The long-running dispute between Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers and Connor Malouf over a legal bill has been sent back to the District Court for a rehearing. The bill, initially $152,801.90, has seen its costs fluctuate, with two previous reductions and a restoration. The latest order, by Justices Anthony Payne, Michael Ball, and acting Judge John Griffiths, aims to ensure the court considers the fairness and reasonableness of the costs.
Initial Reduction and Dispute
The original bill was reduced to $111,274.56 by an assessor following Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers’ termination of its retainer with Malouf, who had brought the proceedings on his son’s behalf. A subsequent review of the certificate of determination saw that sum further decreased to $31,158.63, with the panel having found that Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers did not comply with disclosure obligations and failed to contract out of provisions limiting costs for personal injury matters. District Court Judge Robert Weber SC restored the assessor’s determination, having determined the review panel was “clearly erroneous” to have found Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers’ costs to be nil when the underlying litigation had yet to be resolved.
Court of Appeal’s Intervention
The NSW Court of Appeal disagreed with Judge Weber’s approach. In a decision published on August 28, Justices Payne, Ball, and Griffiths noted that Weber had not undertaken his own assessment of the reasonableness of the costs, as required by section 89 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (NSW). They found that Weber’s acceptance of the cost assessor’s assessment was not permitted under the law.
The bench clarified that on their interpretation, Judge Weber concluded schedule one of the Legal Profession Uniform Law Application Act 2014 (NSW) did not apply and that the assessment of costs was unaffected by any failure to comply with disclosure obligations imposed by the LPUL, “other than that the presumption that the fees are reasonable are lost”. His Honour simply accepted the cost assessor’s assessment because of the “benefits which costs assessors enjoy over the court”. “That is not what section 89 of the LPULAA required or permitted him to do,” Justice Payne, Justice Ball, and acting Judge Griffiths said. This error was “jurisdictional”, the bench added.
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As a result, the Court of Appeal ordered the District Court to conduct a rehearing. This time, the court must consider the fairness and reasonableness of the costs, taking into account the matters referred to in the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) and the review panel’s findings.
The bench acknowledged that there’s a realistic possibility the primary judge might agree with some or all of the review panel’s views, which substituted a lower determination of costs than the original assessor’s. If Justice Weber had undertaken his own assessment of the reasonableness of the costs, the bench found it would have been necessary for him to consider the matters referred to by the review panel as reasons why it would have substituted a lower determination of costs than those reached by the original assessor.
Citation: Malouf v Mavrakis t/as Mavrakis & Associates Lawyers (No 2) [2026] NSWCA 176.