iscoverA NSW lawyer has requested more than $90,000 in costs after he fought his former firm over superannuation, GST and PAYG debts.
Director demands $90k in costs for firm’s ATO debt
25 September 2025
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8 minute read
Justice Mark Leeming of the NSW Supreme Court awarded Charbel Elias, a solicitor and former director of Just Law Group, a gross sum costs order of $28,220 following his successful proceedings against the personal injury practice and its director, Lee Smidt.
Shortly after resigning from Just Law Group in 2024, Elias received four director penalty notices from the ATO for unpaid superannuation guarantees, GST and PAYG. The court was told Smidt had “seriously defaulted” the firm’s taxation obligations.
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The July decision awarded Elias two default judgments in the total sum of $255,161, but under the condition that he not take any steps to execute them until he has suffered “actual loss” from the notices.
With costs being the only issue that remained in the proceedings, Elias sought the sum of $92,702, which was calculated by way of over $67,840 in professional costs and $41,581 in disbursements.
However, there were a number of “larger difficulties” in the application, including that Elias was a solicitor and he had retained a legal practice of which he was the sole shareholder and director. The largest component of the costs was also work done by him.
Justice Leeming rejected the submission that Elias would be entitled to the costs for his own time acting for himself, meaning the only recoverable professional costs could be for work completed by a paralegal and practice manager – and Elias’ wife – and a law clerk.
When asked what work the paralegal and clerk completed, Elias said they assisted with reviewing material, arranging and compiling documents, and printing, copying, scanning and compiling multiple hard and electronic copies of the court books.
Given the court book was “not especially complex”, Justice Leeming said it was “improbable” that it would take a paralegal who charges $250 an hour to spend “three whole hours” on making copies. It was also “absurd” to suggest Smidt should pay $750 for an extra copy.
Justice Leeming said that of the $19,100 of paralegal time, or 29 hours, most of that was attributed to the court book preparation.
“Both the hourly rate for work which could be done by a law student or a secretary and the number of hours is excessive,” the judge said.
Turning to counsel fees, Justice Leeming noted the fees charged by the two junior counsel retained by Elias were on the “high side”, particularly because one was only a recent addition to the bar.
Contrary to submissions made by Elias, Justice Leeming considered that a costs assessor would apply a discount to one of the counsel’s fees, particularly because his fees were in line with a “senior junior with a decade or more experience, at the top of a relatively wide range”.
“This is confirmed by what I have seen and heard of his submissions, which fall short of the standards I would expect of leading junior counsel with a decade or more of experience.
“This manifests itself in a range of ways, including the fact that there were three applications for default judgment, the fact that special costs orders were made along the way and the form and content of the written and oral submissions,” Justice Leeming said.
Elias also sought disbursements for miscellaneous items that cannot be classified as disbursements, including telephone calls, printing, photocopying, stationery expenses and sundry expenses.
Justice Leeming did not accept it would be “fair and reasonable” for most of those costs to be borne by the defendants.
The $28,220 was then made up of $6,800 for professional costs, $13,400 for counsel, and $6000 for disbursements. The first two do not include GST, but the third does.
The case: Elias v Smidt (No 3) [2025] NSWSC 1062.
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