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Struck-off lawyer misappropriated $4m but keeps secret identity
A principal lawyer will hold onto his anonymity despite being struck off for misappropriating $4.5 million and flouting orders not to practise.
Naomi Neilson
The solicitor, known only by the pseudonym XX, was not only convicted for the misappropriation of $4,436,763.57 but was also openly defiant of the suspension of his practising certificate and both an interim and final injunction that sought to prevent him from practising.
“That disgraceful conduct was compounded by the respondent’s brazen disregard of his suspension from practice by the Law Society and his contempt on multiple occasions for serious orders of this court restraining his continuation of practice,” the full bench said.
With the support of two psychologist’s expert evidence, “exceptional orders” were made in criminal proceedings in the District Court and injunctive orders in the Supreme Court to conceal XX’s identity. This order was similarly adopted in the most recent judgment.
The Law Society said due to the causal link between his psychiatric condition and his offending – and a lack of evidence he has or will recover – it warranted a finding he is “unfit to remain on the roll”.
XX’s practising certificate was suspended in January 2019 after an investigation found that he took $1,580,000 from client trust funds.
By November 2019, XX was arrested and charged with 10 counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception. He entered a plea of guilty and was convicted at the end of the following year.
Each of the counts related to the misappropriation of $4,436,763.57 between February 2018 and May 2019. Once the repayments were taken into account, the amount was reduced to $3,248,208.81.
The Law Society suspended XX’s practising certificate in January 2019, but he commenced work with another legal practice that same month.
In April 2019, the Law Society was notified by the receiver of his former legal practice there had been a “transfer of a number of clients” to XX’s new practice and he was “involved in those matters”.
An interim injunction was granted in mid-June 2019, but XX continued to practise. He continued to do so until November 2019, despite being hit with a final injunction at the end of August.
For example, between June and October 2019, XX told clients he was engaged in relation to negligence action against their former solicitor and separate bankruptcy proceedings. He went so far as to provide them with a document from the District Court, but no such document existed.
Up to September 2019, XX also made representations to another client that he was able to provide them with advice and purported to take instructions about the liquidation of a company.
“The respondent’s conduct involved engagement with multiple clients when either without a practising certificate and also when restrained from doing so, deceit of those clients … his lack of his entitlement to be acting for them and that he was in fact suspended from practice and subject of court orders restraining him from purporting to do so.
“Still more disgraceful was his evident fabrication, at least in one case, of court documents which purported to have emanated from the District Court and been stamped accordingly,” the court found.
The case is Council of the Law Society of New South Wales v XX [2025] NSWCA 4 (4 February 2025).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
