You are a legal officer in Pasifica that works for the Legal Practitioners Unit, a government statutory body created to monitor the professional and ethical standards of all lawyers in your jurisdiction. If there are any complaints received against a lawyer, your job is to analyze the complaint and make a recommendation to the Chief Registrar as to whether the lawyer is guilty of any misconduct and to advice if there is sufficient evidence to have them charged with an offence under your legislation. You have received a complaint from Petrina Waqavesi about her lawyer who works for Denning Diplock and Associates. She had engaged the firm to file a civil suit against her former employer for wrongful termination and sexual harassment in the work place. Petrina used to be the personal assistant for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at a large bank which has branches all across the country as well as the Pacific region. She tells you that in the beginning there was no real problems with her lawyers. They had filed all the paperwork to commence litigation and she was meeting once a month with her lawyer Sereana Kingston to discuss the progress of her case. In fact part of the reason she chose Denning Diplock and Associates was because Sereana is a childhood friend of hers, both of them having grown up on Toorak Street, and so she trusted her completely. Sereana assured her the two senior partners at the firm specialize in sexual harassment cases and had a successful track record of winning large settlements for clients in this area of law. Petrina had been with the law firm for about 8mths when she received an email from Jone Denning (a senior partner at the firm), saying that he would be taking over her case from that point on as the matter would be heading to trial in 2mths time, so it was standard practice for the Barrister who would be handling the case to take over the brief from the junior associate that had been doing any of the preliminary paperwork. Petrina was prepared for this as it had been explained to her by 2 Serenana in their first meeting that one of the terms of the Client Retainer was legal fees. Specifically that a junior lawyer like her friend charges at a rate of $150 per hour, while a senior lawyer bills at $350. However it was discussed earlier on that because this was a sensitive case involving sexual harassment by a senior male in a position of authority, and to ensure Petrina was comfortable, the firm would allow Sereana to manage Petrina's file at the lower rate, but she would be supervised at all times by one of the senior lawyers. Since the senior lawyer took over the file, Petrina had only one face to face meeting with Mr Denning, and in that meeting he was extremely rude to her. He started asking her a lot of personal questions that had nothing to do with the sexual harassment case, things like if she had boyfriend and what she liked to do on the weekends for fun. After that uncomfortable meeting, Petrina asked her friend if she could take over the file again as she was not happy with Mr Denning. Concerned, Sereana explained that should not be a problem and she would speak with the other partner at the firm, Jotishna Diplock to see if she could takeover instead. After a few weeks Petrina had not heard from anyone at the law firm despite several phone calls and emails. Each time she tried to make an appointment she was told that all the lawyers were very busy and would get back to her, but no one returned her phone calls or emails. As a result, Petrina was surprised when she got a Bill of Cost in the mail for legal fees of $52,500. The accompanying letter stated that the firm had worked 150 hours on her case over an 8mth period, and the bill was charging at Mr Dennings hourly rate of $350. The letter went on to say that if she did not clear the legal fees owed within 7 days, they would have to drop her case and the law firm would be suing her to recover the money due and owing. This confused Petrina for two reasons. Firstly, the Retainer stated the law firm was taking on her case using Contingency Fees of 5% upon successful settlement, and secondly that she would be billed at Sereana's rate of $150 per hour for all pre-trial matters, and only at the senior partners billable rate once the matter was ready for trial. Not hearing back from the law firm, Petrina decided to approach her friend at home and find out what was going on. She was told by Sereana that the law firm was trying to pressure her into dropping the case as they had received new instructions from the CEO of the bank that was being sued, stating that if this sexual harassment case was to "disappear", the bank would send all their 3 national and regional conveyancing matters to the law firm. Given the size of the bank, it was too tempting an offer to resist and the senior partners decided that this potential million dollar opportunity is just what they needed to stay afloat during these fickle COVID times. The law firm suffered huge financial loss when the country was in lockdown due to COVID restrictions, and with the social distancing rules the firm was still not operating at full capacity. As such, a steady stream of regular income from the banks potential conveyancing was too tempting to refuse. Sereana told her friend that the Bill of Cost was a scare tactic by the law firm to intimidate her, and the legal fees had been exaggerated as she only clocked about 50hrs of work, not the 150hrs stated in the bill. Her friend also confirmed that she did all the litigation work up to that point and that Mr Denning only had that 1hr meeting with her, which upset Petrina and made her uncomfortable. Sereana herself has been terminated from work after she questioned what was going on with her friends case. The senior partners informed Sereana that she had placed the law firm in an ethical grey area due to her personal relationship with Petrina, and that the firm would be putting up a Chinese Wall between the litigation Team and the Conveyancing Team as a result, because they had just taken on the banks conveyancing matters. Petrina emailed Mr Diplock and Ms Denning seeking an explanation on this. She did not hear back from them for about 1mth, and when she did all they told her via email was that they would be sending her a Demand Notice for the $52, 500 that was still due and owing and very rudely adding on that once the bill was cleared, only then would they send all the paperwork and her original documentary evidence that she would need to brief another lawyer. What the law firm did not tell her is that they had stopped appearing for her in Court about a month ago, and that as a result the case was struck out by the Judge. Adding insult to injury, Mr Diplock sent out the email to Petrina not realizing that within the email chain was a forwarded online chat he was having with the President of the Law Society seeking his advice on the matter. The two men can be seen gossiping on the email chain about the sexual harassment case and are making fun of both Petrina and Sereana. This is actually how Petrina found out her case was struck out due to non appearance of counsel, as the President of the Law 4 Society says in the email chain that if the case is ever reinstated he may approach Petrina and offer his legal services on a Contingency basis also. Then if she accepts, he and Diplock can figure out between themselves how much to settle on, as he knows the CEO of the bank has Professional Indemnity insurance that will pay out any litigation damages awarded or agreed on, so they all win as the insurance company is a client of his and a major sponsor of many Law Society events. Both women are now furious and have come to the LPU to file a complaint. Sereana says she is willing to give evidence against the law firm and can disclose privileged conversations she had regarding the file, as well provide work she did taken from a duplicate file she created on her office Google Drive that she can still access.

choose a jurisdiction you are most familiar (fiji) with and apply the relevant law. You need to: Describe the contraventions of legal ethics; Identify the relevant Act, regulation, common law principle or case law that would be applicable; Describe what the lawyer should have done to be more professional and ethical; what evidence will be needed to prove the case in Court

Note:

- Pasifica is a country in the Pacific.

- Common law principles apply to Pasifica exactly the same way as they apply in other jurisdictions in the Pacific studied during the semester.

- Analyze the facts by referring to relevant legislation, Code of Ethics and case laws.

- Choose one jurisdiction in the Pacific (fiji) and answer as though the legislation and Code of Ethics of that jurisdiction also applies in Pasifika.