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Senior practitioner reprimanded for forging signature
A senior lawyer under pressure to finalise a matter within days has been fined and reprimanded for forging a signature on a discharge authority form.
Naomi Neilson
Experienced property practitioner Anthony Gulliver has admitted forging the signature and sending it onto the National Australia Bank, thereby representing that the appropriate person had executed the discharge authority form.
At the time of the misconduct, the office was understaffed and Mr Gulliver was under a lot of work pressure. In order to facilitate a timely settlement before the scheduled sale of the property, Mr Gulliver signed the form. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that he “ought to have known his actions were wrong”.
“This is a case of extremely poor conduct which is serious in nature. The forgery of a signature is not behaviour which is expected of any practitioner,” the tribunal found.
“The fact that he is a senior practitioner with an unblemished record assists the respondent in one sense regarding the determination of penalty but in another sense does not assist him given the presumption that ‘he should have known better’.”
Mr Gulliver’s counsel suggested his conduct could be categorised as “brain fade”, but the tribunal did not accept this explanation. Although it added that the decision to sign was “deliberate”, the tribunal noted that Mr Gulliver was remorseful, admitted guilt at an early stage, and was “extremely embarrassed by this matter”.
“The tribunal considers there is little weight to be given to specific deterrence. The respondent has learnt a lesson. He has admitted the offence. He is remorseful. He is, in my opinion, unlikely to engage in this type of conduct in the future. He has engaged in the process of investigation and this proceeding without objection,” it said.
The judgment can be read on AustLII or JADE: Victorian Legal Services Commissioner v Gulliver (Legal Practice) [2022] VCAT 181 (18 February 2022).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
