A Brisbane-based criminal lawyer facing serious criminal charges including money laundering has today lost an application to have his licence to practise law reinstated.
Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal President Justice Martin Daubney AM dismissed an application by Adam Raydon Magill, 48, for a review of a decision by Queensland Law Society to cancel his practising certificate (PC) on November 18, 2019.
Justice Daubney, in a written 23-page decision, said: “This Tribunal’s conclusion is that (Mr Magill) is not presently a fit and proper person to hold a (PC).”
“Therefore…this Tribunal finds that the correct and preferable decision is that (Mr Magill’s) practising certificate be cancelled.”
“Accordingly, the application of review will be dismissed.”
Outside the tribunal, Mr Magill declined to comment on the ruling or whether he would appeal the decision.
Magill, who was a long-serving police officer and high-profile Brisbane detective before becoming a solicitor in September 2007, is facing charges of aggravated fraud, fraudulent falsification of records and aggravated money laundering after an 18-month Crime and Corruption Commission investigation into his law firm.
Magill was fined $9600 in the Brisbane Magistrates Court in mid-2019 after pleading guilty to five counts of breaching bail conditions, including being filmed on CCTV at a Fortitude Valley bar with an accused co-offender, a former client and accused serious drug trafficker Lam Quoc Ta.
In February, Magill failed in an appeal to the Brisbane District Court to have two of the convictions recorded against him removed.
Today’s decision comes almost seven-months after Magill failed in his application to QCAT for a stay of QLS’s decision to suspend his PC.
The application followed a QLS decision that Magill was not a fit and proper person to practise law following his convictions for repeated bail breaches on five indictable offences relating to his conduct as a legal practitioner – including money laundering, two counts of fraud on Legal Aid Queensland, fraud on his own legal practice (Lawler Magill) and falsifying a memorandum of fees.
Justice Daubney, in handing down today’s ruling, said: “The repeated breaches of bail undertaking (by Magill) are illuminative of shortfalls in (his) character of attributes which are absolutely fundamental for practising legal practitioners.”
“(Magill’s) conduct in repeatedly breaching his bail undertakings, particularly his conduct in doing so shortly having been dealt with by the Chief Magistrate (for an earlier bail breach in which no conviction was recorded), is indicative of a cavalier attitude to one of the most basic and essential attributes of a practising legal practitioner.”
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