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Disciplinary charges and intentional wrongdoing

Update, 4 December 2009: see now Legal Services Commissioner v Madden (No 2) [2008] QCA 301.  What the Queensland Court of Appeal said there about Walter’s Case, the subject of this post, is reproduced at the end of the post.

Original post: Does a lawyer’s Bureau de Spank have to say in a charge in a disciplinary prosecution that the norm allegedly transgressed was transgressed deliberately or recklessly, if that’s what they desire to prove?  In the old days, deliberate or reckless transgression was what distinguished professional misconduct from unsatisfactory conduct, the lesser form of disciplinary offence.  Nowadays, it is only a ‘useful guide’ in distinguishing the two.  So a finding of misconduct might, theoretically, be made in respect of conduct by a person ignorant of the norm transgressed, or who simply made a mistake about a relevant fact. And so there is a particular reason now why it is desirable to know whether dishonesty is alleged, making it more important than ever to be informed by the charge if the Bureau is going to contend at the hearing that the solicitor intentionally did wrong, or was dishonest.

Back to 1988 and a unanimous High Court decision of the Mason Court which did not make it to the CLRs and which I read for the first time only recently: Walter v Queensland Law Society [1998] HCA 8; (1988) 77 ALR 228; 62 ALJR 153.  J R S Forbes’s Justice in Tribunals (2nd ed., 2006) suggests at p. 132 that it stands for the proposition that if a professional regulator wants to establish dishonesty or wilful wrongdoing it should say so, also citing Melling v O’Reilly, Appeal 6/91 Misconduct Tribunal, Criminal Justice Commission (Qld), 9 December 1991. Continue reading “Disciplinary charges and intentional wrongdoing”

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Ombudsman carries out own-motion investigation of Legal Services Commissioner

A former client of mine, dissatisfied with the adverse outcome in a complaint he lodged making serious allegations against a senior member of the profession has tipped me off to an own motion investigation conducted into the Bureau de Spank by the Victorian Ombudsman.  The results, reproduced below, will not assist morale at the Bureau (compare his excoriation of the migration agents’ Bureau).  But solicitors can expect, I suppose, for the investigation process to become a bit more investigative than the gentlemanly exercise it has been as long as I can recall, and for more prosecutions to be brought.

In the hierarchy of regulators, I doubt that the Legal Services Commissioner is a particularly desirable post, but it should be.  Regulate the lawyers diligently, and the scope for all the others’ wrongdoing which the other regulators regulate is likely to be retarded.  It should also be desirable because it would be fun: the Commissioner doesn’t have to worry about the privilege against self-incrimination, and at least in complaints brought by former clients, can cruise past the usual irritant to pious investigators, legal professional privilege.  Imagine an investigation where you can gun for fines of $50,00o per offence, or the inherently spectacular thrill of seeing a lawyer fall from his perch with the wonderfully archaic fanfare of being struck from the rolls, but where you can essentially administer as many interrogatories as you like.  And imagine that default in answering the interrogatories is a crime the investigation of which is to be carried out by an investigator you personally get to choose in your capacity as head honcho of the Legal Service Board!  It should be enough to make an investigator pant with excitement.  Many a federal policewoman would probably give up her taser in exchange for these kinds of powers.

Continue reading “Ombudsman carries out own-motion investigation of Legal Services Commissioner”

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Admission of allegations relevant in distinguishing between misconduct and unsatisfactory conduct

In Legal Services Commissioner v PT [2009] VCAT 1603, Senior Member Preuss decided that a failure to respond to a demand by the Commissioner for information in relation to a disciplinary complaint was unsatisfactory professional conduct rather than the more serious professional conduct, for several reasons including that ‘he [the respondent solicitor] admitted the factual circumstances alleged and he did not oppose the orders which I sought to make’.  That is not a factor which has often expressly been taken into account in making the distinction, as far as I am aware.

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Doctors, psychologists, sex and former patients

In Re a Psychologist [2009] TASSC 70, the Supreme Court of Tasmania quashed a decision of the Psychologists Registration Board of Tasmania to suspend a psychologist for 6 months for entering into a sexual relationship with a former patient fewer than 2 years after the end of the therapeutic relationship.  In fact he married her.  A couple of newspaper articles are here and here.

The Supreme Court quashed the decision because the Board switched from considering these allegations as a breach of a code of conduct to considering them as an allegation of professional misconduct at common law without adequately bringing the switch to the unrepresented psychologist’s attention.  Also because the reasons were inadequate.  Justice Blow engaged in a mini-review of recent cases about health professionals and sex with former patients: Continue reading “Doctors, psychologists, sex and former patients”

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Offences created by the Legal Profession Act, 2004

Note: I drafted this post last financial year.  Since then, the value of a penalty unit increased today by about 3%, to $116.82, with the result that the dollar figures referred to below will be commensurately too low.  See the details at Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes.

Original post: I acted for a fellow whom the Law Institute as delegate of the Legal Services Board was purporting to investigate, and noticed for the first time what a rich repository of crimes is the Legal Profession Act, 2004. Two are punishable by imprisonment of up to 5 years or more: s. 3.3.21(1) (having or causing a trust account deficiency or failing to pay trust money) and s. 5.5.15 (interfering with property to defeat a receivership of a law practice). A third, s. 2.2.2(1) (unqualified practice) is punishable by up to 2 years’ imprisonment respectively. Eight are punishable by fines of up to about $27,000, about 25 by fines of up to about $13,500, about 57 by fines of up to about $7,000, and another 14 by fines of between up to about $500 and about $2,500. That’s over 100 crimes.  As far as I know, the only conviction is likely to have been under s. 3.3.21.

All of the offences punishable only by fines are summary offences: 600 penalty units (a fine of about $68,000) and imprisonment for up to 5 years being the level of seriousness which brings offences into the indictable category: see s. 112 read with s. 109 of the Sentencing Act, 1991.  So s. 3.3.21(1) (having or causing a trust account deficiency or failing to pay trust money) and 5.5.15 (interfering with property to defeat a receivership of a law practice) appear to be the only indictable offences created by the Act.  They may be prosecuted at any time, while all those punishable by fines, and unqualified practice, are summary offences which may generally be prosecuted only within 12 months after the allegedly criminal conduct occurred, by virtue of s. 26(4) of the Magistrates’ Court Act.  Do not allow an investigator under the Legal Profession Act, 2004 to investigate a summary offence if the conduct allegedly occurred more than a year beforehand!  (Whether the Legal Services Commissioner may entertain a disciplinary complaint more than a year after the relevant conduct is a more difficult question. See this post.)

I really wonder about the social utility of having all those crimes there. Continue reading “Offences created by the Legal Profession Act, 2004”

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Double jeopardy and disciplinary proceedings

Coke-Wallis v Institute of Chartered Accountants In England and Wales [2009] EWCA Civ 730 considered the application of principles of res judicata and autrefois acquit (the criminal version of the same principle, an aspect of double jeopardy) to disciplinary ‘prosecutions’.  It did so in the context of the disciplining of accountants.  The relevant scheme made a conviction conclusive evidence of an act likely to bring the accountant, and the profession, into disrepute. The conviction itself, and the conduct of which it was conclusive evidence were each able to justify disciplinary sanction. Mr Coke-Wallis was convicted of a crime but the disciplinary prosecution brought on that basis failed unexpectedly.  So the regulator charged him again, by reference to the conduct which was the subject of the conviction.  The English Court of Appeal held that the principles of res judicata, or autrefois acquit (which it seemed to assume applied to disciplinary proceedings) were not infringed, because the two charges were separate and distinct. That left open the question that though there was no legal bar to the second prosecution, nevertheless it constituted an abuse of process.  After analysis, no abuse was found.  English solicitors Shepherd + Wedderburn have kindly prepared a little case note.  Justice Gillard’s decision on a similar problem in Kabourakis v Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria [2005] VSC 493 is the subject of this post.

The Institute does not always seem to get everything perfect.  Take for example, the Queen’s Bench Division’s description of another prosecution, in Gorlov, R (on the application of) v The Institute Of Chartered Accountants In England And Wales [2001] EWHC Admin 220, justifying an exceptional award of costs against a professional disciplinarian: Continue reading “Double jeopardy and disciplinary proceedings”

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VCAT explores definition of professional misconduct at common law unconnected with legal practice

In Legal Services Commissioner v RAP [2009] VCAT 1200, the Bureau failed to establish a charge of professional misconduct at common law against a solicitor in respect of conduct which occurred otherwise than in the course of, and unconnected with, legal practice.  (Another charge, not the subject of this post, succeeded.) The allegation was that he:

‘deliberately misled a person with whom he had entered into a commercial transaction, thereby behaving in a manner that would reasonably be regarded as disgraceful or dishonourable by fellow practitioners of good repute and competency’.

The solicitor had negotiated in late 2005 with a car dealer for the purchase of a $1.4 million [sic.] car. Continue reading “VCAT explores definition of professional misconduct at common law unconnected with legal practice”

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Commissioner’s unexplained delay reduces penalty for serious misconduct

Speaking of the need for speed as Justice Heydon and I were on this blog yesterday, there are two other instances worthy of reporting.

First, the High Court has recently considered the need for speed in criminal proceedings, and were not nearly as excited about it as in commercial litigation. This time, they rolled the court below for saying that enough delay was enough and staying a criminal prosecution that had hung around for too long, resulting in the loss of exculpatory evidence.  The decision in R v Edwards [2009] HCA 20 might have application by analogy in disciplinary cases. It is blogged about at Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes, and there is a short note in the latest Law Institute Journal.

Secondly, delay by the Legal Services Commissioner has had a consequence in a serious disciplinary prosecution.  Parliament requires the Bureau de Spank to conduct their investigations ‘as expeditiously as possible’, and to give the complainant progress reports at least 6 monthly: s. 4.4.12, Legal Profession Act, 2004.  If the Commissioner complies with these injunctions, the degree of expedition which is possible is not always great.  In fact, sometimes the rate at which investigations progress is astonishing.  So glacial can progress be that the possibility that climate change sceptics might actually have some kernel of truth buried away beneath all of their hot air (-not) begins to nag at you.  There is a letter in the latest Law Institute Journal complaining about the Commissioner’s April 2009 response to a solicitor’s September 2008 letter (August 2009, p. 10).

An unexplained period of apparent inactivity of 18 months was taken into account in favour of the lawyer prosecuted for misconduct in Legal Services Commissioner v ER [2009] VCAT 1445.  This is a factor which might be brought to bear in many a plea in a disciplinary prosecution.  What Judge Ross’s tribunal said on this issue is: Continue reading “Commissioner’s unexplained delay reduces penalty for serious misconduct”

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Another remedial disposition of a disciplinary hearing

A solicitor was found guilty of professional misconduct in early 2006 for failing to respond to the Commissioner.  Then he was found guilty again for a similar thing in December last year and fined $1,500.  And then again just recently, by Senior Member Preuss, a decision maker who seems new to the Legal Practice List: Legal Services Commissioner v RJ [2009] VCAT 1130.  At the most recent hearing on 1 June, the solicitor still had not provided a response to the complaint in issue in the December 2008 hearing.  The complaint in issue in the most recent hearing, to that point unresponded to by the solicitor, was lodged 20 months ago, and related to alleged delays in the administration of a deceased estate, a matter of interest to the Commissioner. Que faire? Senior Member Preuss decided against a further fine, and instead exercised the power given to her under s. 4.4.19(i) of the Legal Profession Act, 2004, which says:

‘The Tribunal may make the following orders: … (i) an order that the practitioner seek advice in relation to the management of the practitioner’s practice from a specified person.’

There is a trend emerging.  See this previous post.  But since the 1 June 2009 decision, the solicitor has been back before a differently constituted Tribunal in relation to his non-compliance with the order made in December last year, at which a different advocate appeared for the Commissioner.  Vice-President Ross fined the solicitor $750: Legal Services Commissioner v RJ [2009] VCAT 1080.  What Senior Member Preuss said in June 2009 was: Continue reading “Another remedial disposition of a disciplinary hearing”

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Schapelle Corby’s former lawyer struck off

Robin Tampoe, the former Gold Coast lawyer hired as one of Schapelle Corby’s lawyers by Ron Bakir, has been struck off the roll of solicitors by Queensland’s Legal Practice Tribunal. The decision is here.  Removal from the roll is the ultimate sanction in the world of professional discipline, though in circumstances where it is not apparent that Mr Tampoe intended in the future to practise law anyway, it is interesting that there does not seem to have been any push for a substantial fine.

Mr Tampoe did not contest the charge of professional misconduct comprised of disclosing on a national breakfast television show confidential information obtained during his retainer about criminal convictions of members of the Corby Family.  Nor did he contest the unsatisfactory conduct comprised of commentating on his own defence strategies and calling his client’s family the biggest pile of trash he had ever come across in his life. That conduct was characterised as ‘scandalous, offensive and/or likely to bring the profession into disrepute’.  You can still watch some of the conduct in question on Channel 9’s website. Continue reading “Schapelle Corby’s former lawyer struck off”

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Distinguishing between civil and disciplinary complaints

In the latest Byrne v Marles ([2009] VSC 210), Justice Beach seems to have found that any particular allegation made by a complainant may properly be characterised as both a civil and a disciplinary complaint.  If the Legal Services Commissioner receives a complaint, she must investigate it to the extent it is a disciplinary complaint and must try to settle it to the extent it is a civil complaint.  There is no particular difficulty where two allegations are found in one complaint document, and one is characterised as a civil complaint and another is characterised as a disciplinary complaint.  In my experience, that is what the Commissioner always does: she chooses between the two alternatives in relation to any one allegation as if they are mutually exclusive.

Since ‘any genuine dispute’ between the complainant and the lawyer complained about is a civil complaint, however, one might think that all disciplinary complaints in which the complainant has a dispute with the lawyer complained about will amount to both a civil and a disciplinary complaint.  And since an allegation will be a disciplinary complaint if it is of conduct which ‘falls short of the standard of competence and diligence that a member of the public is entitled to expect of a reasonably competent’ lawyer, there will be many civil complaints which will also be disciplinary complaints.

In such a circumstance, unless the Commissioner summarily dismisses the whole complaint under s. 4.2.10, she must try to settle it (insofar as it is a civil complaint), and (insofar as it is a disciplinary complaint) she must investigate it.

If Justice Beach’s logic is applied, profound challenges await the Commissioner.  They are inherent in the Act’s injunction in relation to one dispute to investigate it in the public interest with a view to prosecuting and penalising the lawyer, while at the same time trying to resolve the dispute between the complainant and the lawyer.  Most obviously, what is the Commissioner to do about s. 4.3.5(4)? It says:

‘Evidence of anything said or done in the course of attempting to resolve a civil dispute is not admissible in proceedings before [VCAT] or any other proceedings relating to the subject-matter of the dispute.’

Are there to be two sets of responses, in one of which (in the civil complaint) the lawyer makes socially appropriate concessions, apologises, and agrees to pay money in return for confidentiality, and in the other of which (the disciplinary complaint), the lawyer takes all appropriate technical points and, while being fully frank and open as required by the Act, concedes nothing? And imagine the disquiet the lawyer’s insurer will have knowing that the Commissioner will be able to compel the provision of answers from a practitioner, as if interrogating him, in the disciplinary complaint which will run parallel with the professional negligence claim constituting the civil complaint. Continue reading “Distinguishing between civil and disciplinary complaints”

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Restraints on use of information obtained by compulsion

The rule in Home Office v Harman governs the use of documents and information obtained by people generally by various forms of compulsion in litigation: the court rules about interrogatories (a form of statute), Court orders for discovery, witness statements served pursuant to an order to do so.  But when I carefully checked this point a while ago, it seemed clear that the principle had no application outside litigation, the exception being, perhaps, arbitration.

Outside litigation, however, the main source of powers to compel the production of documents and the disclosure of information is statute, and the main repository of them mandarins.  When a mandarin (disguised say as a Commissioner, or an Inspector) obtains information by compulsion, there is an important limit on what the mandarin may do with it.  The important limit is that the information may only be used for the purpose the power of compulsion was bestowed.  This is a proposition which I vaguely knew I had read somewhere, but which has several times eluded me when I tried to look it up.  But now it’s back in my quiver, courtesy of Apache Northwest Pty Ltd v Agostini [2009] FCA 534.  The relevant High Court authority is Johns v Australian Securities Commission (1993) 178 CLR 384; [1993] HCA 56, which is posted about separately here.

Continue reading “Restraints on use of information obtained by compulsion”

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Johns v Australian Securities Commission

This is a little adjunct to my post ‘Restraints on Use of Information Obtained by Compulsion‘, a place to store away for future reference the little case note of Johns v Australian Securities Commission (1993) 178 CLR 408; [1993] HCA 56 penned by Justice McKerracher in Apache Northwest Pty Ltd v Agostini [2009] FCA 534.  In digesting the quotation from Johns, it is helpful to know what s. 25 of the Australian Securities Commission Act, 1989 said.  Here is Justice McKerracher’s case note:

Continue reading “Johns v Australian Securities Commission”

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More on confidentiality and disciplinary hearings

A propos my post about an English solicitor’s revulsion for the reptiles of the press engorging themselves on the protection of the public by the public spanking of lawyers:  ACT’s lawyers are up in arms.  It seems that suddenly, disciplinary hearings are open to the public, with the transfer of lawyers’ discipline hearings to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal.  Just like all the other hearings except for cases about terroists, spooks, nice people spooks think might be terrorists, spice, rapists and paedophiles.  Their Law Society won’t have it.  The Canberra Times editorialised on 27 April 2009 that everyone else suffers the slings and arrows thrown at them by maddies and baddies (as well as the genuinely aggrieved), and why should lawyers be different?

Why indeed?  Well, I often feel for the clients of lawyers, who have their confidences ripped open because someone — say their client’s husband — has decided that the lawyer in whom they confided their secrets as if in a modern day confessional did something wrong.  The identity of clients, and all features of the matter out of which a disciplinary prosecution springs as might identify the lawyer’s client should certainly be more anonymised than it is, at least on the net.  But otherwise? Bah!  Here’s where to go to look up decisions of the new Tribunal.  The Law Society’s response to the editorial was the following letter to the Editor: Continue reading “More on confidentiality and disciplinary hearings”

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Validity of a Bureau de Spanque notice requiring information in relation to a complaint

By far the commonest disciplinary prosecution of lawyers in Victoria is for breach of s. 149 of the Legal Practice Act, 1996 or s. 4.4.11 of the Legal Profession Act, 2004.  The Victorian thing to do is to say:

‘Yep, sorry, I didn’t respond.  I was, like, really stressed at the time and had quite a lot of work on.  It’s not professional misconduct, it’s only unsatisfactory professional conduct. I’ll pay the $1,000 fine. Can we agree on a reasonable sum for costs?’ Continue reading “Validity of a Bureau de Spanque notice requiring information in relation to a complaint”

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Confidentiality (-not) of disciplinary determinations

The Times has an article about a solicitor on the Board of the English legal regulator and former president of the Law Society who, rather embarrassingly, had a conflict of interest determination go against him after a disciplinary investigation.  The solicitor acted pro bono for a barrister who was being sued by an Exxon subsidiary.  He acted in an appeal from a Hong Kong court to the Privy Council, which succeeded.  At the time of the appeal, the solicitor’s firm merged, and one of his new partners did some work for another Exxon subsidiary.  The barrister complained later of a conflict of duties.  The complaint was made out. Private Eye got a hold of the adjudication and was preparing to make merry with it when the solicitor applied for an injunction to prevent publication on the basis that it was confidential. That application failed, and so did the solicitor’s appeal. It is easy to say ‘bad, bad move’ with the benefit of hindsight, yet it is a difficult conclusion to escape, since none of the judges seem to have thought much of what I also consider to be an odd argument that a disciplinary adjudication was confidential to the complainant, the solicitor, and the Bureau de Spanque.  Here is the decision of the English Court of Appeal’s Lord Justice Toulson with whom Lords Justice Sullivan and Hughes agreed: Napier v Pressdram Limited [2009] EWHC 39 (QB).

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Gambling addiction

Trust monies tempt gamblers.  Sometimes solicitors succumb.  Consider R v. Gabriel W [2006] VSC 397, where $1 million disappeared from a solicitor’s trust account. Justice Teague locked him up, and said in the process:

’16 I have read closely the reports of two psychologists who have examined you. They are Mr Beaton who saw you in 1998, and Mr Newton who saw you in 2006. You told Mr Beaton that you knew that you had to permanently stop the gambling. You told Mr Newton that your gambling did stop in 2001. You also told Mr Newton that all your offences arose out of gambling. You gambled away money belonging to others. More of such money was paid out to try to extricate yourself from the plight in which the gambling had left you. Your addiction to gambling does help to explain why you so wantonly and brazenly disregarded the rights of your clients and of the other victims whom you misled and deceived. It cannot be seen to excuse what you did. At most it can be seen to mildly reduce the importance of the element of general deterrence.’

‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’, the excellent new Melbourne law blog about the criminal law, has a post about R v Grossi [2008] VSCA 51, in which Justice of Appeal Robert Redlich told us what to make of gambling addiction as a sentencing consideration.  I will not reproduce the post — go read it yourself — but I will share with you his Honour’s lowdown (not great news for gambler crims): Continue reading “Gambling addiction”

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Statutory powers of compulsion to be invoked reasonably

Justice Pagone considered the Commissioner of Taxation’s invocation of a power to compel the production of documents and information (s 264(1)(b) of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth)). In this case, the subject of the compulsion was the Law Institute, more used to flinging such powers around itself.  Legal regulators not infrequently list poorly formulated allegations drafted by angry laypeople and then requiring ‘a full written response’ from lawyers.   Sometimes, requiring a ‘full written response’ is specifically contemplated by statute (e.g. s. 4.4.11(1)(a) of the Legal Profession Act, 2004, which is about investigating disciplinary complaints) but sometimes it is not (e.g. s. 7.2.7 of the same Act, which relates to investigations of offences against the Act).  If the response is not ‘full’ in the way the regulators think about ‘fullness’, the respondents risk being convicted of the crime of non-cooperation (seriously: see s. 7.2.7(1)).  His Honour cautioned regulators and said they must use such powers ‘wisely and responsibly’: Continue reading “Statutory powers of compulsion to be invoked reasonably”