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‘I took it all’: Solicitor struck off over $483k theft from trust account
On top of a four-year term of imprisonment, an NSW lawyer has been struck off for stealing more than $480,000 from his trust account.
Naomi Neilson
Just before Christmas, Chief Justice Andrew Bell of the NSW Supreme Court found Michael Ghobrial abused his position as a lawyer and ordered his name be struck off the roll of practitioners.
“Any practitioner who abuses their position in the way the respondent did and breaches the trust of his or her clients is not entitled to remain on the roll,” the Supreme Court bench determined.
“By their actions they have demonstrated that they are unfit to do so and lacking in the essential qualities of honesty, integrity and trust required of a lawyer admitted to practice in this state.”
In a January 2019 phone call, the Law Society’s chief trust account investigator told Ghobrial that clients had informed him there was just under $50,000 in the firm’s trust account.
In response, Ghobrial said: “Yes. I took it all. I am sorry.”
Pressed on just how much he had taken, Ghobrial added: “I don’t know. I took all of it. I know I will be struck off. I am sorry.”
An investigation uncovered a total sum of $483,571.82 had been misappropriated from the proceeds of a sale of a property, and belonged to two people who were in the process of a divorce.
The thefts occurred systematically over six months and were represented by regular withdrawals of between $2,000 and $4,000.
The clients have been compensated through the Fidelity Fund.
In addition to the offences he pleaded guilty to, Ghobrial was also found to have disbursed $199,999 from the trust account in an “unauthorised way”.
“In short, the defalcations were multiple in number, two of them very substantial in amount and they all constituted a flagrant breach of the respondent’s professional and ethical obligations,” the bench said.
“By his actions, he has brought the legal profession into disgrace and abused the privilege of admission as a lawyer of the Supreme Court of NSW.”
The case is Council of the Law Society of NSW v Ghobrial [2024] NSWCA 307 (20 December 2024).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
