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 Legal [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Trust money'
Commissioner’s obligation to charge dishonesty if he intends to allege it
December 4th, 2009 · No Comments
Tags: Discipline · Ethics · Legal Profession Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · Practising certificates · Professional regulation · Striking off · Trust money · amendment · appeals · concurrent duties · conflicts · current client and past client · duty and duty · jurisdiction · natural justice · procedure · trust monies · wilful disregard for rules
6 months jail for lawyer thief ‘remarkably merciful’
March 7th, 2009 · No Comments
Update, 8 May 2009: The Westralians have been listening to Justice of Appeal Nettle. Someone over there has thrown a 41 year old Margaret River solicitor into the slammer for almost 8, minimum of nearly 5. He stole almost $900,000 from an elderly man who lived alone on a farm.
Original post: A solicitor was convicted [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Trust money
Beak bribe boast bars barro
February 4th, 2009 · No Comments
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 $59,000 [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Discipline · Legal Profession Act · Misconduct · Negligence · Professional fees and disbursements · Striking off · Trust money · common law · trust monies
Nettle JA on sentencing thieving lawyers
February 2nd, 2009 · No Comments
R v Maurice B [2008] VSC 254 records the sentencing remarks of Nettle JA apparently sitting in the trial division following a guilty plea by a solicitor who stole a quarter of a million dollars. The solicitor argued the state of his mind was relevant in two ways. First, he said his impaired mental [...]
Tags: Criminal liability · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Trust money · mental illness
Issac’s holiday; plea bargaining in disciplinary charges examined
October 10th, 2008 · No Comments
Issac’s style of legal letter writing is legendary. There are some quite extensive private collections out there. I recall one letter said to have been penned by the man himself which began ‘Dear Sir, you are a petulant lunatic,’ and after some substantive words continued ‘You are a very small cog in a very big [...]
Tags: Discipline · Fiduciary duties · Misconduct · Practising certificates · Trust money · concurrent duties · conflicts · procedure
Kylie’s one-time lawyer goes down, with a ‘disgraceful and dishonourable’ finding
August 28th, 2008 · No Comments
On 13 August 2008, Deputy President O’Dwyer found charges of misconduct at common law made out against Kylie Minogue’s one-time solicitor, the man towards the centre of the government’s Operation Wickenby investigation, Michael Brereton. See Legal Services Commissioner v Brereton [2008] VCAT 1723. Mr O’Dwyer found he had transferred more than $2.3 million of [...]
Tags: "disgraceful and dishonourable" · Discipline · Legal Practice Act · Legal Services Commissioner · Misconduct · Trust money · common law · conflicts · duty and interest · prosecutorial failures

