Conduct unbecoming. Suspension from practice in foreign jurisdiction
This is a summary of a decision by a Lawyers Standards Committee under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. This summary was published in LawTalk 755.
A lawyer, Christopher Skagen, was censured by a Standards Committee in June 2009 after being suspended from practice by the Oregon Supreme Court.
The Standards Committee began an investigation on its own motion after the Oregon court suspended Mr Skagen for 18 months from October 2008 for breaches of the Oregon Rules of Professional Conduct. The court had found that frequently when Mr Skagen had issued cheques from his lawyer trust account to pay the filing fee for a client’s bankruptcy petition, the amount of the cheque was more than the funds held in the trust account for that client. Mr Skagen was therefore paying the filing fee using other clients’ funds. Several times he had also deposited client funds into an account other than his trust account.
The Oregon court found that Mr Skagen had breached the requirement that all legal fees and expenses paid by clients in advance must be placed in a lawyer trust account and not withdrawn until the fees are earned or the expenses incurred. Mr Skagen had also failed to keep sufficient records of client funds and was therefore unable to account for client funds in his possession.
The New Zealand Law Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal had already censured Mr Skagen in March 2008 after an earlier suspension for 12 months by the Oregon Supreme Court.
Mr Skagen made several objections to the Standards Committee considering the latest suspension, but the Standards Committee rejected them. As the conduct in question was before 1 August 2008 and action could have been taken under the Law Practitioners Act 1982, the Standards Committee had jurisdiction under the transitional provisions of the 2006 Act, which required it to apply the provisions of the 1982 Act in dealing with the complaint. Further, the New Zealand Disciplinary Tribunal had already ruled in relation to the earlier suspension that the tribunal could rely on the relevant Oregon Supreme Court decision and its main factual conclusions.
The Standards Committee found Mr Skagen guilty of conduct unbecoming a barrister and solicitor, and said this was conduct falling far short of what was required and expected of a practitioner. In deciding on the penalty, the Standards Committee took into account that in New Zealand the Fitness for Practise Committee had judged Mr Skagen fit to practise as a barrister sole. The Standards Committee decided that a censure was the appropriate penalty.
The Standards Committee recommended that Mr Skagen’s name be published. Among other factors, it took into account that the earlier decisions of the Oregon Supreme Court and the New Zealand Law Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal had already been published.