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High-profile criminal lawyer fails to scrap $130k bankruptcy notice
High-profile criminal lawyer Zali Burrows has failed to fend off a bankruptcy notice over a $130,000 legal bill.
Naomi Neilson
Ms Burrows, whose client list includes former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer and drug importer Bassam Hamzy, was unable to convince the Federal Court to put aside a bankruptcy notice served to her by her former firm Macpherson Kelley.
The failed appeal is the latest court action in a 12-year legal stoush against her former firm, which began over a $12,000 sum.
In dismissing the appeal and awarding Macpherson Kelley costs on Tuesday morning (13 June), Justice Ian Jackman said Ms Burrows faced “the very substantial obstacles of two Full Court decisions against her”.
Justice Jackman also refused Ms Burrows’ application to have the appeal referred to a Full Court, citing delay and expense.
“In my view, that constitutes substantial prejudice to (the firm).
“Further, in my view, it would be unwarranted use of the resources of this court to require two (or possibly four) additional judges to hear and decide the appeal,” Justice Jackman wrote in his judgment.
The matter dates back to a 2011 NSW Court of Appeal matter in which Ms Burrows was awarded a $12,239.83 costs order. Macpherson Kelley, then known as M&K Sydney, had advised her.
Four years later, Ms Burrows sued the firm on the grounds that they had failed to enforce the costs order and made an additional claim of $50,000 in damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
This was dismissed after the District Court found it was up to Ms Burrows to agitate the costs order but had failed to do so.
In February 2020, the District Court awarded Macpherson Kelley a $130,000 lump-sum costs order.
Macpherson Kelley submitted that a bankruptcy notice was served on 24 May 2022 in an envelope marked confidential. It was handed to a person who accepted they had authorisation to give it to Ms Burrows.
Ms Burrows claimed she did not receive or “personally become aware” of the bankruptcy notice until 16 June, more than 21 days after she was required to comply.
In three of her grounds for appeal, Ms Burrows challenged the primary judge’s finding that the notice was served in May and made “consequential reasoning” that the court did not have the power to set aside the notice or extend the time for compliance.
Justice Jackman said the “phalanx of authority has never been doubted in judicial reasoning”.
While it was unchallenged that Ms Burrows received the envelope with the bankruptcy notice in June, Justice Jackman found “this was not sufficient to disturb the orders made by the primary judge”.
The primary judge also rejected an argument that there was no evidence the person who accepted the documents knew their “specific nature” because “while it was factually true”, there was no such requirement for Macpherson Kelley to make the person aware.
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
