Lawyer’s bid to shut down former workplace misses mark

Following a string of unsuccessful proceedings, a legal practitioner tried and failed to have his previous workplace wound up.

After over a year of supervised legal training at Kailash Lawyers, Prateek Patial was escorted out of its Parramatta offices by police in August 2020 because he refused a direction from director Amit Pall to leave. There has been no further police action taken.

Since this incident, Patial pursued unfair dismissal proceedings in the Fair Work Commission, including an appeal before the full bench.

Each time, the commissioner found Patial was not an employee of Kailash Lawyers on the basis of an April 2019 agreement that expressly stated there was no “employer-employee relationship” and he was not owed employer obligations, including salary and superannuation.

Having failed in that arena, Patial turned to the Federal Court, where he sought outstanding payments for “additional work”, including IT services, relocating files, and assembling and moving furniture.

Proceedings were also filed in the NSW supreme and district courts with allegations that the agreement was unfair because it did not specify an hourly rate, but both were transferred up to the Federal Court.

In the present matter, Patial has sought that Kailash Lawyers – and three other companies connected with the firm – be wound up.

In the first iteration of his statement of claim, Patial contended he was owed a total of $55,339.20 for unpaid work, including for distributing calendars, attending a Deepawali event, and removing office furniture.

A second iteration saw the figure increase to $239,240. This was dismissed for fundamental flaws, such as an allegation that he performed additional work despite there being no cause of action pleaded.

The third and final version of his statement of claim sought a total figure of $603,900. Between the first and third iterations, Patial’s alleged hourly rate increased from $30.24 to $330.

Having noted a lack of evidence about the alleged hourly rate, Justice Scott Goodman ultimately found there was a genuine dispute.

The judge was also satisfied the demands were served “not for the purpose of winding up the companies on the ground of insolvency, but rather in order to apply pressure for the payments of debts”.

These demands were made despite Patial’s knowledge that there was an absence of any written oral shared services agreements, and absence evidence of invoices rendered to the companies for alleged work done.

In addition to dismissing Patial’s application, Justice Goodman ordered that he be restrained from issuing further statutory demands against the companies on Pall, “which are based on the same underlying facts”, until all proceedings have been determined.

The Council of the Law Society of NSW refused to grant Patial a practising certificate for the years ending June 2024 and June 2025.

Kailash Lawyers has issued Patial with a bankruptcy notice for $47,580.87, relating to an unpaid judgment debt.

The case: Kailash Lawyers Pty Ltd v Patial [2025] FCA 884