Decision record
Cosier, Barry Ferguson
Allegation / charges
1. Settled party/party costs with the defendant without instructions from the complainant 2. Refused to release all relevant matter files in circumstances where he had no reason to retain same 3(a). Failed to issue a bill of costs to the complainant prior to taking costs 3(b). Duplicated claims for GST in his bill 3(c). Included in his bill items which were workers compensation items contrary to Section 116 of the Workplace (Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act, 1998) 3(d). Issued a bill containing unrelated items 4. Failed to account generally — A reasonable likelihood of a finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The matter concerned a solicitor's conduct involving settling party/party costs without instructions, refusing to release files, billing irregularities (failure to issue a bill before taking costs, duplicated GST, improper workers compensation items, unrelated items), and failure to account. The decision indicated a reasonable likelihood of a finding of unsatisfactory professional conduct, without stating any express dishonesty finding or imposing a specific sanction.
Duties found breached:
- Proper basis for allegations
- Complaints procedure and handling
- Advise on alternatives, settlement and outcome
- Handle inadvertently received material
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
Documents
No documents recorded.
Source: https://portal.olsc.nsw.gov.au/dasearchbn/daresultdetail/?id=075ea7df-b633-eb11-bf74-000d3ad1941e