Login
Penalised lawyer should have faced bigger investigation, client says
A client who says his lawyer wronged him has complained that the legal disciplinary committee only referred one part of his complaint to the State Administrative Tribunal for determination.
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
Douglas Mateljan, a former client of Fremantle practice director Vitomir Dangubic, alleged that Western Australia’s Legal Services Complaints Committee (LSCC) denied him procedural fairness by failing to investigate his complete complaint against Dangubic.
Dangubic was found guilty of professional misconduct in November 2023 due to a delay in providing documents and for writing letters that were found to be “false and misleading”.
According to a recent Supreme Court judgment, the LPCC told Mateljan that the State Administrative Tribunal would determine the complaint in connection with Dangubic’s alleged failure to provide adequate disclosure of costs and a failure to obtain authority before retaining a Croatian lawyer to assist with work.
The tribunal was also asked to determine whether Dangubic told the Croatian lawyer that Mateljan was prepared to pay him a certain amount of money contrary to instructions or discussions prior.
In grounds of an application before the Supreme Court, Mateljan said the LSCC failed to investigate four other alleged matters.
“I respectfully ask the court to consider whether these failures, when taken together, amount to a denial of procedural fairness so serious that they engage the same principles applied by courts in cases involving miscarriage of justice – where the fairness, transparency and integrity of proceedings are fatally compromised,” Mateljan said.
In March, Mateljan wrote to the Supreme Court requesting a reduction in fees related to a proposed notice of motion. A registrar formed the view that the proposed notice would be rejected for filing.
In response, Mateljan filed the originating motion seeking leave to commence the action before Justice Michael Gething.
Justice Gething said the proposed notice was “not in a form which makes any real attempt to comply” with requirements.
“It would be an abuse of process of the court to allow an action to be commenced by such a manifestly deficient document,” he added.
Further, Justice Gething said the appropriate defendant for a judicial review application would be the Legal Practice Board.
The case: Mateljan v Legal Services Complaints Committee [2025] WASC 170 (13 May 2025)
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at: