Bracewell and Southall

[2008] FamCA 687

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA

BRACEWELL & SOUTHALL [2008] FamCA 687

FAMILY LAW – PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – CONFLICT – application by the mother for the father’s solicitors to be restrained from continuing to act for the father – application granted on the basis of public interest in preserving confidence in the administration of justice

Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

Northern Territory of Australia v GPAO & JAW & Separate Representative (1998) 196 CLR 553
Bransdon and Davis and Gilbert (2007) FLC 93-328
Holborow v Macdonald Rudder [2002] WASC 265
In the marriage of L P and K D McMillan [2000] FamCA 1046
T v L (2000) 160 FLR 63
Sent and Primelife Corporation Ltd v John Fairfax Publication Pty Ltd and Hills [2002] VSC 429

APPLICANT: Ms Bracewell

RESPONDENT: Mr Southall

INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: Laurie O'Farrell

FILE NUMBER: MLC 8972 of 2007

DATE DELIVERED: 13 August 2008

PLACE DELIVERED: Melbourne

PLACE HEARD: Melbourne

JUDGMENT OF: Bennett J

HEARING DATE: 13 August 2008

REPRESENTATION

COUNSEL FOR THE APPLICANT: Ms Swart

SOLICITOR FOR THE APPLICANT: Joe Mamone Lawyer

COUNSEL FOR THE RESPONDENT: Mr DeVries

SOLICITOR FOR THE RESPONDENT: Morrison & Sawyers

COUNSEL FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: N/A

SOLICITOR FOR THE INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER: O'Farrell Robertson McMahon

Orders

IT IS ORDERED:

1. That the firm Morrison Sawers Lawyers be and is hereby restrained from continuing to act in these proceedings for the father.

2. That the father forthwith file a Notice of Address for Service.

3. That pending compliance by the father with the aforementioned Order the father’s address for service appear in the records of the Court as ….

IT IS NOTED that publication of this judgment under the pseudonym Bracewell and Southall is approved pursuant to s 121(9)(g) of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth)

FAMILY COURT OF AUSTRALIA AT MELBOURNE

FILE NUMBER: MLC 8972/2007

MS BRACEWELL

Applicant

and

MR SOUTHALL

Respondent

and

INDEPENDENT CHILDREN’S LAWYER

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Introduction

1. This matter comes before me today on the mother’s application filed 22 July 2008 to restrain the father’s solicitors, Morrison Sawers, from continuing to act for the father. The father resists the mother’s application.

2. The parenting aspects of these proceedings concern the child, a daughter, born in October 1998 and are between the father, Mr Southall, and the mother, Ms Bracewell. The parenting proceedings were instituted by the mother in the State Magistrates’ Court at Shepparton in early July 2007, were subsequently transferred to the Federal Magistrates Court at Melbourne (sitting at Shepparton) and were then transferred, at what appears to have been the point that it may have been considered to be set down for final hearing on the Shepparton Circuit, to this Court on 4 February 2008. On 5 May 2008 the matter was reviewed by Registrar Field who placed the matter in the trial notice pool with some modest priority where it still awaits allocation to a final hearing or a judge’s docket (as the case may be). I note that this is a case to which the procedural elements…