STRONG v THE LAW SOCIETY OF NSW & ANOR [2001] NSWCA 311

New South Wales Court of Appeal

CITATION : STRONG v THE LAW SOCIETY OF NSW & ANOR [2001] NSWCA 311 FILE NUMBER(S) : CA 40644/01 HEARING DATE(S) : 10 September 2001 JUDGMENT DATE : 10 September 2001

PARTIES : GEOFFREY KEITH STRONG v THE LAW SOCIETY OF NSW & ANOR JUDGMENT OF : Mason P at 1; Davies AJA at 24; Ipp AJA at 25

Claimant: P Linegar COUNSEL : 1st Opponent: I Wales SC 2nd Opponent: Submitting Claimant: T A Williams SOLICITORS : 1st Opponent: Law Society (P R Boyd) 2nd Opponent: State Crown Solicitor CATCHWORDS : Legal Practitioners - application to stay pending proceedings in Administrative Decisions Tribunal - claim of abuse of process due to delay and death of witness - summons dismissed (ND) LEGISLATION CITED : Legal Profession Act 1987 CASES CITED: Herron v McGregor (1986) 6 NSWLR 246 Williams v Spautz (1992) 174 CLR 509 DECISION : Summons dismissed with costs

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

CA 40644/01

MASON P DAVIES AJA IPP AJA

Monday 10 September 2001 Geoffrey Keith STRONG v THE LAW SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES & ANOR JUDGMENT 1 MASON P: Proceedings under the Legal Profession Act 1987 are pending in the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The informant is the Council of the Law Society of New South Wales and the respondent is Geoffrey Keith Strong, the claimant in the proceedings in this Court. 2 The Council filed an information in the Tribunal on 8 December 2000 to which the respondent filed a reply on 19 January 2001. Affidavits have been filed and the proceedings were on 25 June 2001 set down for hearing in the Tribunal on 12 to 14 September 2001. 3 Presently before us are a summons and a notice of motion. The first opponent to the proceedings is The Law Society of New South Wales. The second opponent is the Tribunal itself and it has appropriately adopted a submitting stance. 4 The summons and notice of motion were each returnable on 10 September 2001. The summons seeks orders prohibiting or restraining the continuation of the proceedings in the Tribunal. The notice of motion seeks an interim stay of the proceedings in the Tribunal. Each application was considered briefly by Priestley JA as referrals judge on 3 October and stood over until today. 5 The claimant seeks a permanent stay of proceedings on the ground that the proceedings in the Tribunal are an abuse of process within the principles discussed in Herron v McGregor (1986) 6 NSWLR 246 at 252. In his written submissions the claimant accepted the following statement of principle taken from the majority judgment in Williams v Spautz (1992) 174 CLR 509 at 519: