Between 2015 and 2017, Kheir Lawyers was retained to assist Hedair with a claim for compensation against his former employers for an alleged workplace injury to his back, head and neck.

Hedair alleged he should have been advised of the possibility that the case could be lost and the implications of losing it. He also claimed the firm should not have provided any advice without a full investigation.

According to a summary by Chief Judge Ian Harrison, Hedair believed that but for the alleged negligence of Kheir Lawyers, he would have had a viable cause of action against his employer, a reasonable prospect of success, and would have received damages.

However, his claim did not make apparent what Kheir Lawyers would have discovered if they had carried out the “investigation”, particularly given there was nothing in the pleading that approached a “satisfactory or comprehensible explanation” of his instructions.

“It is obvious to me that Hedair did not know what happened to him and was unable to give instructions,” Judge Harrison said.

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“The allegation Kheir Lawyers were retained by Hedair and so had a contractual duty to ‘investigate’ what happened, or alternatively that they failed in breach of some putative duty to do so, cannot survive as a pleaded allegation in proper form when details of what Hedair instructed them to do is entirely absent from the pleaded case.”

Judge Harrison concluded Hedair has not formulated his case, despite him making a number of attempts to do so.

“The present attempt was uncontroversially accepted to be the last opportunity that Hedair should have,” Judge Harrison said.

The proceedings against Kheir Lawyers was dismissed with costs.

The case is: Hedair v Shine Lawyers [2025] NSWSC 441 (12 May 2025)