A tribunal has penalised a Queensland legal practitioner director who turned a blind eye to the dishonest conduct of a fake lawyer despite obvious concerns from clients and the Legal Services Commission.
The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has reprimanded Judith Anne Sheehan, a lawyer appointed as the legal practitioner director of a firm that was being run by fake lawyer Nerise Moore.
In late 2021, Moore was permanently disqualified from managing an incorporated legal practice and found to have made two deceitful attempts to install someone as legal director of Stenton & Moore, including Sheehan, between August and December 2018.
Moore had held herself out as a legal practitioner director and provided legal advice to clients despite not being a lawyer.
At the time, a court found Sheehan was “duped” by Moore.
While accepting that was the case – and clarifying there was no personal involvement from Sheehan in Moore’s deception – judicial member Peter Lyons found Sheehan was still “reckless” regarding knowing or attempting to discharge her obligations.
This finding was supported by the fact that Sheehan had been the director of her own practice at the same time she was with Stenton & Moore.
“It must be said the respondent was in gross dereliction of her duty as the legal practitioner director of Stenton & Moore,” Lyons said, with support from panel members Annette Bradfield and Keith Revell.
“In that period, what might be described as irregularities, some of which were quite serious, occurred in the conduct of the practice.
“Throughout this period (and, indeed, for a substantially longer period) the law practice was in serious breach of its obligations in relation to maintaining its trust account, and the maintaining of relevant (and important) financial and accounting records and documents.”
Around the time she was struggling to make a living as a solicitor on her own legal practice’s “very modest client base”, Sheehan was told by a recruiter that Stenton & Moore needed a director while Moore was engaged in the acquisition of two other law firms.
In a phone call, Sheehan was led to believe Moore was a solicitor and the “only person” who could engage in client work following the departure of the firm’s other director earlier that year.
During a later meeting, Moore told Sheehan there would be “little or no trust account activity, and little or no legal services provided” during her tenure as Stenton & Moore’s director due to the acquisitions.
In early October 2018, Sheehan received a letter from the Legal Services Commission regarding a client complaint about Moore’s alleged failure to account for trust money and her holding herself out as a solicitor.
While giving evidence she was “shocked” about the letter, Sheehan said she did not read the letter beyond seeing it concerned a complaint and assumed that it related to events which were “before my time”.
A further letter was received on 16 October relating to a separate client complaint and an allegation that Moore had failed to act with competence and diligence in relation to the conveyance of a property. The letter also stated Moore was not an Australian legal practitioner.
Sheehan said she called Moore and was told the matter was resolved.
The following month, Sheehan spoke to Moore’s administrative assistant, who informed her Moore was not a qualified solicitor. It was Sheehan’s evidence that she was “astounded” to learn this.
Still, Sheehan believed Moore’s explanation that Stenton & Moore was not conducting legal work at the time and that each of the practices she had been acquiring would have its own legal practitioner director.
A receiver appointed to the law practice later found that credit balances in the trust ledger exceeded the funds in the bank account by $433,000. About $289,000 of this is related to overdrawn trust ledger accounts.
Other than one charge she unsuccessfully contested, Sheehan accepted she failed to maintain Stenton & Moore’s trust account appropriately, failed to prepare monthly trust account reconciliations, and breached her obligations by failing to establish that Moore was admitted to practice.
Lyons found it would have been “plain” to Sheehan that the Legal Services Commission had sufficient concern about Moore’s conduct from at least the first letter, and it was “difficult to understand” why she would not read the letters to ascertain the seriousness.
The explanation for Sheehan’s conduct appeared to have been that she was deceived by Moore into thinking the practice was inactive “and that nothing was happening with respect to the trust account which would give rise to the concern”, the tribunal noted in its judgment.
While not a fit and proper person to practise at the time of the offending conduct, Lyons said, the tribunal was not satisfied she remained so, particularly given there were no other instances of misconduct.
In addition to the reprimand, Sheehan was restricted from applying for a local practising certificate until July 2025, which would have been five years since she surrendered her practising certificate.
“For practitioners generally, exclusion from practising for a period of five years would be a very significant deterrent.
“The tribunal considered that the proposed orders would mark the seriousness of the respondent’s misconduct,” Lyons said.
The case: Legal Services Commissioner v Sheehan [2025] QCAT 81.
