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WA lawyer hit with ‘aggressive, intimidating’ allegations
A client’s fiery allegations that a West Australian lawyer had been “aggressive, intimidating or abusive” has been dismissed.
Naomi Neilson
The State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) of Western Australia found the Legal Profession Complaints Committee (LPCC) was correct to dismiss a complaint brought by a client in a family law matter who alleged the opposing side’s lawyer was unprofessional.
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The complaint arose after the opposing side retained a lawyer – whose name has been protected given the result of the complaint – who they had a “close personal relationship” with.
The client’s lawyer advised her that the relationship could be seen as “inappropriate” and suggested the lawyer would be unable to “maintain professional independence”, prompting the client to reach out to the LPCC with the formal complaint.
The client alleged the lawyer had not only lied about the relationship with their client in correspondence with the client’s own solicitor, but had acted in an “aggressive, abusive and threatening manner” and had blamed the client and her children for everything.
The client alleged the lawyer was “disgraceful and dishonest”.
However, the LPCC said there was no material to suggest that the lawyer’s “characterisation of the relationship was less than honest”.
LPCC also examined communication between the two lawyers and could not find any evidence that the lawyer who was the subject to the complaint had been “aggressive, intimidating or abusive”.
“All we have before us is an allegation by the applicant,” the tribunal said.
“We find there is nothing in the information in the complaint, together with the available material, that would give rise to a reasonable suspicion that the practitioner’s conduct constituted unprofessional conduct or professional misconduct.”
