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The NSW Bar sought penalties for a barrister who turned up at the home of her client’s daughter on Christmas Eve and told her guardians she would “slap them with a section”.
Barrister Rita Lahoud was restricted from applying for a practising certificate for 18 months after she was found guilty of both unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct by the council of the NSW Bar Association.
On Christmas Eve in 2019, Lahoud attended the home of Ms B – a pseudonym for her client’s relative – who had full-time care and custody of the client’s 10-year-old daughter.
Lahoud brought presents from her client and encouraged Ms B to negotiate about increased access between mother and child.
While Lahoud accepted it was “unprofessional, misguided and wrong” to attend Ms B’s home, there was a dispute as to whether she told Ms B she would “slap [her] with a section”.
Having considered the “unwavering” evidence of Ms B and her partner and that “section” is not a word a non-lawyer would use in normal conversation, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Lahoud made that comment.
However, the tribunal acknowledged Lahoud may not have been lying when she denied saying those words because it “may be that she genuinely believes she did not do so”.
The tribunal was also unwilling to extend its scope to consider whether Lahoud was “threatening” towards Ms B.
“Lahoud’s conduct was not overtly threatening. She did not come into the house or shout at them. But she did use her position as [the client/s] barrister to persuade Ms B to negotiate about access with [the child],” the tribunal said.
“Using her status as a barrister to apply pressure on Ms B to negotiate about access and to do so on their doorstep on Christmas Eve was unprofessional and inappropriate.”
On five separate occasions between February 2021 and April 2022, Lahoud told the Bar she did not attend Ms B’s home.
Lahoud said that at the time, she took offence to the “tone” of the NSW Bar’s correspondence. After the first lie, she said she felt trapped, was embarrassed to admit the mistakes she made and did not have the courage to “come clean” to the Bar.
The tribunal found Lahoud breached her duty to be candid to the professional regulator “in an extremely egregious manner”.
“Her dishonesty was in response to a single allegation, but was made more serious because of the number of times she lied, the lengthy period during which she maintained the lie, the fact that she constructed an elaborate positive case in her defence and the fact that she initially attributed a malicious intent to Ms B in lodging the complaint,” the tribunal said.
Lahoud’s remorse was accepted as genuine, and the tribunal accepted that the likelihood of her being dishonest in future was low.
However, to deter Lahoud and others from engaging in similar conduct, Lahoud was restricted from applying for a practising certificate for 18 months. Given she has not practised for the last 18 months, this would mean three years out of practice.
“Other practitioners will appreciate that, if they find themselves in a similar situation, they can expect to be unable to practice for a significant period of time,” the tribunal said.
The case: Council of the New South Wales Bar Association v Lahoud [2025] NSWCATOD 79
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
