A Brisbane principal has been fined $2000 and publicly reprimanded for sending “discourteous, offensive and thoughtless” correspondence to another solicitor in a domestic violence matter.
Mills John Kirin, principal solicitor and sole practitioner at Seraphus Family Lawyers, was also ordered to undertake specialist domestic violence training by the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which delivered its decision on Thursday.
The 51-year-old was charged by the Legal Services Commission (LSC) with: “On various dates between 22 February 2022 and 16 August 2022, he sent correspondence that was discourteous and that went beyond legitimate advocacy and was likely to embarrass or frustrate another person.”
The LSC argued the conduct should be characterised as professional misconduct and submitted that a fine of $10,000 was appropriate. Mr Kirin submitted his conduct should be characterised as unsatisfactory professional conduct and a fine of $1500 was appropriate.
Judicial Member Duncan McMeekin KC said he would also have made an order for Mr Kirin to attend the Queensland Law Society’s ethics course at his own cost, had the practitioner not completed this course by the time of the hearing.
Mr Kirin acted for a respondent husband in an application for a protection order under the Domestic and Family Violence Protection Act 2012 (Qld). The correspondence was sent to the female solicitor acting for the applicant wife.
The language in the emails included that the wife was “postnatally depressed”, “mentally ill” and “wandering the earth” with the clients’ infant daughter.
It also included that the wife’s solicitor was acting “belligerently”, was putting forward “blatant lies … unquestionably and uncritically”, was acting in an “overzealous” manner in a “legally aid funded crusade against” his client, and was bullying and threatening Mr Kirin.
The LSC submitted that Mr Kirin saying “the DV your so-called aggrieved alleges is at the low scale of what we see every day” had the tendency to diminish the impact of domestic violence.
“We would acknowledge that there exists at least the potential to minimise quite inappropriately the possible impact on any client of whatever the conduct may be in question,” Member McMeekin said.
“That is evidently so as the background, context and personalities involved can mean some very great significance to one and perhaps not to another.
“Given that truism, a comment by a practitioner of the type in question here ought to be avoided, ought to be well aware of that potential, and is an aggravating aspect.”
When the wife’s solicitor pointed out to Mr Kirin his potential breaches of the Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2012, his response included: “If you think you can be a BULLY and THREATEN my career, just because you are a woman fighting for women then I’m here to tell you that’s not on!”
Mr Kirin then threatened to report the wife’s solicitor to the Australian Capital Territory Law Service if she did not withdraw her complaint to the LSC.
The LSC submitted that the tribunal should take a more serious view of Mr Kirin’s impugned conduct because the correspondence was forwarded in a case that concerned allegations of domestic violence.
The tribunal disagreed, saying the correspondence was directed to a practitioner, not to a client or the public more generally.
“It is difficult to see why the fact that the recipient, a solicitor, was involved in such a case cannot have carried any added concern than any other litigious matter. Nor would a competent practitioner have been unduly troubled by the rather empty threat in the response. Its significance is more in demonstrating Mr Kirin’s lack of insight into his conduct,” Member McMeekin said.
In concluding the behaviour should be characterised as unsatisfactory professional conduct, the tribunal described Mr Kirin’s comments as “discourteous, offensive and thoughtless”.
The LSC submitted that personal and general deterrence were particularly relevant in determining the sanction.
“Aggravating features were that Mr Kirin acted with apparent impunity in continuing such conduct, and, following complaint, in making threats in seeking the complaint be withdrawn,” Member McMeekin said.
He said before the subject matter, Mr Kirin had no experience in family law or domestic violence offences, and had now stopped practising, at least temporarily.
The practitioner was also ordered to pay the LSC’s court costs.
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