Exclusive Lawyers Weekly data revealed that around 40 per cent of lawyers facing disciplinary action have been struck off or recommended for removal. A closer analysis of the last 100 disciplinary reports uncovered further, troubling trends.
An average of around one to two lawyers have been penalised for misconduct each week, according to data from Lawyers Weekly’s coverage of disciplinary decisions handed down by each state and territory’s legal regulators, tribunals, and supreme courts.
Of the last 100 reports, 83 were solicitors, 16 were barristers, and one was a former magistrate. The decisions were made up of 48 findings of professional misconduct, 18 of unsatisfactory professional conduct, 22 that had a combination of the two, and 12 that were unclear.
This data – which spanned 17 months – revealed the majority (41 per cent) were either struck off in the Supreme Court or recommended for removal from the roll by a state or territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
At the time of writing, the latest to be struck off was NSW solicitor and director Dominique Grubisa, whose conduct concerning a dodgy educational company, known as DG Institute, amounted to professional misconduct and unsatisfactory professional conduct.
The earliest strike off, reported in June 2024, was for an unnamed lawyer who was found guilty of a number of drug dealing offences. Like Grubisa, this lawyer’s misconduct was a combination of both unsatisfactory professional conduct and professional misconduct.
Strike-offs were followed by 30 public reprimands, 22 fines of between $1,500 and $23,000, and orders to complete further education, including continuing professional development (CPD) courses. There were another 17 banned from practising, with the majority (13) receiving suspensions of between one and three years.
About a quarter of legal practitioners were disciplined for conduct that concerned either their own client, an opposing client, or a potential defendant. For example, sole practitioner Gregory John Ploetz was reprimanded for a failure to advance his client’s matter.
Similarly, Peter Elliot Clark was recommended for removal because he failed to attend to a client’s matter between April 2016 and September 2017, and again between February 2018 and May 2019.
In his decision, Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal judicial member Peter Lyons KC said Clark’s misconduct represented a “substantial failure to comply with his duty” as a legal practitioner.
There were then 21 offences that involved conduct towards other practitioners, including solicitor Patrick Lennon, who sent eight threatening text messages to a barrister. One of the offending texts told the barrister “not to go anywhere” and he would be there “in 15”.
Solicitor George Sideris was penalised in July for “grossly discourteous” language towards other practitioners, including a claim that lawyers took advantage of people and were “basically aresholes and peasants that do not deserve respect of any kind”.
The decision to strike his name from the roll was made by Chief Justice Andrew Bell, along with Justice Jeremy Kirk and acting Judge John Griffiths, who said the misconduct was “the very antithesis of the professional courtesy that is required of legal practitioners”.
“It is not just the language is consistently coarse, but it also discloses a complete absence of respect for individuals, institutions and the tribunal. The extreme lack of courtesy and understanding is matched by a wholesale absence of any self-discipline by the respondent in his professional communications,” the bench said.
Just under 15 of the cases involved instances of misappropriation or theft directly from clients, such as Dung Quoc Vo, the principal of Vo Lawyers, who gambled away $1,745,013 of money stolen from a trust account. A solicitor at the firm, Thi To Ngoc Dinh, did not participate in the gambling but was also scrubbed from the roll of practitioners.
Mark Leo O’Brien was recently struck from the roll for the misappropriation of almost $6,200,000 from two estates, which had been earmarked by his clients for a hospital and charities. The NSW Supreme Court said it was an “egregious abuse of trust”.
The legal regulators were also highly critical of legal practitioners whose actions brought the profession into disrepute, including Benjamin Aulich. The principal lawyer was reprimanded and fined for behaviour that included removing his pants during a drinking game with colleagues, and looking the other way when an explicit colouring book was circulated among them during a training session.
Former South Australian magistrate Robert Bruce Harrap was struck from the roll four years after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and two counts of deception concerning traffic infringements. In the judgment, the Supreme Court said the “absence of personal integrity and disregard for the law are striking”.
Consistently controversial lawyer Nathan Buckley received a recommendation for removal over conduct on social media pages, such as the mischaracterisation of a NSW Supreme Court judgment that dealt with certain aspects of COVID-19-related public health orders.
The data also revealed 16 instances of lawyers either ignoring or breaching court orders, submitting incorrect or misleading material, or unprofessional behaviour before a judge. This was followed by nine dishonesty offences and five concerning disclosure.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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