Legal Practitioner v Council of the Law Society of the ACT

[2017] ACTCA 6

ACT Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Appeal
2. › Appeal from appeal
3. › Scope of appellate review
4. › Appellant confined to identifying error in court below
5. › Not permitted to mount fresh attack on original tribunal decision
1. Legal Profession
2. › Professional misconduct
3. › Misleading the court
4. › Whether legal practitioner deliberately or recklessly misled the Magistrates Court
5. › Whether court was misled even if only briefly
6. › Legal Profession Act 2006 (ACT), s 419
7. › Legal Profession (Solicitors) Rules 2007 (ACT), r 39.1
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › New arguments on appeal
3. › Whether argument not raised before tribunal may be raised on appeal
4. › Whether failure to raise argument below precludes reliance on appeal
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Miscarriage of justice
3. › Whether remittal warranted where same penalty inevitable on remaining findings

Quick Take

A legal practitioner's announcement in court that they have been instructed in a matter, when they have not, constitutes misleading the court even if the misleading is brief and quickly corrected. The brevity of the misleading and its inevitable discovery is not an answer to a complaint of misleading the court. On a second appeal, the appellant is confined to identifying error in the court below and cannot mount a fresh attack on the original tribunal's decision.