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WA solicitor to face strike-off application in Supreme Court
The director of a West Perth firm has been suspended while he waits for the Supreme Court to decide if his name should be struck from the roll.
Naomi Neilson
John Andrew Robertson and Williams + Hughes. Credit: Business News / LinkedIn
John Andrew Robertson, director and principal of Williams + Hughes, will face the Western Australian Supreme Court after the State Administrative Tribunal found he engaged in professional misconduct in July 2019.
In three, he sent two sets of correspondence to another practitioner and a third to the associate of a Supreme Court Justice, all of which included statements he knew to be misleading, and “with the intention to mislead”.
Robertson also filed two affidavits that contained misleading statements.
Although it occurred over a two-week period, tribunal president Kathleen Glancy, along with senior member David Aitkin and member Ross Povey, could not be satisfied it was an “isolated error of judgment”.
While the first of the six would not justify a suspension of his practising certificate on its own, the Legal Services and Complaints Committee told the tribunal the penalty should be imposed because Robertson “has also been found to have engaged in numerous acts of professional misconduct, each of which involves a lack of honesty and candour”.
The tribunal was satisfied the global penalty was appropriate and enforced the suspension pending the Supreme Court’s outcome.
“Not only are the facts of this case so interwoven that a global penalty is appropriate but, in our view, the penalty for the conduct which comprised finding one will undoubtedly be subsumed into the penalty for more serious acts of dishonesty in findings two to six,” the members said.
Throughout the disciplinary proceedings, Robertson maintained neither he nor the firm acted or purported to act for the party, and everything he did which indicated to the contrary “was done in error”.
He has not accepted the liability findings and has filed an appeal.
“Having defended the proceedings in the tribunal and now appealing the tribunal’s findings, the practitioner cannot be found to have shown any insight or remorse into his misconduct,” Glancy, Aitkin and Povey said.
“While the lack of insight and remorse is not aggravating, it does mean that we cannot be satisfied that he is unlikely to repeat the conduct and increases the need to impose a sanction that will achieve personal deterrence and the protection of the public.”
In addition to the suspension and the referral to the Supreme Court, Robertson was ordered to pay a portion of the Legal Services and Complaint Committee’s costs in the sum of $66,017.78.
The case is Legal Services and Complaints Committee and Robertson [2023] WASAT 127 (8 October 2024).
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
