Justice Tim Faulkner’s “dessicated” sense of humour was on display during a swearing in ceremony on Thursday, during which the new judge thanked his colleagues on the bench for their handwritten letters of welcome, one of which he said was “completely unreadable”.
A tribunal will recommend that a Perth solicitor be struck from the roll of practitioners after being found to have engaged in professional misconduct for failing to comply with requests for information by Western Australia’s legal complaints body.
She earned the nickname ‘Shock and Orr’ as senior counsel assisting the banking royal commission, but the Victoria Court of Appeal’s newest judge told those gathered to welcome her to the bench on Tuesday that she thought twice before accepting the daunting assignment.
An appeals court has found that a solicitor’s caveat over his bankrupt client’s property was valid, after the client agreed to mortgage his property as security for up to $100,000 in legal costs, saying it was the only binding costs agreement they had.
HWL Ebsworth has formally replaced its managing partner structure with a company board, following the death of managing partner Juan Martinez in March.
A barrister who had a “close personal relationship” with a judge presiding over her case has been suspended and fined $10,000, after the High Court ruled their communications gave rise to the appearance of bias and justified recusal.
The Supreme Court of Victoria has issued ground rules for deploying artificial intelligence in litigation, urging litigants to exercise “particular caution” when using ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to draft affidavits and witness statements.
A former HWL Ebsworth client has lost his argument that the firm must reimburse him for $22.8 million in expenses and interest after a judge found the law firm was negligent in advising on a joint venture contract for a Sydney land development, which allegedly lost him $130 million.
A former capital partner at HWL Ebsworth has lost his argument that he remained in the firm’s partnership until last month, after a judge found he was invalidly expelled in 2020.
The High Court has been asked to weigh in on whether a client needs to prove it could have exploited a lost commercial right in order to prevail in a law firm negligence case, after HWL Ebsworth successfully appealed a decision that found its bad advice over property in Parramatta’s ‘Auto Alley’ cost a client $2 million.