Keen readers may recall the less-than-harmonious litigation following the cessation of employment of solicitor Jessica Townsend from law shop Banga Legal (All Is (Not) One).

In short, while Ms Townsend alleged in the FCFC (Div 2) that Banga Legal had breached the Fair Work Act, her former employer, Banga Legal, brought a separate claim in the NSW Supreme Court, alleging breach of confidence.

The latter application was recently stayed by Michael Meek J, who ordered the parties to confer and establish whether they could resolve their disputes in a single court.

Whilst these substantive issues remain ongoing, the parties have again found themselves in legal trouble. This time, the disagreement was whether law firm, Solve Legal, should be restrained from acting for Ms Townsend, on the basis of possessing confidential information.

Curiously, the alleged confidential information did not belong to a client.

Rather, it was submitted that the relevant confidential information included knowledge of solicitor Mr Samir Banga’s personality and vulnerabilities. Samir is the principal of Banga Legal.

This had been observed by a former employee of Banga Legal, Mr Shamsabad, in social occasions such as dinners, drinks and Mr Banga’s engagement party.

The alleged confidential information further included Mr Banga’s “litigation strategy”, as learnt during the course of Mr Shamsabad’s employment.

Mr Shamsabad’s knowledge of these matters was relevant because from March 2024 to July 2025, he had represented Ms Townsend in her employment dispute. At this time, he worked for Solve Legal.

Although Mr Shamsabad resigned from Solve Legal the day after the motion to restrain him from acting for Ms Townsend was filed (to commence a period of parental leave before joining the bar), Banga Legal argued that Mr Shamsabad likely shared that confidential information with Solve Legal before he left.

Therefore, they maintained that Solve Legal should be restrained from acting for Ms Townsend.

At first instance, Anthony McGrath J agreed, and made orders accordingly.

HH found that while there was no breach of confidence (which was not pleaded), Mr Shamsabad was nonetheless in possession of confidential information.

This could provide Ms Townsend with a forensic advantage and create an “obvious conflict of interest”.

Solve Legal was ordered to pay the costs of the notice of motion.

The Court of Appeal disagreed.

The appeal was brought by Solve Legal, who until this point, had not actually been a party to proceedings.

Anthony Payne JA, who delivered the leading judgment, found that this alone would be enough to set aside the earlier orders. Joinder is a matter of obligation, not discretion.

Nonetheless, HH went on to consider the merits of the application.

He first noted that the court’s jurisdiction to prevent a lawyer from acting for a client is an extraordinary power, which must be used sparingly.

The relevant test is what a fair-minded, reasonably informed member of the public would conclude as to what the proper administration of justice requires.

Considering this relatively high standard, HH noted a “paucity of evidence about any information which could merit the description ‘confidential information’.”

Observations made in a social setting cannot possibly be called “confidential information”.

Further, discussion of appropriate legal strategy in the execution of legal matters “is confidential only in the sense that employees cannot lawfully use it during their employment for their own purposes or disclose it during that employment to a competitor of their employer”.

To hold otherwise would be “antithetical to the continued existence of the legal profession” and place a significant restraint on the trade of junior lawyers, who otherwise benefit from legal training and development, from their senior colleagues.

A further issue was that the confidential information had not been specifically identified. In this respect, the dicta of James Stevenson J at [29] in Edgecliff Car Rentals, which suggests that there is no need to identify the confidential information with specificity, should not be followed.

“It is one thing to know that a solicitor has a great deal of client confidential information, but be unable to pinpoint what may be used, and another to fail to identify any confidential information.”

In any event, this authority emerges in the context of solicitor-client confidential information, which here, was not an issue.

The primary judge’s orders were therefore set aside, and the notice of motion dismissed, leaving Banga Legal to stump up the costs of proceedings.

Solve Legal Pty Ltd v All is 1 Pty Ltd (t/as Banga Legal) [2026] NSWCA 55