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Lawyer hits out at ex-wife with 50-plus complaints to Legal Practice Board
A legal practitioner in the midst of a parenting dispute with his ex-wife, also a lawyer, has been criticised for the dozens of complaints he has made about her and her solicitors to the Legal Practice Board.
Naomi Neilson
A lawyer who claimed her ex-husband made more than 50 complaints about her to the Legal Practice Board has told a court she is the victim of a “relentless campaign” to ruin her reputation.
“I find it extremely distressing that he is saying all of these things (and appears to genuinely believe them) and so broadly across my profession,” the ex-wife, whose name has been protected, submitted. She and her ex-husband have been referred to as Mrs and Mr Lietzau.
Amid parenting proceedings, Mrs Lietzau sought a family violence restraining order because Mr Lietzau made more than 50 complaints about either herself or her solicitors to the Legal Practice Board.
Shortly afterwards, Mr Lietzau applied to the Family Court for an anti-suit injunction to restrain his ex-wife from proceeding with her family violence restraining order application in the Magistrates Court.
Judge Michael Berry found Mr Lietzau’s complaints amounted to a form of non-physical family violence towards Mrs Lietzau.
Referring to his complaints against Mrs Lietzau’s solicitors, Judge Berry said it was “coercive and controlling of the mother, and likely to create additional stress and further issues” to her.
After this was dismissed, Mr Lietzau applied to the Magistrates Court for an order to stay the family violence restraining order application.
In those proceedings, Mrs Lietzau submitted she received a call from the Legal Practice Board about a complaint that related to a conversation she had with a “very senior member of the judiciary”.
She said this indicated Mr Lietzau “has been trawling through his mind to find anything and anyone he can complain about”. She added the Legal Practice Board supported her family violence application.
When this failed, Mr Lietzau applied for judicial review before the Supreme Court of Western Australia, but this was also dismissed.
In his recent judgment, Justice Paul Tottle criticised Mr Lietzau for pursuing a ground that would have forced his ex-wife and her lawyers to “show cause to this court as to why he or she should not be removed from … the roll of practitioners, suspended or otherwise disciplined”.
Justice Tottle said there was no merit in this ground, the application for relief was “vexatious and scandalous”, fell outside any relief that could be conceivably given, and should never have been made.
“The applicant is a legal practitioner … he ought to have known that it was quite wrong to seek the relief sought in ground five.
“My impression is the applicant is so suffused with emotion generated by the parenting proceedings and issues relating to the care of his children that he has lost all professional objectivity,” Justice Tottle said.
“This is cold comfort to the other parties who have had to endure unjustified attacks on their professional reputations.”
The case is Mr Lietzau v Berry [2025] WASC 56 (26 February 2025).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
