A lawyer’s efforts to derail bankruptcy proceedings brought by his former workplace have fallen apart, including an attempt to have the court appoint local regulatory bodies to provide expert opinion.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2) (FCFCOA) ordered the estate of Prateek Patial to be sequestered under the Bankruptcy Act 1966 to allow for a $54,532.34 judgment debt to be paid to his former workplace, boutique firm Kailash Lawyers.
Patial’s brief time spent at the firm for supervised legal training ended in August 2020 in a stand-off with director Amit Pall and police intervention. No further police action was taken.
The Fair Work Commission tossed Patial’s unfair dismissal claim on the grounds he was not an employee, but the former trainee lawyer has since launched proceeding after proceeding against the firm.
Judge Brana Obradovic of the FCFCOA said their long and complex history is the subject of “no less than 20 published decisions”. There are currently several proceedings in the Federal Court, including two transferred up from the district and supreme courts of NSW.
In one of the last, Patial unsuccessfully attempted to have Kailash Lawyers wound up.
Patial has been criticised by several judges, including Justice Robert Bromwich of the Federal Court, who found two applications for leave to appeal “should never have been brought”. Similarly, the Fair Work Commission found one application to be “entirely hopeless”.
In response to a creditor’s petition filed by Kailash Lawyers in November 2024, Patial made an unsuccessful application for the Law Society of NSW, the NSW Bar Association, and the Legal Services Commissioner to be appointed independent experts to provide opinion.
He specifically asked that expert reports delve into alleged errors of law or jurisdiction in the Fair Work proceedings, whether Kailash Lawyers failed to pay remuneration, and the exact amount he owed.
In an interim application filed shortly afterwards, Patial asked the FCFCOA for an extension on compliance with the bankruptcy notice on the grounds he had commenced proceedings into “genuine and substantial counter-claims and the underlying judgment debt”.
Judge Obradovic dismissed this application in the recent judgment.
Addressing Patial’s grounds, Judge Obradovic said Patial failed to make out a claim the bankruptcy notice was not validly served, that there were discrepancies in the judgment amount, and the existence of a counter-claim, set-off or cross-demand justified a stay.
On the latter, Judge Obradovic said that the fact Patial commenced a number of other proceedings “does not of itself mean that these proceedings ought to be stayed”. Further, the court “loosely” referred to them as “quasi appeals in respect of the unfair dismissal claim”.
“The court is mindful that the mere fact that an appeal has been lodged does not, without more, give rise to a duty to postpone the hearing of the petition. Patial must point to grounds having ‘a real chance of success on appeal’. He has not done so,” Judge Obradovic said.
Patial also alleged Pall made knowingly false and misleading claims under oath, but the claims were not made out on the evidence.
Similarly, serious allegations that Kailash Lawyers engaged in an abuse of process were also found not to be made out.
The Council of the Law Society of NSW refused to grant Patial a practising certificate for the years ending June 2024 and June 2025.
The case: Kailash Lawyers Pty Ltd v Prateek Patial [2025] FedCFamC2G 1432.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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