QCAT has recommended the removal of a solicitor’s name from the roll following a finding of professional misconduct.
In a decision handed down in December, the tribunal considered a disciplinary application brought by the Legal Services Commissioner in relation to 12 charges.
None of the charges were contested and the application to QCAT proceeded on an agreed statement of facts.
The charges related to conduct that occurred between February 2010 and July 2018 that came to light after the Queensland Law Society undertook a review of the trust accounts maintained by the respondent’s practice in 2017.
The review revealed inadequacies in the trust account records and that funds held in trust had not been handled in accordance with the requirements of the governing legislation.
In April 2018 the practice was placed into the receivership by the Executive Committee of the Council of the Society. Soon after the respondent’s practising certificate expired. He did not seek to renew it.
In September 2018 matters discovered through the Society’s review were referred to the Queensland Police Service for investigation. An investigation resulted in the respondent being charged with fraud, pleading guilty and being jailed.
The first charge involved receiving funds into the trust account for the practice from several different clients to provide legal services and withdrawing sums that exceeded the value of the legal services he provided. The amount taken totalled $80,683.51.
Charges 2, 3 and 4 concerned the withdrawal of trust money without lawful authority totalling $8750.
The remaining charges related to the respondent’s failure to comply with notices issued by the Legal Services Commission pursuant to s 443 of the Legal Profession Act 2007.
The respondent admitted he engaged in either unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct and accepted that the particulars for all 12 charges were proved by the Commissioner to the requisite standard.
The Tribunal made a finding of professional misconduct for each charge:
“However, regardless of what is expressed in ss 420 and 424 of the Act, it scarcely needs to be recorded that the conduct constituting charge 1 involved patent dishonesty or that the same observation may be made in the case of each of the three charges which follow. Honesty is a fundamental and non-negotiable character attribute required of every legal practitioner. Without it, the practitioner will be lacking in the ethical substance required of a member of the profession.”1
In characterising the respondent’s conduct in relation to the seven charges of failure to comply under Section 443, the Tribunal said its seriousness should not be understated:
“The respondent’s failings in these respects go beyond a mere absence of cooperation; they constitute in each instance a refusal to comply with his statutory obligations.”2
The respondent made no attempt to adduce any evidence to “indicate remediation of his lack of fitness to practise as of now or at some future time” and agreed to the making of an order by the Tribunal recommending that his name be removed from the local roll pursuant to s 456(2)(a) of the Act.
The respondent was also ordered to pay the applicant’s costs of the application.
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