A Canberra lawyer has been reprimanded for employing a man barred from practising law after he improperly accessed more than $60,000 in client funds.
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The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Necia Wearne guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct after she employed Mark Slater as a lay associate in her law firm, Falcon Legal, for six weeks in 2018.
She was also found guilty of recklessly misleading the ACT Council of the Law Society.
Ms Wearne has been subject to disciplinary action by the Law Society on three other occasions.
Slater was found guilty of professional misconduct and struck off the ACT roll of legal practitioners in 2015.
The tribunal found that while acting as the principal solicitor of his self-titled law firm he had improperly used $63,286.50 in a client trust account without authority.
Ms Wearne did not have any dealings with Slater until July 2018, when he contacted her through her then business partner seeking work.
In a tribunal decision published this month, senior member Dominic Mulligan said Ms Wearne knew Slater had been struck off the register but believed he could be employed in an administrative capacity.
"I am satisfied that Ms Wearne was under significant financial, business, family and personal stress when the relevant events were taking place," he said.
He said while Slater should not have been employed, "it is not alleged that he caused any loss to any of her clients".
Initially employed as a casual administrative assistant in September 2018, Slater was promoted to paralegal two months later after pressing Ms Wearne to increase his pay. His duties did not change but he had access to 11 client files.
Ms Wearne conceded that six or seven times Slater had exceeded his authority and signed emails describing himself as a paralegal.
The tribunal found that Slater had been employed with the mistaken belief approval was not needed by the law society.
After discovering the mistake, Ms Wearne emailed the society's professional standards committee on November 15 asking for approval.
She said Slater had been employed the day before.
The next day, she terminated his employment.
The tribunal ruled in November 2022 that Ms Wearne be publicly reprimanded, fined $8000, and required to pay $20,000 for the society's legal costs.
Correction: Necia Wearne was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct, not professional misconduct as a previous version of this article incorrectly stated.
