Montenegro v Legal Profession Admission Board

[2026] NSWCA 21

NSW Court of Appeal

Built by Barristers,
For Australian Law.

1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Judicial Review
3. › Production of documents
4. › Notice to produce
5. › Apparent relevance
6. › Whether documents sought had apparent relevance to issues in judicial review proceedings
7. › Whether application constituted fishing expedition
8. › Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), rr 21.10, 34.1
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Judicial Review
3. › Discovery
4. › Leave required for discovery in judicial review
5. › Whether discovery reasonably necessary for fair disposal of proceedings
6. › Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), rr 21.2(4), 59.7(4)
1. Evidence
2. › Legal Professional Privilege
3. › Dominant purpose test
4. › Draft reasons for decision prepared by employed legal officer of statutory board
5. › Whether draft reasons constituted legal advice
6. › Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), ss 118-119
1. Practice and Procedure
2. › Judicial Review
3. › Amendment of pleadings
4. › Leave to amend
5. › Whether leave should be granted where proposed amendments not in final form

Documents relating to a period more than three years before the impugned decisions lacked apparent relevance to the judicial review challenge and could not be ordered produced on the speculative basis that a conflict of interest in earlier proceedings 'carried over' to fresh decisions on a subsequent application.
Draft reasons prepared by a statutory board's employed legal officer for the dominant purpose of advising the board on the proper and lawful discharge of its statutory and public law obligations attract legal professional privilege, and reliance on final reasons does not waive privilege over earlier drafts.
A court will not order production or discovery to enable a party to ascertain whether an as-yet-unpleaded ground of judicial review might exist; such an application constitutes an impermissible fishing expedition.