The ‘suck my dick’ case
Summary A drunken male barrister approached a seated female assistant clerk whom he did not know at a dinner at a barristers’ clerks conference, lightly pushed her head downwards towards the table and...
View ArticleLegal discipline and the model paedophile
If there were such a thing as a model paedophile, the respondent in Legal Services Commissioner v Ferguson [2021] QCAT 205, a gentleman in his early 60s, might be it. He had psychiatric ill health and...
View ArticleCosts Disclosure Obligations Under the Legal Profession Act 2004 (Vic)
The legendary foundation author of Quick on Costs, Roger Quick, has asked me to put this old workmanlike paper on my blog so that he can cite it and link to it in the second edition of that monumental...
View ArticleBog-ordinary, disciplinary, civil penalty, criminal
In the Legal Profession Uniform Law (Vic), there are simple prohibitions, prohibitions breach of which are punishable by civil penalties, and criminal offences punishable by fines and jail. The civil...
View ArticleNSWCA surveys fines in NSW lawyers’ discipline decisions over a decade
Russo v Legal Services Commissioner [2016] NSWCA 306 was the subject of my previous post. The Court engaged in a comparatively sophisticated review of disciplinary outcomes in like cases. The purposes...
View ArticleNSW solicitor who didn’t pay counsel’s fees struck back on
Salvatore Russo, a solicitor of 29 years’ standing, was struck off NSW’s roll of solicitors on 16 April 2016 by NCAT. He had received payment from his client for counsel’s fees but not paid counsel...
View ArticleYet more on the obligation on Legal Services Commissioners to plead their...
Legal Services Commissioner v AL [2016] QCAT 237 is a decision of a disciplinary tribunal presided over by Justice David Thomas, President of QCAT and a Supreme Court judge. It is therefore of high...
View ArticleSolicitor’s correspondence with judge telling him how immature his conduct...
In Council of the Law Society of NSW v MAG [2016] NSWCATOD 40, a Sydney solicitor was disciplined for writing a private letter of complaint to a Federal Court judge the day after a decision was handed...
View ArticleVCAT finds practitioner guilty of conduct prejudicing administration of justice
I only learnt in the last few years that Melbourne is one of the world’s great Jewish cities, with a globally significant series of communities of orthodox adherents. One of those orthodox communities...
View ArticleThe permissible forensic uses of historical mental illness in professional...
Professor Dal Pont’s excellent text Lawyers’ Professional Responsibility (5th ed., 2013) suggests at [23.145] that mental illness will rarely provide a defence to a disciplinary prosecution, the...
View ArticleLiability of directors of incorporated legal practitioners for wrongdoing of...
Legislation regulating lawyers typically deals with directors of incorporated legal practices like Victoria’s Legal Profession Act 2004’s s. 2.7.11 as follows: ‘Each of the following is capable of...
View ArticleSuspensions which are not suspensions and orders which are not orders
VCAT’s latest decision to come to my attention, of Member Elizabeth Wentworth, involved another solicitor who did not lodge tax returns over an extended period. He was suspended from practice for 12...
View ArticleCan an administrative agency determine that a crime has been committed?
In Australian Communications and Media Authority v Today FM (Sydney) Pty Ltd [2015] HCA 7, the High Court considered when an administrative agency can make a determination of the commission of a crime....
View ArticleSelf-represented solicitor guilty of misconduct for breaching a rule...
A Western Australian disciplinary case, Legal Profession Complaints Committee v CSA [2014] WASAT 57 is interesting in a number of ways. A criminal lawyer was the manager of a strata corporation. She...
View ArticleWill solicitor who failed to pay counsel’s fees be struck off?
The Law Society of NSW wants a solicitor who persistently delayed in paying counsel struck off. The NSW equivalent of VCAT has found the professional misconduct established: Council of the Law Society...
View ArticleClyne v NSW Bar Association: the leading case on unfounded allegations
Clyne v New South Wales Bar Association (1960) 104 CLR 186; [1960] HCA 40 is a unanimous decision of the Dixon Court confirming the striking off of a Sydney barrister, Peter Clyne, for making unfounded...
View ArticleWA disciplinary tribunal says it’s misconduct for a doctor passing a crash...
Eleven and a half years after a 2002 car accident south of Port Headland a radiologist has been found guilty of the Westralians’ version of professional misconduct (‘improper professional conduct’) but...
View ArticleThe civil and disciplinary consequences of making an allegation of serious...
Friends, I need your help, again. Certain promises I made to write about and present on the civil and disciplinary consequences of making allegations of serious wrongdoing (e.g. fraud) without a...
View ArticleA reprimand is not just a slap over the wrist; the value of precedents in...
In Peeke v Medical Board of Victoria [1994] VicSC 7 at p. 6, Marks J commented in a judgment substituting a reprimand for the inferior tribunal’s 6 month suspension that a reprimand should not be...
View ArticleAnother solicitor struck off for not paying counsel’s fees
A South Australian solicitor has been struck off for a panoply of wrongs, one of which included failing to pay counsel’s fees: Legal Practitioners Conduct Board v Wharff [2012] SASCFC 116. On this...
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