Legal Communication and Ethical Decision Making

Get expert advice on legal communication and ethical decision making. Understand the issues and learn how to handle them ethically. Find solutions for Liam Mayne, Sally Field, and Louis Thompson cases.

LEGAL COMMUNICATION
AND ETHICAL DECISION
MAKING
1

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
LETTER OF ADVICE....................................................................................................................3
Reflection of issue...........................................................................................................................4
Liam Mayne case.........................................................................................................................4
Sally field case.............................................................................................................................5
Louis Thompson case..................................................................................................................6
2

LETTER OF ADVICE
Date: 5 June, 2021
Dear Harry,
We are provding you Legal advice regarding the issues that you are facing with the cases
regarding your clients. The client name Liam Mayne who wants to sale his town house in
Melbourne and Liam has paid settlement monies of $ 750,000 into Horne Lawyers trust account.
Later you paid the accounting fees that you held from the trust monies and transfer into the
Horne Accounting Pty ltd bank account. Your another client was Sally who want some of the
part of her mother will and want some of the money and her brother refuses to do so wanted
whole will and testaments himself and you file the case. Hearing notice by the Justice Zayn were
twice given to you but you ignored it. You were so busy with the work that you forget to tell
Sally about the hearing and didn’t show your presence in court on the date of the hearing because
of which next date of hearing was provided. But even second time you forget to inform Sally and
didn’t went for the hearing. Because of this the Justice Zayn stuck out from the case and ordered
to pay her brother of the plaintiff pay in the sum of $7,000. Your next client is Louis Thompson
is being sued for misleading conduct in a commercial lease matter. The trail took place for 3 days
and on the second day Louis was called as witness by the Mr Malik who was your opponent
lawyer. On second day of trial Mr. Malik was cross-examining your client and would have
continued next day as well. Louis wanted to solve the case as soon as possible as for that after
the discussion with you he called to the Krystal for the resolve the matter before the next day
trial but she refused.
Thank you for coming to a meeting at our office on 15th May, 2021 for discussion of legal
issues that whether you are liable to any breaches of the ethical obligations while practising as an
Australian Legal Practitioner working as a solicitor in Victoria. From the previous discussion it
has been identified that in this case with, Liam Mayne, who is a property developer, he is not
liable for any kind of breach or ethical issue because your client Liam himself had asked you to
take legal costs for this sale matter from the settlement monies. Liam had also confirmed this in
written by sending an email to you. In this second case discussion held on 15th May, 2021 about
another client Sally Field, you did miss first two hearing dates and forget to inform Sallay about
3

the same. You did take Wills and Estates law despite of the fact that you do not take such cases
but if you had taken this case only to help your sister’s best fiend then you should have been
aware of the hearing date and should have informed Sallay about the same. Even if you had
forgotten to inform Sally then at least you should have remembered the second hearing date and
shown up to the court. In your third case with Louis Thompson, you directly contacted other
applicant Krystal directly outside court without even thinking that it is not allowed to directly or
indirectly communicate to another lawyer’s client util and unless you had consult of other
lawyer. In this case you had breached an ethical and legal obligation. Not only this, you
contacted, directly outside court that too at 9 PM which is completely unethical.
In terms of all the three cases discussed with you our advice to you can be summarized
that in case of Liam you did not have any kind of ethical obligation because Liam himself asked
you to answer money and confirmed the same in written as well. In this case you were ethically
correct as you were honest in dealing with legal practise. But on the other hand, in case of Sally
you are liable for Dishonest and disreputable conduct according to Legal profession Uniform
Law Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules, 2015. You should not have engaged in directly
communicating with other Solicitor’s client directly in his absence without his permission. It is a
fundamental duty of a Solicitor that they should not seek or communicate to another Solicitor or
their employees or client. It require cooperation of a third party who is not a part of that case. In
this case as well you are liable to breach of fundamental duties of Solicitor under Legal
profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules, 2015. If overall advice is
summarized then you can write a Legal Apology Letter in which you own your mistake and
show that you are willing to take responsibility for breach of this ethical obligation and ask for
forgiveness.
We have explained out advices in detail below for all the cases:
Reflection of issue
Liam Mayne case.
Relevant fact about the Liam Mayne according to the IRAC problem solving method are: in
use the best way to sale the town house of the client and there is no legal and the ethical issue are
to be raised on you as you have used the best way to solve the case effectively. By transferring
the settlement money to the trust monies held into the Horne Accounting Pty Ltd. Bank account.
In this case all the work done you were ethical. Same case happens with one of the client name is
4

Mathew who wants to sells house and the purchaser paid the settlement monies of the $85000
into the Horne Lawyers trust account. And he inform his lawyer once the settlement money is
received to him through cleared from the trust account so that he can give monies to the lawyer
to take the legal cost of the sell matters from the settlement of the monies. Then the settlement
money is to be pay balancing in the Mathew bank account. Then the Mathew Laim the owned of
the $85000 to the lawyer for the settlement of the monies by transferring into the Horne
Accounting Pty. Ltd bank ltd.
Sally field case
Relevant fact about the Sally Field according to the IRAC problem solving method are :
Sally field who wanted some part from her mother will and some of the money but her brother
refused to do so and when she asked you to file a case in court, you did the same. Court gave the
two dates of the hearing that were to be heard by Justice Zayn but you failed to attend the
hearing both the times and did not inform Sally as well. It was your ethical responsibility to
inform your client about the date for the hearing and attend the hearing. This directly impacted
your client case. It was your legal responsibility to attend hearing on given time and date. it
affected to the court’s ethics and the laws. This case will directly affect your career as well and
you have to be responsible for the telling the Sally about the hearing date so that the case is to be
happened in the court in the front of the Justice Zayn and the decision is to be made in favour or
against of the sally. For this you can write the apology letter to the Justice Zayn for the mistake
that you have done and assure them the this will never happen again and give you the last chance
and date for the hearing so that Sally will get the justice and give the share in the will of her
mother. This apology letter might get one more chance to you to improve your mistake you done
in this case. From the apology you will get the one change and the Sally will win the case and get
some of the part of the property and money from her mother’s will. This can be explained with
the help of legal case of Legal Services Board v Forster - [2015] VSC 136. In this case defendant
faced several legal proceedings related to his conduct of practice. Defendant had not focused
upon adhering his conduct of practise and as a result he had faced legal proceedings related to his
conduct of practice. This case clearly helps in understanding that you can submit a legal apology
letter in court to Justic accepting his mistake and by giving a proper explanation of his actions of
not attending the hearing and not informing his client about the same. In the apology letter
should further ask for forgiveness and next tine he would not repeat such kind of situation again.
5

Louis Thompson case
Relevant facts about Louis Thompson case according to IRAC problem-solving method are:
Krystal Jenner was client of another solicitor (Mr Malik), trial had already started and two
hearing of the same had already been completed, cross- examination of Lowis was required to be
continued next morning, during this period, Lowis was no way required to should have
contracted Krystal any way and even if his client wanted to resolve the settlement outside court
before trial begins then he should have contracted Mr Malik for the same. According to Legal
profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules, 2015, it is first and the foremost
duty of a Solicitor that they should not seek for advice or communicate outside court to another
Solicitor, their clients, employees or any other associate without cooperation of a third part who
is not in undertaking. As per this rule, you should not have contacted Krystal Jenner at odd hours
directly without consult of another Solicitor or permission of Judge Henry. As per the Legal
profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitor’s Conduct Rules, 2015. This communication done
by you has made you liable for an ethical obligation. In such case, you can write a legal apology
letter to anther solicitor if his client provide all the details about you making directly contact to
her at night. Writing a Legal Apology letter in which details about your ethical obligation,
owning you mistake and apologizing for the same should be written. You should further ask for
apology from the other Solicitor and his client for directly contracting hr in absence of other
Solicitor and admitting your fault that you were wrong and this ethical issue would not arise
again in future. This can be explained with the help of a legal case of Craig Smay v The salt lake
tribune [2014]. In this case without consult of client, a layer files a legal case due to this a case
against a lawsuit was filed because client’s permission was not taken first. This case clearly helps
in understanding even if a lawyer needs to file a case in court, they need to take permission of
their client. In this case you (Harry) contacted other Lawer’s client without their permission is an
issue that cannot be ignored. A similar case like this occurred in past in which our client had
communicated with another Solicitor’s client but they refused to talk. In this case, other Solicitor
directly sent a notice to out Client for legal ethical obligation and their practise was suspended
and removed from the case. So, it is strongly advisable to you that you should write a legal
apology letter to another solicitor because there are many confidential information that should
remain between a Solicitor and their clients and communication of another Solicitor to their
6

clients in their absence can result in weakening of the case. In your case you tried to resolve the
case before another trial which directly means that chances of winning the case for another
Solicitor would get reduced. Harry, you should have followed your client’s advice only in a legal
and ethical manner even if your client wanted an outside court settlement.
These are the three advices that we would like to give you and even though I you have
any kind of question or query then you can contact ABC on 123456789 (Ph. No.)
Kind regards,
ABC
Lawyer working at Conduct & Co
7

8