Solicitors and barristers are obliged not to make allegations of criminality, fraud or other serious wrongdoing in ‘court documents’ without an adequate factual foundation. The rule for Victorian barristers is rule 34. This post explores what ‘court documents’ are, what ‘fraud’ means in this context, and what an adequate factual foundation is, in part by [...]

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There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

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In Walsh v PJCC&A Pty [2008] VCAT 962, beneficiaries of an estate were critical of the testator’s lawyers before death. They became his executors after his death, and appointed the firm they worked for as their solicitors. The beneficiaries sued the firm, and its solicitor-executors for unconscionable conduct and misleading or deceptive conduct. [...]

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This post is like a case book(let) rather than a text. It sets out the raw materials which bear upon the question of who as between solicitor and client owns (in the sense of is entitled to the original of) what documents typically found in a solicitor’s file. It is very long, and largely unsummarised: [...]

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Update, 15 January 2008: Senior Member Howell decided costs and penalty on 17 December 2007: [2007] VCAT 2465.  The Commissioner sought an injunction to restrain the solicitor from repeating the conduct.  Unnecessary, said Mr Howell, who refused to make any such order.  Now that the solicitor has had the law clarified, as he was entitled [...]

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Via Freivogel on Conflicts: The New York County Lawyers’ Association has published an ethics opinion on the propriety of hiring investigators to communicate with counterparties in ways which would be unethical for the lawyer hiring them. Prima facie improper with only very limited exceptions, they say. Unless what is contemplated is pre-litigation, it seems to [...]

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A newish conduct rule compels solicitors to report every dishonest act by another practitioner, and every act which is prejudicial to the administration of justice or which would diminish public confidence in its administration. This is not just my fancy; the Law Institute itself says that the rule requires dobbing in and is not only [...]

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