LIONELWIRTH

The High Court has abolished the much-maligned so-called Chorley exception. Solicitors are no longer entitled to recover costs in respect of their time spent on their own litigation: Bell Lawyers Pty Ltd v Pentelow [2019] HCA 29.

Background

The law with respect to the po...

For something a bit different, this post concerns a few interesting law-related things rather than anything substantive.

The Staircase

The Netflix original series The Staircase is a documentary series following a murder prosecution in North Carolina. Not only is it enter...

The law will not allow a person to take advantage of his or her own wrongdoing.

As a matter of a policy, this is uncontroversial and stands to reason.

But how is this idea manifested in the law? Is it a rule of common law or a principle of equity? And what are the conseq...

Most practitioners understand the solicitor’s lien well enough: a solicitor can hold a former client’s file as security for payment of the solicitor’s unpaid fees. This can be quite useful security where the solicitor holds a client’s documents, especially original doc...

The Victorian Court of Appeal recently allowed an appeal against an order staying a proceeding brought by companies in liquidation against their former directors for knowingly assisting breaches of trust allegedly committed by the companies. The Court discussed the pri...

Yesterday, on 4 May 2016, the High Court delivered a judgment that should be of great interest to every lawyer working in litigation: Attwells v Jackson Lalic Lawyers Pty Ltd [2016] HCA 16.

Background

Lawyers acting in litigation enjoy a number of privileges in their w...

It is not uncommon to see Romalpa clauses in commercial transactions involving the sale of goods. A Romalpa clause is a contractual term by which the parties agree that title in the relevant goods remains with the vendor until the purchase price is paid in full, even t...

Most people – and hopefully all lawyers – will be familiar with the idea that criminal allegations must (ordinarily) be proved beyond reasonable doubt, whereas matters in a civil dispute need only be proved on the balance of probabilities.

But what about cases which ar...

The entry below was originally published in (May 2015) 89(5) Law Institute Journal 34. My thanks go to the Law Institute of Victoria for permitting me to republish it here.

Abstract

The law of restitution and unjust enrichment has been heavily influenced by academic co...

The statutory demand process is a familiar one to those who practise in insolvency and debt-collection. Section 459E of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) provides, inter alia, as follows:

(1)  A person may serve on a company a demand relating to:

(a)  a single debt that t...