Unsatisfactory conduct: Lawyer and principal fined after inadequate advice
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 780, 9 September 2011.
A staff lawyer and her principal were each censured, fined and ordered to pay costs after the staff lawyer gave a client inadequate advice.
The client, who had been adopted when she was about eight years old, had sought advice from the staff lawyer on her claim under succession law as an adopted child. As well as complaining that the advice was inadequate, the client claimed she had been overcharged and given poor service.
The Standards Committee agreed that the lawyer had not adequately advised the client on a fundamental principle of the law of adoption and succession.
She had breached her obligations under Rule 3 of the Conduct and Client Care Rules, which requires lawyers to always act competently and to take reasonable care. She had also breached Rule 10, which requires lawyers to promote and maintain proper standards of professionalism in their dealings. Finally, the lawyer’s conduct was unacceptable measured against the standards of “competent, ethical and responsible practitioners” (B v Medical Council [2005] 3 NZLR 810 at 811), and therefore amounted to conduct unbecoming.
The client’s separate complaint against the principal claimed he had failed to supervise the staff lawyer properly.
The committee upheld this, finding that the principal had breached Rule 11.3. This requires all lawyers in practice on their own account to ensure that the conduct of the practice and of their employees is competently supervised and managed at all times. The principal’s conduct also failed to meet the standard referred to in B v Medical Council.
Both the staff lawyer and the principal were found guilty of unsatisfactory conduct. The committee censured them, and ordered each to pay a $750 fine and $500 in costs to the New Zealand Law Society. The committee also found that the fee of $3,395 was excessive, and ordered it to be waived.
This is a summary of a decision by a Standards Committee under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006.