Disciplinary Tribunal decisions
These are decisions made by the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal.
Lawyer suspended for misleading the court
A lawyer who misled a judge and another lawyer was found guilty of misconduct in his professional capacity. The lawyer, David Wood, was suspended from practice for four months from 1 December 2009, censured and ordered to pay substantial costs.
In a decision of 21 August 2009, the tribunal found Mr Wood guilty of misconduct in his professional capacity in that he had deliberately misled an associate judge of the High Court and a fellow practitioner.
In 2006, on behalf of a client, Mr Wood had an application to the High Court seeking production of documents for the client’s civil proceedings. The application was abandoned just prior to a hearing. An issue arose as to costs. In that context, counsel for another party and the court needed to know whether Mr Wood’s client was legally aided.
The tribunal found that on 31 January 2007, in a conference attended by other counsel, the associate judge had asked Mr Wood directly whether his client had legal aid for the application that had been made. Mr Wood advised the judge and other counsel that his client did not have legal aid for the application. In fact, the client had been granted legal aid for the application some two months prior to the judicial conference. Mr Wood had acknowledged that such legal aid was available in a letter he wrote to the Legal Services Agency some five days after he advised the court that there was no such legal aid.
The tribunal found that his conduct leading up to the judicial conference on 31 January 2007 supported the view that his answer given to the court was the culmination of, and a continuation of, a deliberate and deceptive approach taken to the issue by Mr Wood. In its decision over penalty, the tribunal said that they did "not consider Mr Wood made an innocent mistake about the legal aid. The evidence show a deliberate approach and an implausible position taken by Mr Wood to justify that approach, by suggesting rationale and interpretations that were unsupported by the evidence."
In its decision on penalty of 2 October 2009, as well as suspending Mr Wood, the tribunal also censured him for the deliberate deception and ordered him to pay $18,000.00 to the Law Society as a contribution towards costs and expenses.
Lawyer struck off for fraud
A Hawke’s Bay lawyer, Taasha Romana, was struck off the roll of barristers and solicitors in November 2009 for fraudulent conduct and improper handling of client funds.
Two of the three charges against Ms Romana before the tribunal involved fraudulent conduct that had already led to criminal convictions in April 2009. Ms Romana had been convicted and discharged. The third, and latest charge, before the tribunal was connected to the other two and was that she had handled client funds improperly. Ms Romana admitted all three charges.
Because the events in question occurred before the 1 August 2008 commencement date of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006, the penalty provisions of the Law Practitioners Act 1982 applied.
The tribunal said it was clear the lawyer did not gain personally from her conduct, nor ever intended to, it seemed. She had also not tried to conceal her wrongdoing when confronted with it. The tribunal said it was impressed with her approach to the hearing, where she had faced her responsibilities.
Ms Romana did not oppose being struck off the roll, which she acknowledged was inevitable. However, the tribunal decided not to impose any fine given that Ms Romana had not personally gained from her misconduct, that no clients or employers were out of pocket and taking into account her personal circumstances. The circumstances of her offending had been "quite unusual", the tribunal said.
The tribunal ordered Ms Romana to contribute $5,000 towards the Hawke’s Bay Standards Committee’s costs of $10,900. Ms Romana was also ordered to pay a further $5,000 to the Law Society, as a contribution towards the society’s reimbursement of the tribunal’s own costs of $9,300. The tribunal made this order under s257 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act: it decided it had jurisdiction under that section even though the case was governed by the penalty provisions of the old act.
The tribunal ordered that the names of the relevant law firm and clients be suppressed. It decided there was no reason to suppress Ms Romana’s name any further given that her criminal convictions had already been publicised.
LawTalk 745, 1 March 2010