Kenneth Harry Long [1996] NSWLST 7

The Legal Services Tribunal of New South Wales

CITATION : Kenneth Harry Long [1996] NSWLST 7 PARTIES : Kenneth Harry Long FILE NUMBER(S) : of 1995 CORAM: Mr A. Martin (Presiding Member) - Ms S. Hale - Mr G. Warwick-Smith CATCHWORDS: Professional Misconduct - charge fees for services never performed - Professional Misconduct - gross overcharging of client - Professional Misconduct - breach of s. 61 of the Legal Profession Act - Professional Misconduct - make false statement - Professional Misconduct - fail to act honestly - Professional Misconduct - misappropriate trust moneys/moneys - Professional Misconduct - prepare false documents :- LEGISLATION CITED: Legal Professional (Trust Accounts & Controlled Money) Regulation 1988 CASES CITED: Briginshaw v Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR DATES OF HEARING: 8 and 9 May 1995 DATE OF JUDGMENT: 02/14/1996 LEGAL REPRESENTATIVES: Mr I Wales appeared for the Law Society Mr G.C. Lindsay SC for the Solicitor.

JUDGMENT:

The Society alleged that the solicitor was knowingly involved in a "deposit gapping" scheme in which materially false applications for finance were made to lending institutions, that the solicitor wilfully breached sections 61 and 62 of the Act, overcharged in making inflated charges for disbursements and, in acting for the purchasers in a conveyance in which the contract of sale understated the purchase price by $25,000, was knowingly involved in a fraud upon the Office of State Revenue and upon the vendor's wife as regards her entitlements pursuant to the Family Law Act. The solicitor's conduct in taking false statements and statutory declarations in four of the conveyancing matters was held to be both disgraceful and dishonest but as the conduct did not amount to evidence of knowing involvement in a "scheme" and as taking of false statements and declarations was not a separate ground of complaint this aspect of the matter was dismissed.