A court has freed an independent children’s lawyer and counsel from proceedings brought by another lawyer, who sought an order that they both explain why they should remain on the roll of practitioners.
A lawyer known only as Mr Lietzau brought proceedings against eight legal practitioners who were involved in a dispute with his former partner, including Judge Michael Berry of the Family Court of Western Australia and Magistrate Catherine Crawford.
In the primary proceedings, Mr Lietzau sought judicial review of Judge Berry’s dismissal of an injunction that would have prevented his former partner from pursuing a family violence restraining order.
Mr Lietzau also sought judicial review of a decision by Magistrate Crawford to refuse to stay an application for the restraining order.
In the alternative, Mr Lietzau contended Judge Berry, Crawford, two independent children’s lawyers, and counsel retained by an independent children’s lawyer, had engaged in an “abuse of process”.
He sought an order that they “show cause as to why he or she should not be removed from this court’s roll of practitioners, suspended from practice or otherwise disciplined by this court”.
In dismissing the judicial review and alternative, Justice Paul Tottle said Mr Lietzau should have known it was “quite wrong” to seek this order, particularly because he was a practitioner himself.
“My impression is [Mr Lietzau] 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.
“This is cold comfort to the parties who have had to endure unjustified attacks on their professional reputations and … have been required to instruct counsel to protect those reputations,” Justice Tottle said.
Mr Lietzau has lodged an appeal.
In an application before Justices Robert Mitchell and Stephen Hall, one of the independent children’s lawyers and counsel were granted an order that Mr Lietzau pay the sum of $15,000 in security for costs.
When Mr Lietzau failed to make the payment, they applied for an order that the appeal be dismissed as far as it relates to them.
In objecting to this course of action, Mr Lietzau said he was unable to provide security for costs due to being “indigent”, but claimed additional material has made his case “now very strong indeed”.
He said their resistance to his efforts to have Magistrates Court proceedings shut down was “an abuse of process” and has “thus itself been vexatious [and] oppressive”.
Justices Mitchell and Hall said this ground was “entirely without merit”, having provided “no reason to doubt the correctness of the primary judge’s decision not to accept the appellant’s invitation to convert an application for judicial review into disciplinary proceedings”.
The appeal was dismissed as it relates to the independent children’s lawyer and counsel.
The case: Mr Lietzau (a pseudonym) v Berry [2025] WASCA 146.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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