Unsatisfactory conduct. Unauthorised release of trust files

This is a summary of a Lawyers Standards Committee decision under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006. This summary was published in LawTalk 744.

A lawyer who handed over trust files to the estranged husband of one of the trustees was found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct. The lawyer was censured and ordered to apologise. He was also ordered to pay a fine and costs.

The lawyer had acted for the settlors and trustees of a family trust.  One of the trustees was involved in Family Court proceedings against her estranged husband and she wanted to uplift the trust files to use them in that case. However, before her formal request for the files came through, the lawyer who acted for the trust allowed the files to be taken away by the lawyer for the trustee’s husband, without the trustee giving authority for this.

The trust’s lawyer told the Standards Committee the files had been given out in error and he had later retrieved them. However, the Standards Committee decided that the unauthorised release of the files was a serious breach of the lawyer’s duty to his client and amounted to unsatisfactory conduct.

The Standards Committee censured the lawyer and ordered him to apologise to the trustee. It also fined him $500 and ordered him to pay costs of $250. The Standards Committee recommended that details of the complaint and the decision be published, but not the names of the lawyer or the complainant.

© New Zealand Law Society 2008