Solicitors’ settlement advice immune from suit
I know for a fact that the profession does not understand the extent of the advocates’ immunity which is set out in the decision of the majority in D’Orta-Ekenaike v Victoria Legal Aid [2005] 223 CLR...
View ArticleLatest English solicitors’ liability newsletter
Here’s the latest from Reynolds Porter Chamberalain. Contents this edition include: The High Court considers the scope of a solicitor’s duty of care in his dealings with an unsophisticated client In...
View ArticleNSW Supreme Court says solicitor immune from suit for out of court omissions
Update, 12 March 2009: The advocates’ immunity part of the trial judge’s reasons did not really survive on appeal: Coshott v Barry [2009] NSWCA 34. Quite where that leaves the authority of Keefe v...
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2nd edition of Professional Liability in Australia reviewed
I was already a fan of the first edition of Judge Stephen Walmsley SC, Alister Abadee, and Ben Zipser‘s excellent Professional Liability in Australia, published by Thomson, and had been waiting for...
View ArticleJudge says finality has overtaken intimate connection as immunity touchstone
A New South Wales District Court judge has handed down an important decision on advocates’ immunity, which is under appeal. The case is Fowler v La Fontaine [2007] NSWDC 207. It is a case which...
View ArticleCases, cases
Update, 19 February 2008: Fellow Melbourne law blogger Legal Eagle has kindly written a case note on Equuscorp v Wilmoth Field Warne. Update, 21 December 2007: Another two advocates’ immunity cases: 1....
View ArticleNSW Court of Appeal on advocates’ immunity for out of court work
The NSW Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal from a decision finding that a solicitor was not immune from a negligence suit based on a failure to prepare evidence promptly, though its comments in...
View ArticleMisfeasance in public office claim against solicitor survives immunity strike...
The latest advocates’ immunity case is Noori v Leerdam [2008] NSWSC 515. The defendant solicitor was said to have been guilty of misfeasance in public office constituted by work he did for Phillip...
View ArticleFraudster’s negligence claim against appeal counsel permanently stayed as...
Update, 16 August 2010: Justice Emerton’s decision dismissing the appeal is at [2010] VSC 351. Original post: In Walsh v Croucher [2010] VSC 296, a convicted fraudster who was, at least in about the...
View ArticleA new advocates’ immunity case
On the 6th of last month, Justice Hislop of the New South Wales Supreme Court found a professional negligence claim against a solicitor to be defeated by the defence of advocates’ immunity in...
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More Corby saga lawyer shenanigans
I have been saying for a while now that Schapelle Corby’s saga is a case study in the importance of choosing your legal team wisely. Moss v Eagleston [2014] NSWSC 6 provides further analysis of the...
View ArticlePrompt extinguishment of claims met by advocates’ immunity; walk-away offers...
Young v Hones (No 3) [2014] NSWSC 499 is a decision about the costs of a lawyers’ negligence claim which was defeated by advocates’ immunity. It and the (No 2) decision are interesting because: 1....
View ArticleAdvocates’ immunity summarily defeats claim alleging negligent advice to settle
I once spent a long time writing an article called ‘Compromise of litigation and lawyers’ liability: Forensic immunity, litigation estoppels, the rule against collateral attack, confidentiality and the...
View ArticleSolis who fail to tell client about settlement offer immune from suit
Kendirjian v Lepore [2014] NSWDC 66 is only a decision of the District Court of NSW, but it purports to apply law binding on the judge, namely that identified in the NSW Court of Appeal’s decision in...
View ArticleAll-new High Court to hear advocates’ immunity appeal
The plurality judgment in the last decision of the High Court squarely about the advocates’ immunity was written by Chief Justice Gleeson and Justices Gummow, Hayne and Heydon JJ. They have now...
View ArticleJudge puts solicitors’ negligence case on ice pending outcome of High Court...
In Cairncross v Anderson [2016] NSWSC 258, Justice Button was asked to summarily dismiss a negligence claim against a solicitor on the basis that it was doomed to fail by virtue of the solicitors...
View ArticleAdvocates’ immunity: at once more powerful and narrower than most yet understand
Advocates’ immunity was, until recently, more powerful than many lawyers were aware. Since the 1 July 2015 introduction of the Legal Profession Uniform Law and the High Court’s May 2016 decision in...
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