering him to pay the Board’s costs, though not those of the hearing at which the Bureau failed because [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Ziems v The Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (1957) 97 CLR 279; [1957] HCA 46 is a much-cited decision in the law which governs the pointy end of professional discipline of lawyers: striking off the roll.  A majority held that where a lawyer is convicted of even a serious criminal [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet A Victorian QC was jailed this year by a County Court judge for 2 with a minimum of 6 months for possessing child pornography.  Recently, the Legal Services Board applied to the Supreme Court for an order striking him off.  The QC did not appear but communicated his willingess to be struck off by [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Relatively recently, I posted on the question of whether a Bureau de Spank desiring to rely on a practitioner’s dishonesty or other form of conscious wrongdoing must expressly allege it in the charge, and discussed Walter v Council of Queensland Law Society Incorporated (1988) 77 ALR 228 at 234; [1988] HCA 8.  Now, in [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Robin Tampoe, the former Gold Coast lawyer hired as one of Schapelle Corby’s lawyers by Ron Bakir, has been struck off the roll of solicitors by Queensland’s Legal Practice Tribunal. The decision is here.  Removal from the roll is the ultimate sanction in the world of professional discipline, though in circumstances where it is [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet Legal Services Commissioner v JDG [2008] LPT 17 is a shocking case in which a Queensland barrister was struck off after he lied when confronted by investigators with the true proposition that he had offered to pay a $50,000 bribe to a Magistrate or Crown prosecutor on behalf of a client.  He also took [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet I have previously posted about the QC who took his computer into work at the DPP only to lose his career when the tech found child pornography on it. It was a bizarre story, and of course there was a twist which has become clear from the disciplinary decision in Council of the NSW [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Stanoevski v Council of the Law Society of NSW [2008] NSWCA 93, Justice of Appeal Campbell, with whom Justice of Appeal Hodgson and Acting Justice of Appeal Handley agreed, has provided important guidance on who bears which burdens of proof in cases where a legal regulator seeks to cancel a practising certificate or [...]

[Read more →]

Tweet In Law Institute of Victoria v DSS [2008] VCAT 1179, the Institute sought in a misconduct prosecution an order that the solicitor not be allowed to handle trust monies for 50 years. Vice President Judge Ross described the submission as ‘somewhat excessive’. The solicitor had stolen $75,000 from his clients and out of his [...]

[Read more →]