The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal was wrong to only impose a public reprimand on a solicitor whose $10,000 theft from a client justified a far harsher penalty, an appeal court has found.
Justices David Boddice, Susan Brown, and Chris Bleby found the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal failed to give “proper consideration” to the penalty for Ericson Tang, a former lawyer who stole $10,000 from a client and made up a story to cover his tracks.
In May, tribunal judicial member Peter Lyons KC, along with practitioner panel member Elizabeth Shearer and lay panel member Dr Susan Dann, imposed a public reprimand and ordered Tang not to hold a practising certificate before September 2025.
Following Tang’s submissions that his offending was due to stresses in his work and life, as well as a “previously undisclosed and unknown sexual addiction”, the tribunal also ordered that he include a report on his mental state in applications for a practising certificate.
In acknowledging his recognition of the wrongdoing, treatment from health professionals, and his youth – then 26 – the tribunal was not satisfied Tang was permanently unfit to hold a practising certificate.
Justices Boddice, Brown, and Bleby took issue with the lack of a discussion into the “need to maintain the integrity of the profession or … the need to maintain public confidence in the profession”.
Referring specifically to the tribunal’s findings on Tang’s youth at the time of his offending, the bench said public confidence was “not served by a mere expectation that a practitioner will mature from a tendency to dishonest behaviour as they become older”.
“In the present case, the practitioner was 26, quite old enough to be expected to have a mature and reflected approach to such a base consideration as honesty and professional dealings as a legal practitioner,” Justices Boddice, Brown, and Bleby said.
They added that had the tribunal properly considered the need to maintain the integrity of the profession, “it is difficult to see how it could have maintained its incorporation of the respondent’s youth as a mitigating factor in the way that it did”.
Moving onto the appropriate penalty, the appeal bench said Tang’s serious dishonest course of conduct struck at the heart of the trust that the community “must be able to place in the legal profession”.
They found that the only reasonable conclusion would be that Tang was not a fit and proper person to remain on the roll.
“The evidence before the tribunal strongly supports the conclusion, having regard to the conduct the respondent engaged in and what has transpired since, that he is probably permanently unfit to practise the profession of the law,” Justices Boddice, Brown, and Bleby said.
The case: Legal Services Commissioner v Tang [2025] QCA 206.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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