White Knights Lawyers is celebrating its first year of legal practice.

During this time, we have been fortunate enough to work on some very interesting legal engagements across diverse practice areas. More importantly, we have achieved some amazing results for our clients.

Some of the highlights include the following:

• Acting for the defendant in District Court of NSW proceedings and successfully setting aside a default judgment against the defendant valued over $275,000.00. The default judgment was also the subject of a bankruptcy notice which became invalid after our successful set aside motion. Our principal, Meena Hanna, successfully advocated the defendant’s motion before a District Court judge. We subsequently managed to settle the proceedings for a fraction of the value of the default judgment, thereby staving off bankruptcy.
• Acting for the plaintiff in District Court of NSW proceedings and successfully setting aside a judgment entered against the plaintiff which had the effect of dismissing the plaintiff’s claim and adverse costs orders for failing to appear. Our principal, Meena Hanna, successfully advocated the plaintiff’s motion before a District Court judge.
• Acting for an individual taxpayer and successfully lodging an objection to a land tax assessment issued by the Chief Commissioner of State Revenue. We successfully argued that the taxpayer should be given permission to lodge their objection outside of time and that the exemption pursuant to section 10A of the Land Tax Management Act 1956 (NSW) should apply to the taxpayer, being that the subject land was used for several purposes, each of which purpose was an exempt purpose.
• Acting for an undischarged bankrupt and successfully persuading a trustee in bankruptcy to withdraw his objection to discharge of bankruptcy, thereby reducing our client’s bankruptcy period from five years to three years.
• Acting for legal professionals the subject of consumer matter complaints before the Office of the Legal Services Commissioner and successfully defending both complaints. In both instances, the Commissioner found that there were no failures by our clients and took no further steps against our clients. Accordingly, the consumer complaints were resolved in our clients’ favour and the OLSC did not proceed to escalating the matters to disciplinary matters.
• Acting for the respondents in sex discrimination proceedings commenced in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia. We successfully settled the claim on behalf of our respondent clients, which included the employer which was allegedly vicariously liable.
• Acting for the plaintiffs in Supreme Court of NSW proceedings in the equity division including successfully defending a notice of motion seeking to dismiss our clients’ claim and an adverse costs order for want of due dispatch. The proceedings involve breaches of contractual restraints of trade by medical practitioners and are ongoing.
• Acting for a consumer and successfully recovering the total amount of her claim against a travel agent after we commenced proceedings in the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
• Acting for a shareholder and successfully recovering the total amount of their claim without commencing proceedings.
• Acting for the former employee of a professional services firm including successfully informally resolving a dispute by the former employer regarding the enforcement of contractual restraints of trade clauses.
• Acting for the defendant in criminal proceedings before the Local Court of NSW. Our client was charged with excluded person remaining in vicinity of licensed premises contrary to section 77(8)(a) of the Liquor Act 2007 (NSW) and using violence causing fear for personal safety pursuant to section 11A(1) of the Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW). The defendant was charged with these offences during the term of a good behaviour bond. We wrote representations to NSW Police on behalf of the defendant and successfully had the charge of using violence causing fear for personal safety withdrawn, and amended facts regarding the excluded persons charge to which our client pleaded guilty. We successfully obtained another good behaviour bond for the defendant on the basis of a finding of guilty without proceeding to conviction, and the court took no action regarding the breach of the existing good behaviour bond. Our principal, Meena Hanna, successfully advocated these proceedings on behalf of the defendant.
• Advising a privately owned electrical services company on its major works subcontract agreement, which formed part of the NorthConnex Project. The value of the contract to our client was over $1,000,000.00.
• Advising a privately owned contractor on its minor works agreement with a publicly listed entity.
• Acting for a university student in general misconduct proceedings involving allegations of cyber-harassment and cyber-bullying contrary to various university policies.
• Our principal, Meena Hanna, was a panellist at this year’s Litigation Funding Conference as part of the Attorneys’ Points of View panel.

The diversity of legal issues covered above is testament to our breadth of legal knowledge, problem solving abilities, and commerciality. We demonstrate each of these strengths throughout all of our litigation and advisory engagements.