A Brisbane principal who employed a disqualified person for 10 months has received a $3000 fine and a public reprimand, in the first disciplinary decision of its kind.
The Legal Services Commission (LSC) brought one charge against the practitioner of having a disqualified person and employee of her law practice without approval from the Queensland Law Society, over her actions between February and December 2021.
In his Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision delivered on Monday, Justice Paul Freeburn said there had been no disciplinary decisions in the jurisdiction which related to contraventions of sections 26(1) and 129(1) of the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld).
This meant a public reprimand and fine were appropriate to dissuade other practitioners and highlight the importance of compliance with those sections, he said.
The practitioner, who was admitted in 2017, employed the person after the QLS refused to renew the person’s practising certificate in March 2020.
The practitioner strongly disputed that at the time she employed the lawyer she knew he was a disqualified person or had been refused renewal of his practising certificate.
Justice Freeburn said the evidence as to what the practitioner knew when she employed the lawyer was “something of a mess”.
He said he had difficulty accepting the practitioner’s evidence that she did not know the Society had refused to renew the lawyer’s practising certificate.
This included the verbatim nature account of her account of a pre-employment discussion with the lawyer.
“It was surprising that she was able to recall, in 2025, the details of a relatively unremarkable conversation during a 2021 job interview,” he said.
“Nothing in her oral evidence suggested that (she) had a particularly good memory.
“There are no notes of the interview or other contemporaneous documents from which she has refreshed her memory of the interview.”
The practitioner also provided statements from two witnesses – neither of whom was present at the interview – which Justice Freeburn said simply repeated what the practitioner had told them.
“In fact, I place no weight at all on these witness statements. They read as if they are testimonials for (the practitioner) rather than proper evidence of witnesses of fact,” he said.
“(The practitioner) had a part in preparing both statements, which the two witnesses prepared together.”
Justice Freeburn said it was worth noticing what was not put before the tribunal: there was no evidence of a job advertisement, no specific details of the interview such as a date, no contract of employment, no position description, and no payroll details.
He said when asked about the contract of employment, the practitioner could not produce a copy during the hearing, but after the hearing she supplied a contract dated 18 February 2021 that specified the person was employed as a Personal Assistant/Paralegal.
“The LSC has not had an opportunity to cross-examine (the practitioner) on the terms of that employment contract and why that contract, remarkably, did not find its way into her affidavit and was not referred to in any of her letters or in any of her solicitors’ letters,” he said.
He said the contract, if it was properly executed by the parties, “could not be more pertinent”, as it contained a clause:
“The Employee (person) is aware a Queensland ‘Practicing [sic] Certificate’ (‘PC’) is not required for job advertised administrative P.A./paralegal role with brief interview discussion by Employee informed Employer (firm) of no PC as Employee currently taking a break and definitely aware of junior job position.”
“If that was a term of the employment, it is quite astonishing that (the practitioner) did not include it in her affidavit,” he said.
Another clause of contract also contained detailed provisions requiring the employee to manage the firm’s trust account.
He said neither a paralegal or a paralegal “would be expected to be proactively ensuring that clients kept sufficient funds in trust to cover existing and future work” as the clause demanded.
The advertising of the person as a “Senior Paralegal” on the firm’s web page in November 2021 led to a chain of correspondence between the practitioner and the QLS, then the LSC.
The site described the person as having significant practical and legal experience, with an ”evident intention to tout that experience as an attribute of the firm”, Justice Freeburn said.
He said in an initial letter to the practitioner from the QLS “it could not be clearer” that the person she had employed was a disqualified person.
“And, of course, this is a letter from the QLS, a regulator, to a practitioner. It was hardly a routine letter,” he said.
The practitioner responded by asserting that she was entitled to employ the person, then that he was not in a paralegal role but an “administration” role.
“Given the mixed evidence on (the person’s role) and the broad spectrum of descriptions for (the person’s) position (Senior Paralegal, paralegal, personal assistant and ‘Administration’), it is hard to avoid the impression that (the practitioner) was saying what she perceived would suit her interests rather than dealing accurately and candidly with the regulator,” Justice Freeburn said.
When informed by the LSC of its investigation, her solicitors responded that she “was mistakenly of the view that a disqualified person could be employed in a non-legal practitioner role”.
“Those instructions make clear that (the practitioner) knew that the QLS had either refused to issue a practising certificate to (the person), or that the QLS had suspended his practising certificate, and that he was in a dispute with the QLS over his right to hold a practising certificate,” Justice Freeburn said.
“It is important to interrupt the chronology to point out that none of that is consistent with (her) evidence to this tribunal.
“In the tribunal, (she) has maintained that (the person) did not ever disclose to her that he was a disqualified person and that she did not know that he was a disqualified person.
“Indeed, there are a number of different versions that (the practitioner) has given of her pre-employment discussion with (the person), none of which appear to me to be reliable or accurate.”
Justice Freeburn said the breach of s 26(1) was serious and the conduct amounted to professional misconduct.
“This was not an inadvertent employment of a disqualified person,” he said.
“And, when notified, (the practitioner) rather disingenuously decided to characterise (the person’s role) role as merely administrative.
“The conduct involves a substantial failure to reach or maintain a reasonable standard of competence and diligence.”
As “a further issue” in the decision, Justice Freeburn said during the hearing the practitioner showed a “fundamental lack of awareness of her ethical obligations as a legal practitioner”.
He said the practitioner being actively involved in the taking of evidence by affidavit from two witnesses who prepared their affidavits together, was likely a breach of rule 25.1 of the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules.
“However, that specific matter was not expressly raised by the LSC, no order was sought in relation to the issue, and the issue only became apparent tangentially in the course of the hearing,” he said.
“Importantly, (the practitioner) did not have the opportunity to take legal advice on the issue.
“For those reasons the tribunal does not propose to consider the issue further beyond suggesting to (the practitioner) that she voluntarily undertake a course in Ethics offered by the QLS.”
The practitioner was ordered to pay the LSC’s costs.
Read the decision here.
All practitioners should be aware of these statutory obligations and the QLS has produced guidelines on this issue.
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