Author adminPosted on Categories Legal profession 1 Comment on Why are lawyers so expensive?
Most complaints about lawyers concern how high their legal fees are. The professional fees charged by lawyers are notorious. When many clients earn an average of $30-50 per hour, it can seem unfair that your lawyers charge you hundreds of dollars per hour. However, as this article will demonstrate, there are reasons why legal fees are so high.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Legal profession, Professional fees Leave a comment on How you can save on legal fees
It is well known that legal fees tend to be expensive. The good news is that as a client there are a number of ways you can reduce your legal fees, as the rest of this article will show.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Legal profession, Professional discipline Leave a comment on Sexual harassment solicitor refused practising certificate
Long time readers or this website may recall the saga of sexual pest solicitor Owen Maldwyn Hughes.
Hughes was taken to Court for sexual harassment of a Junior Solicitor and single mum named Catherine Mia Hill, who worked under him in his now defunct firm Beesley & Hughes.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Legal profession, Liberty 4 Comments on Calls for more inquiries into prosecutorial conduct as Drumgold resigns
The resignation of Shane Drumgold SC as ACT Director of Prosecutions is to be welcomed. As ACT Attorney-General Shane Rattenbury noted while accepting Shane Drumgold’s resignation, Drumgold’s role as director of public prosecutions had become “no longer tenable”.
Drumgold will now likely be fighting to save his legal career. There’s also the possibility of criminal charges.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Legal profession 4 Comments on The drums roll for Drumgold’s legal career
Walter Sofronoff KC’s damning findings against ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold SC could spell the end of Drumgold’s legal career.
This comes after it was reported that Bruce Lehrmann will sue the ACT Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions over his prosecution. The Prosecution was dropped after a hung jury.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Legal profession 2 Comments on Criminal solicitor struck off for series of bail breaches
In 2018, this blog reported that criminal lawyer Adam Raydon Magill from the firm Lawler Magill was one of a few lawyers charged with defrauding Legal Aid Queensland and laundering money for “serious and organised crime”.
Subsequently, he was granted bail on strict conditions on his own undertakings. Continue reading “Criminal solicitor struck off for series of bail breaches”
Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Defamation, Legal profession 7 Comments on Debacle after Bruce Lehrmann charges dropped
Bruce Lehrmann, the former parliamentary political staffer who was accused of raping a colleague named Brittany Higgins at Parliament House has had all charges dropped again him.
This occurred after the trial had to be postponed because Lisa Wilkinson gave a speech at The Logie Awards, and when the trial finally took place, the jury had to be discharged because of juror misconduct.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Legal profession Leave a comment on Douglas Winning refused High Court leave to appeal against corruption conviction
At about 1.00 am on Sunday 17 February 2019, police were patrolling in Rockhampton when they saw a car driving erratically and knocking over a street sign. They pulled the car over and found the driver was local solicitor Douglas “call me Doug” Winning.
A true man of style, Winning was wearing only a pair of shorts. His vehicle had sustained damage on the bonnet and a front tyre. When asked that he had been drinking, Winning nominated the amount as “a bottle of rum”, explaining that he had had a sleep since finishing it. He was slurring his words. He twice said “You’re not going to pinch me”.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Legal profession, Liberty, Professional discipline 2 Comments on British barrister beats woke Bar Standards Board
“The ethos of service and duty that used to underpin so many professions often seems to have been replaced with a claim to moral leadership by the better-educated.”
Head, hand & heart: The struggle for dignity and status in the 21st Century David Goodhart, 2020, Allen Lane, p17
In 2021, British barrister Jon Holbrook was investigated by the Bar Standards Board (BSB) over a series of social-media posts. 17 were thrown out. It decided that one of the 18 tweets in question constituted a breach of professional conduct.
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Author adminPosted on Categories Criminal law, Legal profession, Professional discipline 1 Comment on Ipswich lawyer Cameron McKenzie struck off for extortion
Cameron McKenzie has been removed from the roll of lawyers after his conviction for extortion.
Extortion
In 15 January 2017, then Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale had a number of telephone calls with the complainant Xin Li falsely purporting to be a private investigator and demanding that the complainant pay a sum of money to Yutian Li, a woman the complainant had had a relationship with. Pisasale threatened to cause detriment to the complainant, including by having him subjected to court proceedings, being sued for $200,000, incurring costs of $20,000 in court, being subjected to the adverse publicity of court proceedings and being summoned to go to court.
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