Law Society of New South Wales -v- M (No 2) [2001] NSWADT 54

CITATION: Law Society of New South Wales -v- M (No 2) [2001] NSWADT 54 DIVISION: Legal Services Division APPLICANT PARTIES: Council of the Law Society of New South Wales RESPONDENT M FILE NUMBER: 992043 HEARING DATES: 25/05/2000 SUBMISSIONS CLOSED: 02/19/2001 DATE OF DECISION: 03/16/2001

BEFORE: Norton S - Judicial Member; Mattila J - Judicial Member; Bubniuk L - Member APPLICATION: Non publication order MATTER FOR DECISION: Application for non-publication order LEGISLATION CITED : Administrative Decisions Tribunal Act 1997 Legal Profession Act 1987 CASES CITED: APPLICANT REPRESENTATION: P Boyd, solicitor RESPONDENT In person ORDERS: 1. The Tribunal makes no further order.

Background 1 The Tribunal handed down its decision in this matter on 9 October, 2000. The facts of the actual application are sufficiently outlined in that decision and do not require repetition. 2 As noted in paragraph 6 of that decision this matter came before the Deputy President for directions on 20 March 2000 and again on 11 April 2000. On 20 March 2000 the respondent was represented by Mr Mockler. On that occasion the respondent's solicitor made an application that the matter be heard in a closed court. The respondent relied on an affidavit of himself sworn 28 February 2000. The Deputy President declined to make the order sought, but made the following order: "I direct that when the matter is listed for hearing, that is the hearing of the complaint, it shall be listed as Law Society v. M, for the legal practitioner, instead of the name of the legal practitioner. Paragraph 6 of the amended application can be dealt with by the tribunal hearing the application, and I note that on that occasions the tribunal will decide whether such order should be made in light of the fact that the information does allege professional misconduct." 3 The matter came before the Deputy President again on 11 April, 2000. On that occasion the respondent appeared in person. The respondent indicated that he requested various privacy orders be made. The Deputy President held: "I think I remain of my previous view in relation to the privacy question, that that can be decided by the tribunal that hears the information, because they will be more clear (as to) what material is involved and they can decide before they give their judgment how they are going to deal with it. They may wish to deal with it by making a privacy order and they may wish to deal with it by simply identifying people by initials rather than full names." On that occasion the matter was dealt with in a closed court.