A Canberra solicitor with more than 30 years' experience has been fined $10,000 after admitting to professional misconduct that caused financial hardship for one of his clients.
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The solicitor was not named in a decision released by the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which referred to him as "legal practitioner 201818".
The decision said the man was the director of his legal practice at the time of the misconduct, which took place over about 10 months in 2014 and 2015.
He admitted two charges of professional misconduct, which related to his delay in filing a "relatively straightforward" application for a client, then deliberately misleading the client about the progress of the application.
The application was for letters of administration – an application made by an interested party to administer a person's estate when that person dies without a will.
The tribunal's decision said the solicitor's delay in filing the application "caused financial hardship to the client due to the delay in distribution of the estate funds".
"In this case the delay in completing the work in a relatively straightforward matter and the financial loss to the clients in not being able to deal with the estate funds earlier than they did are important factors," the decision said.
"Most significant was the deliberate misleading by the practitioner on a number of occasions about progress.
"Not only was this professional misconduct in our view, but it exacerbated the delay."
The solicitor acknowledged his fault and apologised, according to the decision.
However, he failed to provide a full and accurate response when questioned by the ACT Law Society council, leading to a third charge of unsatisfactory professional conduct.
The solicitor admitted to all three charges and the ACT Law Society applied to the tribunal for disciplinary orders to be made against him.
"The [solicitor] stated that this behaviour was completely out of character, that some serious family issues occurred over this period which distracted him from his work, that he deeply regretted his actions and offered to refund the client's fees," the tribunal's decision said.
As well as imposing a $10,000 fine, the tribunal ordered the solicitor to undertake an ethics course approved by the Law Society within 12 months.
