Unsatisfactory conduct. Communication failures

This is a summary of two decisions by a Lawyers Standards Committee under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. This summary was published in LawTalk 756.

An Auckland lawyer, Philippa Cobcroft, was twice found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct and fined by a Standards Committee as a result of separate complaints. Both complaints involved a failure to communicate with the complainant and then a subsequent failure to respond to the complaint.

The first complaint was from another lawyer, who complained that Ms Cobcroft had failed to deal with his correspondence concerning funds held in his firm’s trust account. The Standards Committee noted that Ms Cobcroft had failed to provide any response to the complaint nor any submissions on it to the committee. It decided her ongoing failure to communicate amounted to unsatisfactory conduct, and it fined her $2,000.

The second complaint was from a client, who complained that Ms Cobcroft had failed to follow instructions and had not responded to the client’s telephone messages and correspondence. Again, Ms Cobcroft failed to provide the Standards Committee with any response to the complaint at all. The Standards Committee found that her failure to follow instructions and her ongoing failure to communicate amounted to unsatisfactory conduct. Again, she was fined $2,000.

© New Zealand Law Society 2008