Disturbing new developments in personal costs orders against solicitors

http://www.middletons.com/news/news.asp?id=657

Disturbing new developments in personal costs orders against solicitors

4.7.12

Recently, in an unusual piece of litigation, the New South Wales Supreme Court further refined the test for making personal cost orders against solicitors.

The power of a court to make cost orders against solicitors is found in both section 99 of the Civil Procedure Act 2010 and sections 345-348 of the Legal Profession Act 2004.

It has been generally accepted that the jurisdiction should not be exercised lightly and that a solicitor had to display a serious (or moderately serious) degree of “misfeasance” before the jurisdiction would be invoked.