I’m speaking on Friday at the National Costs Lawyers Conference in Melbourne. My topic is the civil and disciplinary consequences of making serious allegations without an adequate factual foundation. Obviously, some of those consequences include costs orders. The Civil Procedure Act 2010 (Vic) takes things further than the obligations imposed on lawyers previously and provides a smorgasbord of hitherto unexplored remedial powers to trial judges and the Costs Court alike. The new solicitors’ conduct rules which are on their way to Victoria will extend solicitors’ obligations too in small but important ways. Think ‘allegations’ rather than ‘serious allegations’, in fact these days.
$450 gets you 6 CPD points across four categories including (thanks to me) ethics, some lunch and some wine. But you wouldn’t pay all that money just to hear me. You’d pay it to hear the Supreme Court’s Justice Croft give the keynote address, Dr Sue McNicol SC talk about legal professional privilege in taxations (I’m so waiting to have her authoritatively sort out this hoary chestnut for me), Federal Court Registrars Pringle and Burns on party-party taxations in the Federal Court, a psychologist on professional wellbeing and a panel including Cate Dealehr and two eminent interstate costs lawyers updating delegates on recent cases on costs disclosure and costs agreements.
