A criminal defence lawyer who withdrew more than $160,000 from her trust account without her clients’ knowledge has accepted a recommendation that her name be removed from the roll.
Sanella Naumovski, formerly a sole practitioner of Naumovski Legal, agreed with the Legal Services and Complaints Committee that her trust account management, grants to Legal Aid, and interactions with the Legal Practice Board amounted to professional misconduct.
In addition to the strike-off recommendation, Naumovski agreed to pay $10,000 for the Legal Services and Complaints Committee’s costs.
According to a statement of agreed facts filed with the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia, Naumovski caused $163,385 to be withdrawn from a trust account and paid to the firm’s general account or other bank accounts between March and June 2017.
Naumovski was not authorised to do so, she had not effected the withdrawals or sent her clients a request for the withdrawal, and failed to provide the clients with a bill around the time of the transactions.
From July 2016 to June 2017, Naumovski then failed to issue trust account statements to clients despite being reminded of her obligations by an external examiner and Legal Practice Board officer.
The statement of agreed facts also set out that Naumovski prepared trust money statements and copies of ledgers that were false or misleading, and gave backdated invoices to an external examiner.
Between June and November 2015, Naumovski acted under grants of legal aid despite not being a member of the relevant specified Legal Aid WA panel in circumstances where she knew she was ineligible.
Given she could not access Legal Aid WA’s invoicing system, Jeremy Noble, the sole practitioner of Noble Legal, would brief Naumovski as agent to act for clients under existing legal aid grants.
Naumovski would then invoice Noble Legal for her services, which would then be billed to Legal Aid WA for payment. Noble Legal would keep 10 per cent of any payment as an “administration fee”.
At no time did Naumovski inform Noble that she was not a member of the appropriate Legal Aid panel, the statement clarified.
Naumovski also failed to disclose the eligibility of a client, caused an application form to be submitted that contained materially false information, and sent emails to Legal Aid where she was “recklessly indifferent as to whether the emails were false or misleading”.
The case: Legal Services and Complaints Committee and Naumovski [2024] VR 42.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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