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A Melbourne lawyer has been found guilty of 14 charges of professional misconduct for misappropriating trust funds and failing to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees to seven barristers.
MinterEllison and Crown Resort's internal lawyers were partially at fault for misconduct unearthed in a damning Royal Commission report into the casino operator because they failed to ask whether certain actions were moral as well as legal, the commissioner has found.
Christian Porter and silk Sue Chrysanthou are fighting a $550,000 legal bill of Jo Dyer, a friend of the woman who accused Porter of rape, after she succeeded in having the barrister removed from the former attorney-general’s defamation lawsuit against the ABC.
The lawyer at the centre of a $160,000 legal battle with former employer Norton Rose Fulbright has been restrained from acting as his own corporation’s legal representative in a joint venture dispute due to a conflict of interest.
Last week’s judgment denouncing the scandalous behaviour of the legal team running the Banksia Securities class action cast a spotlight on the conduct of lawyers for some of the defendants, asking whether “untenable” defences were maintained beyond an acceptable point in the case.
The solicitor behind the successful challenge to the claim for ill-gotten spoils by the Banksia Securities class action legal team says he draws little comfort from the conclusion by the judge who strongly condemned the misconduct that the legal system is capable of regulating itself. More needs to be done to root out the systemic causes of the arrogance on display in the case, he says.
A recent High Court ruling that condemned communication between trial judges and barristers outside of court could have dire consequences, including further isolation for members of the bench, experts warn.
This week's judgment referring the conduct of lawyers behind the Banksia class action to prosecutors shows the effectiveness of unique legislative provisions in Victoria that should serve as a blueprint for federal reform, says barrister and University of New South Wales adjunct professor Dr Peter Cashman.
Lawyers running the scandal-ridden Banksia class action have been struck from the roll of practitioners, will face criminal investigation and must pay group members $11.7 million in damages.
It has been described as the darkest chapter in Victoria's legal history, an exemplar of all that is terrible with class actions in Australia. A case of greedy lawyers who found their golden egg in a group of retirees who had lost their life savings, never thinking the chickens might come home to roost. Until now.