A judge’s recent ruling throwing out an expert report in a trade secrets case because the law firm briefing the expert had failed to disclose its involvement in preparing the evidence is a stark reminder to solicitors their paramount duty is to the court, not to their client.
The solicitor found to have acted as a “postbox” to hide conflicts of interest in the class action over Banksia Securities’ collapse has been suspended from the roll of practitioners in Victoria for two years, after a judge found he was presently unfit to practice.
The Australian Taxation Office has finalised its protocol for dealing with claims of legal professional privilege, developed in response to large companies asserting “reckless” privilege claims which the ATO says obstruct its investigations.
The Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner has suspended wealth guru Dominique Grubisa’s law licence, saying she is “not entitled to engage in legal practice anywhere in Australia” and could face further regulatory action.
An appeals court has overturned a decision banning a lawyer from practice with retrospective effect and ordering her to pay $20,000 in legal costs, after a tribunal sanctioned her for allegedly misleading a court employee and making “offensive” remarks in 2016.
A lawyer who failed to pay $23,000 in fees to senior counsel and made a groundless complaint to the bar association to use as a “bargaining chip” engaged in professional misconduct, a tribunal has found.
The state of Queensland has brought a “hopeless” defence in a $2.5 million suit alleging a Federal Circuit judge unlawfully imprisoned a Queensland man for contempt after he failed to comply with an order for particulars, a court has heard.
Ramsay Health Care Australia has been let off the hook for using emails subpoenaed in a defamation case between two feuding surgeons at one of its hospitals, with a judge accepting that an in-house lawyer was “mortified” by her mistake and was “drowning in work” at the time.
A Perth solicitor has been reprimanded and ordered to pay a $24,000 fine after a tribunal found he had engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct for pursuing a case that was “doomed to fail”.
A law firm that recouped two-thirds of a personal injury payout in excess of the statutory cap through a “potentially misleading” costs agreement will pay back a former client $26,200 plus interest.