Hi, I just wanted some help determining any potential private lawsuits that A&H could face in this scenario?

FACT SCENARIO: (Everything is taking place in NSW)

June Hill is a solicitor who works for a mid-tier law firm, Altman and Harlin (A&H) in Sydney. She joined the law firm as a young graduate in 2017, and she has enjoyed the variety of complex work which helped enhance her skills over the years. A&H prides itself on being an innovative law firm that constantly challenges the legal profession's status quo. The partners who established the law firm, Alfred Altman and Hillary Harlin, have worked hard to remove the unwanted cultural elements that can exist in traditional law firms. For instance, the pair have created a non-hierarchical structure where junior lawyers are free to approach firm partners in the law firm on a regular basis to seek advice about their work and wider progression within the law firm. June has especially found that the open communication within A&H to be extremely helpful and has engaged and observed authentic dialogue between her colleagues. She also loves the fact that the organisation has set up different committees to promote the interests of the different firm members, including ethics, pro bono and diversity committees. In early 2020, the firm commenced talks about moving from time-based billing to value billing. However, the 2020 COVID lockdowns put a stop to these plans. In fact, the law firm struggled to move the organisation online during the first main lockdown in 2020 and, as a result, it lost a number of clients.

While A&H provided all of its staff with laptops to conduct work from home and started investing in technology to allow for secured virtual meetings to take place, it quickly became apparent that the mentoring systems in the law firm were failing. Alfred was very distressed by this loss of clients and revenue. It felt like all his hard work and years of sacrificing were for nothing. A month through the lockdown, he called for a virtual management and employees' meeting. He told everyone the following: 'I am very disappointed to tell you this. But A&H has lost many clients. We have to make a number of sacrifices to ensure our law firm can come out of this pandemic in a solid position. I suggest we put a temporary pause on all the committees' work, as well as sporting and wellbeing initiatives that we have. We cannot have any distractions... we need everyone to focus on work and attracting new clients to replace those we lost because we just did not adapt well to this lockdown. The firm also needs to lift the billable targets, targets that now need to be reached by everyone, from 5 to 7 hours per day. I understand the implications of what I am saying but, in the spirit of this law firm, I want everyone to vote in support of these changes. If you are not supportive of these changes, I will need to think of other ways to save this firm, including firing some staff. Alfred was very pleased that everyone voted in favour of the temporary changes. While he had never anticipated having to change his firm's culture like this, he told himself that this was outside his control and the only way to maintain profit and staffing levels. The partnership would survive COVID and everything would be back to normal once restrictions were over. A year later, and even though A&H has managed to rebuild its clients' base, these 'temporary measures' remain in place. June feels that the new system challenges her approach to lawyering which is broadly aligned with the ethic of care. But she believes that she owes it to A&H to try to help them recoup their losses, given all they did to train her.

In May 2021, Alfred allocates June a new big client, Candy Finance Pty Limited (CF), a financial services provider. Alfred tells June that he is trusting her with this new client, and she will be responsible for running this case from beginning to end. Janet Chasam, the managing director of CF is extremely aggressive, and she keeps making unreasonable requests of June. During their first meeting, June is so emotionally drained that she forgets to give Janet the cost agreement she had prepared. She reasons later that CF can easily afford her firm's fees, and besides, Janet - a bully - would be across all these details anyway. She is hardly a 'vulnerable' client! As she is driving home, June remembers meeting Eric Chasam, Janet's husband. She wonders how a nice man like him could be married to a woman like Janet. But again, she does not know him really as she has only met him once when he was having a meeting with Hillary regarding his company, Hayne Finance Ltd, and he asked her to deliver to Alfred his tax documents and payslips. Things become even more tense when June's remembers that Hayne Finance Ltd is a competitor of CF. She has had no dealing with that matter. However, she is concerned that the law firm might have confidential information about Hayne that may be relevant to CF's case. She approaches Alfred as she would have done normally but he is so overworked that he stares at her and says: 'Can't you figure things out by yourself or have you been on Instagram looking at influencers all day like most girls your age? Anyway, just get out of my office please!' June is upset. Hillary sees her and quickly approaches her. June explains what happened. Hillary sighs and says: 'Alfred has so much on his shoulders right now. Don't take what he said personally. He didn't mean it. Leave the matter with me. I will create an information barrier and it will be OK.' Hillary quickly establishes an information barrier by creating physical and electronic separation between June and the people who worked on the Hayne's files. She also creates password procedures to access those files and sends a memo to all the lawyers advising them about the new system. She is especially glad that, a week later at the end of June 2021, Sydney is again sent into lockdown. Now it will be even less likely that information will leak as, with everyone working from home, no mingling between staff will occur. Further, this gives her time to strengthen the information barrier that she has established by putting in place recurring educational programs and implementing compliance monitoring protocols

As part of the CF matter, June is scheduled to attend a virtual negotiation on 5 July. She is apprehensive about the meeting; June believes that, as a result of CF's negligent financial advice to invest in one of their financial products, one of its clients, Jack Coleman, has lost his home. She feels very sorry for Jack. Prior to joining the 5 July virtual negotiation, Janet organises a virtual meeting with June to discuss the case. Janet bluntly tells her: 'I want to see how tough you are and whether Alfred was right in giving you this matter. Make sure you get the best possible outcome for CF. Don't be weak. You can offer the other side up to $100,000. Nothing more.' Fed up with being underestimated, during the 5 July negotiation, June decides to be aggressive. She views the negotiation like a game of chess. Her opening move is to tell the other side that 'Jack's case has little merit, but CF is willing to make a generous offer of $30,000 so that the matter is over and we can get on with life. This is the only offer that we are willing to make.' John Briggs, Jack's lawyer, is appalled by June's approach saying: 'You've got to be kidding. My client will not accept anything lower than $1million.' June laughs and tells him: 'See you in court, champ!1 Bring your A-Game.'2 John is taken aback by June's behaviour as he knows her to be a fair lawyer. He emails her PDF file, explaining to her his client's claim. June imagines what Janet would want her to do - take an attack-dog approach - and she decides to convert the PDF to a Word document and look at its history (including all the previous versions and track changes of the document). This allows June to discover some interesting information. For instance, she sees that Jack did not fully follow the advice provided by CF which means that liability may be affected. John organises another virtual meeting with June to try to reach an agreement. During that mid-July meeting, June tells John that she knows his client did not properly follow CF's advice. A shocked John is unsure how she figured this out. She explains coyly: 'I have my ways. I am a top lawyer after all. Anyway, don't pout, it's all part of the fun of being a lawyer!'

John replies, changing his tone: 'OK, well if you're going to go about this like that, and you can't even see that CF is largely responsible for my client's loss, how about I have fun too? I know your client has never been investigated by the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) 3 and from what I know, it's above-board but perhaps it's time ASIC did pay it a visit? Surely CF doesn't need the negative publicity especially right now when financial service companies are being heavily criticised by politician, the media and the public?' June sits there silently and wonders if she should tell John that, actually, CF has been investigated a number of times by ASIC and has been issued three infringement notices4 in the past year. June looks at him and tells him: 'OK... I hear you... you are in a bind. I am going to throw you a lifeline and offer you $40,000.' After a quick chat with their respective clients, this agreement is finalised. Janet is thrilled with the outcome. Laughing, she tells June: 'John is such an incompetent lawyer. He could have taken us to the cleaners 5 if he really looked at and understood the financial product we sold Jack. I misjudged you. You are the best. Not even Alfred would have been able to get this result.' June feels ashamed by her own conduct and wonders how it is that she's the client-servant, not a lawyer. Alfred contacts her soon after and congratulates her on her win. He further tells her: 'I am putting you forward for a promotion. Also, Janet called me and says she only wants you to represent her in her divorce. Lucky you!' June feels confused and a little terrified as she is not a family lawyer. She contacts Janet to tell her that, but Janet responds: 'I don't care. You are smart and will figure it out. I just need you to do what you do best and ensure my cheating husband gets nothing. No access to the kids, no money, none of the houses...' June does not know what to say other than thank her and reminds her that this is not her area of expertise, but she will do her best. She makes it clear to Janet that, as this is not her area, her standard of care would be lower than what is normally expected of a family lawyer. June emails Janet a cost agreement and explains the document to her. During a virtual meeting in the last week of July, one of Janet two young children comes running into the room calling for her: 'Mummy!' Janet immediately gets up and starts yelling at her child: 'Get into your bedroom!!! You are 8 years old and should know better. Mummy is in an important meeting.' Janet then moves away from the camera and June can hear a loud bang followed by crying. Janet comes back on camera and jokes: 'A little bit of discipline never hurt anyone. If it was good for me, and all that! As we were saying, I want to make sure that my useless husband cannot see his two kids - even if they are useless brats. It will hurt him so much and he deserves to suffer at this point.'

June is very disturbed. She doesn't know what to do. After a fitful night's sleep, she decides to put the whole episode behind her and focus on what will support her career. She will do her best to help Janet. She is also so tired of trying to change the world. She should look after herself. She is a good person and it's time for her to have a break from trying so hard and there are always things a person would be worried about as a lawyer. At some point, you just have to stop. For example, June has noticed that Elisabeth McBeth, one of the rising stars in the law firm pre-COVID, seems to have been marginalised. Elisabeth was on maternity leave during Sydney's first lockdown in 2020 and, since coming back to work part-time, she has not been given any good cases. In fact, Elizabeth's vibrant practice has essentially disintegrated because no one looked after her clients when she was away. June heard a rumour that the law firm is trying to get rid of Elizabeth because her billing targets were too low and she is probably distracted by her child. June wonders if she should talk to Elisabeth and check up on her as she would have done in the past, before COVID. However, June decides against this as she does not want to be associated with Elisabeth as she potentially may suffer the same treatment. June instead sits in front of her laptop and starts putting together her CF bill. She remarks to herself that she is glad that A&H finally invested in a software that automates the billing. Unbeknown to her and the firm, the software is faulty and regularly double bills certain expenses.