Newstalk ZB
A lawyer’s explanations for his unauthorised transfers from a family trust have been described as “self-justification – almost to the point of self-delusion”. The Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal has found that when the senior lawyer transferred more than half a million dollars from the family trust, and his late parents’ bank accounts, he fell “well short of the standards of integrity required of a lawyer, even in conducting personal, rather than professional affairs”. The tribunal has just issued its decision, following a liability hearing in April, where the lawyer gave evidence about his state of mind and circumstances at the time of the transactions. He denied the payments had been “self-serving” and spoke of his stress, mental health, and emotional turmoil as he tried to manage his parents’ care in the context of a breakdown in a relationship with his sister. He told the tribunal he was a “man on a mission” operating in a day-to-day “pragmatic way”, and only took from what he knew he would ultimately be entitled to. The tribunal appears to have rejected his explanations, however. “We do not consider that the stresses upon him at the time – even if accepted as described by [the lawyer], provide justification or excuse for his repeated and long-lasting failures.” The tribunal said at the time of the conduct, the lawyer was “not a fit and proper person to be a lawyer”. “He acknowledged, in a more lucid part of his evidence, that he was unfit to be a trustee. We think his unfitness went well beyond that.” Lawyer ‘took no steps to verify spending for which he later claimed reimbursement’ The lawyer, who has interim name suppression, operates a law firm in the North Island, which takes on large-scale “criminal and civil litigation cases”. At the time of the misconduct, he was involved in the care of his elderly parents and was a trustee for their family trust. The Standards Committee brought a charge of misconduct in his personal capacity, unconnected with his provision of legal services, which meant the tribunal had to be satisfied that at the time of the conduct, his actions demonstrated he was not a fit and proper person to be a lawyer. The tribunal found that the lawyer took $522,482, over eight transactions – excluding a sum of $72,773.20 which was repaid – over a period of 18 months. During this time, he owed fiduciary duties to his mother, as her enduring power of attorney, and his sister as a beneficiary under the trust, and later as a co-executor. The unauthorised funds were eventually recovered from the lawyer in a family settlement reached in 2023. The tribunal said that although the lawyer had, at times during the proceedings, “strongly resisted the admission of certain evidence”, in the end, he had not challenged the accuracy of the payments paid to himself, or that he had made them without authority. The tribunal noted the transactions occurred during “a period when he knew he was under scrutiny because of the legal proceedings in which he was a respondent. Without consultation or authority, he broke a large term deposit of the trust causing it significant loss”. He claimed that the transactions were to reimburse him for expenses incurred in the care of his parents, and the upkeep of a sentimental family property, for which he was the sole shareholder. However, the tribunal said he “took no steps to verify spending for which he later claimed reimbursement. So there is no means of knowing whether reimbursement was justified or proper”. The tribunal noted that on the lawyer’s evidence, it seemed that from May 2017 to November 2018, combining the parents’ accounts and the family trust withdrawals claimed as reimbursements, he had spent “$269,714 on two elderly and seriously infirm parents who were largely housebound and one of whom died in May 2017″. “Even accepting that some reimbursements might have been carried forward from earlier years, this seems an extraordinary amount, particularly in...
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