swarb.co.uk - law index
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Legal Professions - From: 1960 To: 1969
This page lists 15 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Addis v Crocker; CA 1961 - [1961] 1 QB 11
Wilkinson v Wilkinson; CA 1962 - [1962] 3 WLR 1; [1963] P 1; [1962] 1 All ER 922
In re Trepca Mines (No 2) [1962] CLY 2900; [1963] Ch 199
1962
CA
Lord Denning MR
Contract, Legal Professions
Champerty: Lord Denning MR said: "The reason why the common law condemns champerty is because of the abuses to which it may give rise. The common law fears that the champertous maintainer might be tempted, for his own personal gain, to inflame the damages, to suppress evidence, or even to suborn witnesses. These fears may be exaggerated, but, be that so or not, the law for centuries had declared champerty to be unlawful, and we cannot do otherwise than enforce the law, and I may observe that it has received statutory support, in the case of Solicitors, in Section 65 of the Solicitors Act 1957."
Solicitors Act 1957 65
1 Citers
Boulting v Association of Cinematograph, Television and Allied Technicians [1963] 2 QB 606
1963
CA
Upjohn LJ
Legal Professions, Company
There must be a real conflict and not a theoretical conflict, before a solicitor can be restrained from acting in a matter against a former client. In order to give fully informed consent, the person entitled to the benefit of the rule must: "fully understand . . not only what he is doing but also what his legal rights are, and that he is in part surrendering them." As to company directors, a company is entitled "to the undivided loyalty of its directors." The principle recognises the primacy of the interests of the company which he is trusted not to betray.
1 Citers
Attorney-General v Mulholland [1963] 1 All ER 767; [1963] 2 QB 477
1963
CA
Lord Denning MR
Media, Legal Professions
The court rejected a claim for protection from disclosure of matters passing between journalists and their sources: "it is said that however these questions were and however proper to be answered for the purpose of this inquiry, a journalist has a privilege by law entitling him to refuse to give his sources of information" and "It seems to me that the journalists put the matter much too high. The only profession that I know which is given the privilege from disclosing information to a court of law is the legal profession, and then it is not the privilege of the lawyer but of his client. Take the clergyman, the banker or the medical man. None of these is entitled to refuse to answer when directed by a judge. Let me not be mistaken. The judge will respect the confidences which each member of these honourable professions receives in the course of it, and will not direct him to answer unless not only it is relevant but also it is a proper and, indeed, necessary question in the course of justice to be put and answered. A judge is the person entrusted, on behalf of the community, to weigh these conflicting interests - to weigh on the one hand the respect due to confidence in the profession and on the other hand the ultimate interest of the community in justice being done or, in the case of a tribunal such as this, in a proper investigation being made into these serious allegations. If a judge determines that the journalist must answer, then no privilege will avail him to refuse."
1 Citers
Carl Zeiss Siftung v Rayner and Keeler Ltd (No 2); CA 1965 - [1965] Ch 596
Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court v K [1965] AC 201
1965
HL
Children, Legal Professions
Legal representatives of a party were entitled to have disclosed to them of 'behind the scenes' investigation in a care matter in which their client was involved, but should be requested to undertake not to pass on details to their client.
1 Citers
In re a Solicitor [1966] 1 WLR 604
1966
Pennycuick J
Legal Professions
The solicitor had given an undertaking to hold five leases to the order of a bank. They were not in his possession and one was subject to a prior mortgage. Complaint was made to oblige him to comply with his undertaking. Held: In the absence of evidence that it was difficult or impossible to perform an undertaking, it should normally be enforced. There was no evidence here of impossibility and the court proceeded on the basis that the solicitor was able to perform his undertaking by paying off the mortgage on the fifth lease.
1 Citers
In Re A Solicitor [1966] 1 WLR 1604
1966
Pennycuick J
Legal Professions
A solicitor (Mr Lincoln) had given undertakings to hold certain leases to the order of the Bank, but did not have them. The court considered enforcement of the undertakings. Pennycuick J said: "Prima facie, it is open to Mr Lincoln to obtain that lease by paying off the first mortgage, in which case he would be entitled to require the first mortgagee to hand over the lease to him and he could then hand over the lease in turn to the Bank. There might, of course, be circumstances in which it would be difficult or impossible for him to achieve that result, but there is no evidence before me to show that any such difficulty or impossibility exists, and in the absence of any evidence it seems to me that I ought to proceed on the basis that Mr Lincoln is able to perform this undertaking."
He went on to say: "When one comes to look at the cases it seems that in all of them what happened was that the person to whom the undertaking was given sought from the court an order upon the solicitor to do the act which he had undertaken to do, that being an act which it was within his power to do - for example, the payment of money, the entering of an appearance, or the like. In one case the application was for committal, but that part of the application was stood over, the court making an immediate order on the solicitor to perform the undertaking. It therefore appears that in the exercise of this jurisdiction, what in practice has always been done is that the court, if the circumstances warrant it, makes an order upon the solicitor to do the act which he has undertaken to do. Then if the solicitor disobeys that order, no doubt an application for committal would follow and the order would be made.
No case was cited in which the court made an order for committal upon direct application to commit for breach of the undertaking without having first made an order to perform the undertaking. I do not say that there is no jurisdiction to make such an order, but neither counsel was able to point to a case in which such an order had been made. There is a further difficulty that the court could not, it seems to me, make an order upon a solicitor to do an act except an act which lies in his power to do."
1 Citers
Sanders v Parry; 1967 - [1967] 1 WLR 753
Rondel v Worsley; HL 1967 - [1969] 1 AC 191; [1967] 3 All ER 993 HL(E); [1967] 3 WLR 1666; [1967] UKHL 5
In re the Estate of Fuld, decd (No. 4) [1968] P 727
1968
Scarman J
Legal Professions
The solicitor sought to exercise a lien for his costs over money paid direct to his client. Held: The solicitor's right exists over both the amount of a judgment in favour of the client, and the amount of an order for costs in favour of the client.
The solicitor need not be still acting for the client at the time that the money was recovered. The right of the solicitor is one which the solicitor can enforce against the client, entitling the solicitor to an injunction to prevent the payment of the fund to the client without notice to the solicitor until such time as the quantum of the solicitor's entitlement to be paid from the fund is ascertained: "It might, however, be argued that there is no fund in sight before taxation has determined the amount of it. . . Is it to be suggested, merely because the client has not ascertained the amount of the fund by agreement or taxation, that there is no fund? If this were the law, the client would indeed be able to deprive the solicitor of his lien, which, as was emphasised in Ex parte Bryant, it is the policy of the law to protect".
The lien is seen as a valuable right and one which is "the policy of the law to protect", but Scarman J said: "The duty of a Court is to intervene only if it be necessary for the solicitor's protection, and then only to the extent necessary to safeguard his lien."
1 Cites
1 Citers
In re Duncan, decd, Garfield v Fay [1968] P 306; [1968] 2 WLR 1479
1968
Ormrod J
Legal Professions, Litigation Practice, International
Ormrod J rejected a submission that where foreign lawyers are involved no privilege is recognised by an English Court if privilege is not recognised by the municipal law of the forum of the foreign lawyer. He said: "The basis of the privilege is just as apt to cover foreign legal advisers as English lawyers, provided only that the relationship of lawyer and client subsists between them. Any other conclusion would lead to an impossible position for if this court were required to investigate the position of such communications in foreign law it must first determine the foreign law, but what law governs the relationship of English client and foreign lawyer, at any rate, when no proceedings are in contemplation? There is no forum and therefore no lex fori. The nationality of the foreign lawyer is as irrelevant as his address for this purpose.
It only remains to consider the position where proceedings are already on foot in a foreign court. If disclosure is required by the law of such a court the other side will see the documents in dispute and so gain an advantage. Is that a reason for making an exception to our lex fori? In my judgment it is not. These matters are matters to be decided according to the practice of this court. I, therefore, hold that all the documents which are communications passing between the plaintiff and his foreign legal advisers are privileged, whether or not proceedings in this or any other court were contemplated when they came into existence."
1 Cites
1 Citers
Adlam v Law Society [1968] 1 WLR 6
1968
Legal Professions
1 Citers
Parry-Jones v The Law Society [1969] 1 Ch 1
1969
CA
Lord Denning MR and Diplock LJ
Legal Professions
The Society had, for regulatory purposes, exercised a power under the 1957 Act to call upon the plaintiff, a solicitor, to produce for inspection accounts and other information relating to the conduct of his clients' affairs. He sought an injunction restraining the Law Society from requiring him to produce documents that were subject to legal professional privilege without the consent of the clients to whom the privilege related. The court considered the operation of legal professional privilege in disciplinary proceedings. Held: The court confined the definition of legal professional privilege to the principle whereby a party can resist production of documents in a court of law. Legal advice privilege is a confidence which is created by an implied term in the contract between solicitor and client.
Diplock LJ said: "So far as Mr Parry-Jones' point as to privilege is concerned, privilege, of course, is irrelevant when one is not concerned with judicial or quasi-judicial proceedings because, strictly speaking, privilege refers to a right to withhold from a court, or a tribunal exercising judicial functions, material which would otherwise be admissible in evidence."
Solicitors Act 1957
1 Citers
