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A solicitor who lied to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and caused his client to go unrepresented has been reprimanded and had his practising certificate suspended but will remain on the roll, despite the efforts of the ACT Law Society.
In 2019, an ACT-based practitioner was found to have engaged in professional misconduct when he knowingly misled the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) about his availability to conduct a hearing and the availability of a doctor for the hearing in the context of an adjournment application that was repeatedly dismissed.
A little later, the solicitor phoned the client and told him that he could not appear because of the “pre-arranged medical appointment”, but his client knew this was false. The solicitor advised that he and his junior solicitor could not appear so the client “would have to appear alone or seek [his own] adjournment”.
In asking him to seek the adjournment, the solicitor persuaded him that he would be most likely to receive one if the firm was no longer retained. The solicitor’s intention of saying these things “was that the firm could be terminated for ‘strategic’ reasons to facilitate the adjournment application” and advised that the client could come back.
However, the AAT ruled that the client did not need to be represented by the firm to appear, causing the client to appear unrepresented during the trial.
At the time, the solicitor was publicly reprimanded, ordered to pay costs and his practising certificate was suspended until 2025 unless he could meet conditions. In this appeal, the council of the ACT Law Society submitted that the solicitor should be removed from the roll because the original tribunal had erred in its findings.
The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (ACAT) found that the original tribunal was correct to not strike the solicitor from the roll and that it had properly considered whether he was a fit and proper person to remain part of the profession.
Despite ruling that the solicitor’s conduct was “bizarre” and “hard to understand” coming from an intelligent legal practitioner, they ruled that he was “probably” suffering from depression or mental illness at the time of his conduct. The AAT found the original tribunal acted on the right principles and appropriately considered evidence.
The entire judgement can be found on AustLII: Council of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory v LP 201920 (Appeal) [2021] ACAT 16 (11 March 2021).
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
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