A lawyer has been fined $12,000 and ordered to undergo more training after being found guilty of misconduct for recklessly taking thousands of dollars from trust accounts to ease his financial difficulties.
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In a recent decision, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal said the sole practitioner, who is not named due to legal reasons, including the appeal period still being active, engaged in professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct.
Agreed facts between the lawyer and the ACT Law Society, which launched legal proceedings in April, state that in mid 2016, the lawyer agreed to act for one associate in a car accident matter.
About two years later while he was suffering financial difficulties, the lawyer made a settlement offer of $30,000 to the insurer, Allianz.
While the associate instructed him to make that settlement, he did not advise the associate about whether that figure, which Allianz accepted, was reasonable.
About the same time in November 2018, the associate, who at one point owed the lawyer about $97,000 that included loan agreements between the pair, said he wanted to get some funds from the settlement to which the lawyer said "these loans have to be paid".
When the lawyer received the settlement from Allianz, he deposited it into the relevant trust account before disbursing it to a number of his accounts.
Three payments were stated for loan reduction and a fourth of $4200 was paid to his office account to pay costs of his services.
He had created a tax invoice and letter about the costs addressed to the associate, but they were never sent.
He was found to have a conflict of interest as he had a vested interest in the settlement funds.
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The lawyer, who frequently acts for clients in conveyancing matters, was also found to have withdrawn about $6300 in trust money associated with those matters to pay his conveyancing fees in six cases where he was not authorised to do so.
He failed to give the associate and eight conveyancing clients sufficient notification of their rights related to any disputes.
He also failed to properly maintain financial records between June 2019 and February 2020.
The lawyer accepted he breached numerous sections of the Legal Profession Act and was given six months to pay the fine.
He also needs to complete courses in ethics, costs and trusts accounting within 12 months.
Another order is that he be publicly reprimanded.
Tribunal presidential member Heidi Robinson said the lawyer acted recklessly related to withdrawing funds without authority.
She said the unsatisfactory conduct "falls short of the standard of competence and diligence of a reasonably competent Australian legal practitioner".
"A practitioner is expected to identify when their interests conflict with their client's and extricate themselves from those arrangements," she said.
"The respondent did not do this."
Ms Robinson also said the conduct was clearly "prejudicial to, or diminishes the public confidence in, the administration of justice and is conduct that could bring the profession into disrepute".
A tribunal spokeswoman said under the legislation, it could not disclose the identity of the lawyer until either the appeal period ends [November 25] if no appeal has been filed or any appeal has been decided.
"The tribunal will publish an identified decision after this time," she said.
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