What a cosy little profession the law is. Too bad for the public.
Justices Miles, Gallop and Higgins, the three resident ACT judges, thought this week that the protection of one of their kind was much more important than protection of the public. And thus they suppressed the name of two Canberra lawyers whose is being accused by the Law Society of misusing clients’ money. The Law Society is calling on the full bench of the Supreme Court to take disciplinary action against the two lawyers.
Every lawyer in town knows who the lawyers are. So do most of the medicos and journalists.
The really sad thing about this case is that these lawyers practice in the personal-injuries area. They “”represent” mug wage earners injured at work and people injured in car accidents.
But Their Honours are not prepared to allow the public to know their names. The judges are prepared to allow them to take on new clients. Unsuspecting mug members of the public could go into the offices of this legal firm imagining nothing might be wrong.
The judges have suppressed the names of the lawyers pending the outcome of the case. They should have suppressed their right to practice pending the outcome of the case.
Or am I wrong? Does the Law Society put cases to the Supreme Court without a solid basis in fact? Perhaps the Law Society often trumps up charges against lawyers and the lawyers need the protection of the Supreme Court against being named in proceedings and having their practices needlessly ruined because the charges are unlikely to be sustained.
I think not. More likely, the Law Society has a solid, well-founded case. The Law Society is usually fairly good a protecting its own. It forgives slight transgressions readily. A chap is allowed to get drunk in the club. But if there is a really rotten apple, the chap has to be black-balled smartly for the good of the club.
The society alleges the two lawyers deliberately delayed paying barristers and doctors for professional work done on behalf of clients. Rather than pay the money out of trust accounts they shovelled the money into their office account and then took money out of their office account to put in an interest bearing cash management account. In short, the society asserts, the lawyers misused other people’s money. And further, that one of the partners tried to cover up the misdeeds with a misrepresentation.
Very silly of them not to pay the barristers, though. A sure fire way to get black-balled is to treat another club member badly.
The real trouble, though, is the conduct of the clients’ cases _ usually injured workers. You can deduce the sort of thing that has been going on. From what has come out so far, if it is true, it wouldn’t surprise me if this firm has not put in the solid work required to present a personal-injuries case to court. And then rather than test case at a hearing, where a lack of homework might be exposed, or rather than present a solid case to a defendant’s insurance company, they have settled up cheap to prevent exposure. Too bad for the injured worker.
I think this case should bring great shame on the ACT legal and judicial fraternity. It is an appalling case of putting the profession first and the public can go jump. The Law Society did not put up much of fight to have the lawyers named.
Imagine if you were an injured worker with no idea as to which lawyer was good, and which was bad. Perhaps your union might suggest which lawyer you ought to go to. Who knows, the very lawyers involved in this case might be the ones recommended by your union. Because of the suppression order, the injured worker would have no idea whether a legal firm recommended by his or her union is involved in this case. It might have been the practice of the union to refer to a particular firm. The injured worker is none the wiser.
If they were going to suppress the names, the judges should have demanded that the firm cease practice pending the outcome of the case. Preferably, the judges should have recognised the public interest in prospective litigants knowing that the Law Society feels it has a prima facie against two lawyers is far greater than the personal interest of the two lawyers concerned.
Yes, there is a presumption of innocence and that there should be no punishment without proven crime; but this is not a criminal case. It is a case of an allegation of serious professional misconduct. And just as accused ministers and senior public servants stand aside, so should professionals.
There is a further issue. This case is being heard in a court, and so goes to the administration of justice.
The Federal Court explained the position (and got it right) last year in the Davis case, in which a Canberra doctor was accused of indecent assault. The three judges decided not to apply a suppression order of the doctor’s name in a committal hearing, even though they recognised some potential jurors would read the reports of the committal.
They ruled that the reportage of the name arose “”out of a principle that is fundamental to our society and method of government: except in extraordinary circumstances, the courts of the land are open to the public. This principle arises out of the belief that exposure to the public scrutiny is the surest safeguard against any risk of the courts abusing their considerable powers. As few members of the public have the time, or even the inclination, to attend the courts in person, in a practical sense this principle demands that the media be free to report what goes on in them. This includes the names of the parties to the proceedings, which are ordinarily known to everyone in court”.
Apparently a different rule is to apply if accusations are to be heard against a lawyer.
Well, if prospective litigants cannot rely on the courts to protect them from innocently wandering into the office of a lawyer under formal accusations made by the Law Society, they will have to protect themselves. There is a way for prospective litigants to find out. Before anyone engages a lawyer in Canberra pending the outcome of this case, they should insist the lawyer sign a statutory declaration that he or she, is not one of the lawyers involved in the case reported on Page 3 of The Canberra Times on Tuesday.
Alternatively, perhaps the public should go on strike and not engage lawyers unless it is absolutely necessary until the outcome of this case.
Heavens, we need an open complaints procedure heard by a panel with a majority of non-lawyers.