The Supreme Courts’ inherent supervisory jurisdiction (lawyers’ fees) Part 5

5. The Costs Court is given certain powers of the Supreme Court Section 17D(1)(h) gives the Costs Court any jurisdiction given to it under any Act (including the Supreme Court Act) or by the Supreme Court’s rules, a provision which might seem at first glance to be redundant, but which might be intended to avoid …

The Supreme Courts’ inherent supervisory jurisdiction (lawyers’ fees) Part 4

4.  The Supreme Court and the Costs Court are different The Taxing Master was an officer of the Supreme Court.  But the Costs Court is something different from the Supreme Court, even though it is said by the amendments to the Supreme Court Act 1986 by which it came into existence to be created within …

The Supreme Courts’ inherent supervisory jurisdiction (lawyers’ fees) Part 3

3. Other courts The supervisory jurisdiction is often spoken of as an inherent jurisdiction of superior courts of record.  So other states’ and territories’ Supreme Courts would have the same jurisdiction, albeit more amenable to statutory modification / influence than the Victorian Court’s jurisdiction.  Those other courts still jealously guard their jurisdictions against statutory incursion, …

The Supreme Courts’ inherent supervisory jurisdiction (lawyers’ fees) Part 2

2. The inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court Woolf v Snipe (1933) 48 CLR 677 is a decision of the High Court in its original jurisdiction, constituted by Sir Owen Dixon who observed at 678-679 that ‘The superior Courts of law and equity possess a jurisdiction to ascertain, by taxation, moderation, or fixation, the …

NSWCA takes inherent supervisory jurisdiction over its officers into new territory

A recent decision of the NSW Court of Appeal has reinforced the vigor and breadth of the inherent supervisory jurisdiction of Australia’s superior courts, a hobby horse of mine for a couple of years now, and applied it in the context of a solicitor who overcharged his client, a mortgagee, to the ultimate detriment of …

The inherent supervisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Courts summarised by the NSW Court of Appeal

My case note of Hartnett v Bell [2023] NSWCA 244 is here. The purpose of this sister post is to reproduce the summary of the law relating to the superior courts’ inherent jurisdiction to supervise the charging of and discipline its officers which Bell CJ set out at [123]: ‘Several statements of authority may be noted …

Disciplinary prosecutions arising out of criminal convictions and civil findings against professionals

In disciplinary proceedings, prosecutors often wrongly assume that findings in prior decisions (usually criminal convictions) are both admissible and un-challengeable by the respondent.  Neither is true, however, at least where what is relied on by the prosecutor in the disciplinary case is something more than the fact of the conviction (e.g. the fact of the …

Supreme Court sets aside default judgment in Magistrates’ Court and refers the fees to taxation instead of remitting suit for fees

Davey v Costanzo Lawyers Ltd [2021] VSC 449 is episode # c. 898 in my series  about suits for fees, ‘Many a Slip Twixt Cup and Lip’. A family law firm whose website modestly explains that they are the ‘best family lawyers’ sued its former client for professional costs and barristers’ fees for work done in …

Think twice before agreeing to punt an appeal where you and the other side are unpaid in relation to round one

Update, 19 March 2021: My Sydney colleague, Andrew Bailey, drew my attention to Longjing Pty Ltd v Perpetual Nominees Ltd [2017] NSWSC 1690 at [40]ff, which is to similar effect. Original post: In Carter v Mehmet [2021] NSWCA 32, the Court granted the respondents’  security for costs application in part because the appellant’s solicitors had much to …

Powers of compulsion and the privilege against penalties

Justice Blue’s clear and thorough reasons in Bell v Deputy Coroner of South Australia [2020] SASC 59 usefully rehearse and summarise the law relating to the privilege against penalties, its application in non-curial settings, and the circumstances in which an intention will be imputed to parliament to abrogate the privilege, including in the situation where …

Costs of the lawyer litigant: judgments all over the place

Update, 7 November 2018: the pendulum is certainly swinging in favour of pro se barristers being entitled to scale costs if they win: Pentelow v Bell Lawyers Pty Ltd [2018] NSWCA 150; Lake v Municipal Association of Victoria (No 2) [2018] VSC 660. Update, 30 November 2017: The Full Court of the Tasmanian Supreme Court …