Civil Procedure Bill
The civil procedure landscape is changing fast. A new Evidence Act. The establishment of the Costs Court. The Federal Court’s rocket docket. The Supreme Court’s Commercial Court. The abolition of...
View ArticleA new Australian legal ethics blog
A warm welcome to the blogosphere for the Queensland Law Society’s Ethics Blog, which is in its first posts, but attracts an impressive callibre of comments. The blog has a post about a recent, rare,...
View ArticleProsecutors’ duties in professional discipline cases
There is an interesting article by Ian Wheatley at (2008) 16 Journal of Law and Medicine 193. Titled ‘The Criminalisation of Professional Misconduct Under the Health Professions Registration Act 2005...
View ArticleDuties of lawyers opposed to the unrepresented
Justice of Appeal Macfarlan with whom Justice of Appeal Tobias and Acting Justice of Appeal Sackville agreed said this in Serobian v Commonwealth Bank of Australia [2010] NSWCA 181 at [42]: ‘Where, as...
View ArticleCertification of pleadings in Victorian courts
By virtue of the Supreme Court (Chapter I Amendment No. 21) Rules 2010 and the Civil Procedure Act, 2010 This is what solicitors using the Supreme Court of Victoria are going to have to sign before...
View ArticleAnother reason not to unilaterally communicate with the Court
Unilateral communication with a judge’s associate is a dangerous practice. Unless it relates purely to procedural matters (and who knows exactly what the limits of that are), any communication with...
View ArticleCounsel’s discretion as to trial tactics
Joseph Vella purchased a knife and a black beanie and then turned up to his estranged wife’s door two days later in their company. In his quiver he also sported a baseball bat. He bashed her head in...
View ArticleFederal Court sets aside bankruptcy notice used for debt collection against...
Without first formally demanding payment of a debt, creditors served a bankruptcy notice. The debtors were insolvency practitioners and there was no suggestion that they were insolvent. Federal...
View ArticleLawyers’ Civil Procedure Act duty to correct opponents’ misapprehensions
A judge of the Supreme Court of NSW has reiterated that litigation is not a game, and foreshadowed the possibility of a personal costs order against lawyers for a respondent who took improper advantage...
View ArticleWA soli disciplined for recklessly misleading Family Court
Update, 22 September 2011: Here is the penalty decision. The Complaints Committee argued for a report to the Supreme Court recommending striking off, but the Tribunal found that was not necessary and...
View ArticleVSCA restates practitioners’ duty of honesty to Court
In Forster v. Legal Services Board [2013] VSCA 73, Kyrou AJA, with whom Weinberg and Harper JJA agreed, restated briefly the law which requires lawyers to be absolutely honest in their dealings with...
View ArticleLegal Services Commissioner’s obligations of fairness
I have previously reported Justice Finkelstein’s views about the obligations of those who prosecute proceedings for a penalty (‘‘I would hold that a regulatory body that brings a civil proceeding to...
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 ArticleWhite Industries v Flower & Hart: unfounded allegations of fraud
This post is a case note of Justice Goldberg’s famous decision in White Industries (Qld) Pty Ltd v Flower & Hart (1998) 156 ALR 169; [1998] FCA 806 as well as of associated decisions and...
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 ArticleThe costs consequences of failing to prove a responsibly advanced allegation...
The irresponsible advancement in litigation of allegations of fraud undoubtedly triggers the jurisdiction to award indemnity costs and even to make personal costs orders: White Industries (Qld) Pty Ltd...
View ArticleRules relating to unjustified allegations of fraud, etc.
This post, based on research by Zoe Dealehr, collects together the various Bar conduct rules around Australia relating to the requirement of a proper factual foundation for making allegations of...
View ArticleSection 18(d) of the Civil Procedure Act 2010 (Vic)
Section 18(d) of the Civil Procedure Act 2010 requires litigants and their lawyers alike not to make claims in civil proceedings, or defend such claims, unless ‘on the factual and legal material...
View ArticlePreliminary discovery and the need to have an adequate factual foundation...
As you will probably be sick by now of hearing, I suspect that the law relating to the need to have an adequate factual foundation before pleading fraud will be resorted to more frequently given the...
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...
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