Last night I received some information from a person intimately acquainted with what went on at Slater and Gordon during The AWU Scandal.   My source is of unblemished record and was a close observer/participant in the Slater and Gordon/AWU matter at the time.   My confidential source said words to the following effect:

"Sometime prior to Ms Gillard's departure interview, the partners at Slater and Gordon had reconciled their Trust Account records with the bank statements for that account.   They discovered an irregularity with the entry in the trust account showing the source of the funds for the $67k used in the purchase of the Kerr Street property.From that point onwards it would have been damage control and save the professional indemnity insurance and therefore the firm. So, there was a lot at stake, the whole future of the firm flashed before their eyes, everything that they had worked so hard to establish was now at risk. High stakes lead to big risks."

We know from the statement of former Managing Director Peter Gordon that Slater and Gordon received "new information" in July, 1995 about the AWU Scandal.    Gordon places the word "new" in inverted commas, suggesting controversy with the term new, or perhaps that the information was new to some.   Gordon states that proper vigilance had not been observed by Gillard/Murphy.

......the partnership was extremely unhappy with both Mr Murphy and Ms Gillard, considered that proper vigilance had not been observed and that their duties of utmost good faith to their partners especially as to timely disclosure had not been met. The partnership considered terminating Mr Murphy and Ms Gillard. 

Ms Gillard elected to resign and we accepted her resignation without discussion.

I have been told that the relevant Slater & Gordon files reveal that certain relevant 'new' information was made to Bernard Murphy in July 1995, and very shortly thereafter to Ms Gillard. No evidence in any of the firm's records exists that information as to any matter which can incontrovertibly be described as wrongdoing was available to or known by either of them before this time. Shortly after this time, this 'new' information was passed on to the other partners. There was a small delay in the transmission of this information by Mr Murphy to the rest of us which I interpreted as mediated only by the serious deterioration in our relationship and the mental strain under which he obviously labored at the time. When the information was conveyed to the other partners, the firm immediately ceased acting for the AWU, for Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt. The leadership of the AWU had passed at this time from Mr Wilson to a new administration which retained Maurice Blackburn. Both Maurice Blackburn and the new administration were aware of the relevant allegations and was to our satisfaction, in a position to protect the union's interests insofar as those interests may have been affected.

On 27 November 2012, Slater and Gordon released a Media Statement about the firm's conduct in the AWU matter

For the avoidance of doubt in relation to the AWU matter:

a) Slater & Gordon acted for both a union and a union official (personally).
b) in acting for the official, Slater & Gordon obtained information:
i). that was confidential to the official; and
ii) the disclosure of which to the union would have represented a conflict between the interests of the union and the interests of the official.
c) Slater & Gordon ceased acting for both clients after it became aware of this conflict situation.

The statements that Slater and Gordon ceased to act for the AWU, for Wilson and for Blewitt is at odds with Ian Cambridge's observations in his sworn affidavit that Wilson was represented by Slater and Gordon during the negotiations that took place in August 1995 after Wilson was served with written notice he was to be charged under the union's rules.   Those negotiations resulted in the return by bank cheque of money paid into bank accounts bearing the AWU name and controlled by Bruce Wilson.   When those funds were returned, Wilson received a sham redundancy payment and left the AWU.  Cambridge swears that Wilson was represented by Slater and Gordon during that time.

The fact that Blewitt was advised to and did sign a letter asserting his claim to legal privilege and confidentiality over the Slater and Gordon conveyance and mortgage files subpoenaed by the Industrial Relations Court in 1996 is also perhaps at odds with Slater and Gordon ceasing to act for him.

Finally Nick Styant Browne told us how he felt about Ms Gillard's role in The AWU Scandal during this interview on the ABC's 7.30 program.

So far as the association was concerned, Ms Gillard claimed that she thought it was a slush fund for the re-election of a union ticket headed by Bruce Wilson that she had no involvement in the setting up of any bank accounts associated with the association and she had no involvement with the association otherwise following upon the work she did in relation to its incorporation. In respect of the property transaction involving Kerr Street, she stated that she understood Mr Blewitt was buying the property as an investment, that Mr Wilson would be a tenant and she believed that Mr Blewitt had the financial resources to fund the purchase together with a loan.

 Ms Gillard stated in the interview that she did not open a file. This was not passing advice to a rank-and-file union member; this matter involved the incorporation of a legal entity and it was most unusual that a file was not opened. Fees were waived in relation to the work that was done on the file. Then there was the question of her involvement in the purchase of the Kerr Street property and the fact that she had understood that a tenant of the property was to be her then boyfriend Mr Wilson and that was a relationship which had never been disclosed to me. I did not find out about it until August of 1995. And so they were two of the principal matters that concerned me about her conduct.

There was a spectrum of views across the partnership and Peter Gordon has said that he was willing to give Julia Gillard the benefit of the doubt, so that was one end of the spectrum. I was towards the other end of the spectrum in that I was not readily prepared to give Ms Gillard the benefit of the doubt and I made that clear. There was never any real resolution of that debate in the partnership because as events transpired, Ms Gillard agreed to resign, and so it was never necessary for the partnership to resolve itself what actions should be taken.

Ms Gillard relies for her part on the following statement:

I did nothing wrong.