Commenting on the unprecedented nature of the case against her client — the so-called postbox solicitor in the Banksia Securities class action — a senior barrister has told a court of her shock at the conduct of her former colleague at the bar, Norman O’Bryan, who acted as lead counsel in the scandal-ridden litigation.
The High Court has found that three asset-based lenders behaved unconscionably when they enforced thir rights under a $1.2 million loan made to a vulnerable consumer secured by a mortgage over his properties.
A high profile Tasmanian lawyer has been found guilty of professional misconduct for an “ongoing failure” to progress his client’s case or respond to her questions for two and a half decades.
A court has made orders trimming the $990 hourly fee charged by a QC while representing Jo Dyer, a friend of the woman who accused Christian Porter of rape who succeeded in having silk Sue Chrysanthou removed from a defamation suit brought by the former attorney-general.
A law firm has escaped an order for costs sought by a Melbourne city council that argued the firm had turned a blind eye to a client’s lack of credibility in an unfair dismissal case.
Christian Porter and silk Sue Chrysanthou have been ordered to pay $430,200 in legal costs to 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 litigation funder behind a scam to defraud members of a class action over the collapse of Banksia Securities has entered liquidation, and the funder’s two surviving directors will be among potential targets of attempts to recover money to pay a $21.7 million court judgment.
Last year brought economic growth and success for law firms, but 2021 was not only marked with good news. A slew of law firms were dragged into litigation by disgruntled ex-clients, with some paying out millions of dollars to resolve lawsuits accusing them of giving bad advice.
A Sydney-based barrister has been reprimanded for relying on his “gut feeling” in making baseless accusations of misconduct against the principal of a law firm.
The New South Wales Bar Association has lost an appeal seeking a financial penalty and a professional reprimand against a Sydney barrister for his “poorly judged, vulgar and inappropriate” behaviour, with an appeals court finding damage to his reputation and a hike in his insurance premium dwarfed any punishment it could dole out.