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Melbourne lawyer guilty on 7 counts of professional misconduct

A Victorian lawyer has been found guilty of holding himself out as a solicitor in contravention of conditions on his practising certificate and misleading the Federal Circuit Court.

user iconJerome Doraisamy • 03 April 2020 • SME Law
Melbourne
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Robert Vincent Booth, who was admitted to practice in Victoria in 1971, had 10 disciplinary charges brought against him by the state’s Legal Services Commissioner.

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The charges brought pertained to the following alleged conduct: “an application to the Victorian Legal Services Board for a practising certificate for the 2016-17 year, in which the commissioner alleges that Mr Booth provided false information to the effect that he was then a volunteer at a community legal centre and had been so since 20 November 2015; acting, and holding himself out, as a solicitor with a full entitlement to practise, when at the relevant time he only held a practising certificate permitting him to engage in legal practice at a community legal service as a volunteer; and appearing before judges of the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, representing an entitlement to act and appear as a solicitor which he did not have because of the limited practising certificate he then held and misleading the court about his status as a lawyer”.

In response to charge one, concerning the making of a false declaration in an application for renewal of a practising certificate, VCAT found Mr Booth guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct.

In addition, VCAT found Mr Booth guilty on seven charges, including: holding himself out as a solicitor and then acting as a solicitor in contravention of the conditions of his practising certificate (charge two); misleading the Federal Circuit Court (FCC) by representing that he had an entitlement to act and appear as a legal practitioner (charge three); making a response to FCC knowing that the response was misleading (charge four); making a further response to FCC knowing that the response was misleading (charge six); making responses to FCC (charge eight); making responses dishonestly to FCC (charge nine); and making responses to FCC and failing to correct them (charge 10).

Two other charges brought – as alternatives to charges four and six respectively – fell away in light of guilty findings on the charges four and six.

The proceedings were adjourned to a further hearing for the purpose of hearing submissions on disposition.

Jerome Doraisamy

Jerome Doraisamy

Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly and HR Leader. He has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. In June 2024, he also assumed the editorship of HR Leader. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.

You can email Jerome at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

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