In Legal Services Commissioner v R-MB [2010] VCAT 182, Senior Member Howell found a repeat offender had failed to comply with a demand from the Legal Services Commissioner for a written explanation of conduct the subject of a complaint. The Bureau de Spank argued that the infraction should be regarded as professional misconduct rather than unsatisfactory professional conduct, as contended for by the practitioner. One of the reasons put forward was that the solicitor had previously been found guilty of the same thing. The Bureau suggested there were authorities in support of this proposition, but did not identify them. Neither party appears to have brought to Senior Member Howell’s attention an authority decided by another member sitting in VCAT’s Legal Practice List this year which suggested ‘prior offences’, or their absence was irrelevant in the determination of exactly this question. On that occasion, VCAT said:
’15 I have had some difficulty deciding whether the conduct of the applicant is unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct. Part of the difficulty has been whether I should take into account the fact that the respondent has had no previous determinations made against him of a disciplinary nature. In my view, that is something that should be taken into account on the matter of penalty but it should not be taken into account as a matter of what charge for which he should be found guilty.
16 I compare this to the hearing of a criminal matter, although it is a disciplinary matter and something entirely different, but the similarity is that a criminal court would not look at prior convictions until it had decided what breach or what act had been committed. In this particular instance, it is appropriate that I should not look at past conduct until I have decided what act has been committed, ie whether it is unsatisfactory professional conduct or professional misconduct.’
Now it’s my turn not to identify the authority, but only because I was in it, and I don’t blog my own cases.
