A St Kilda solicitor who recklessly mislead the Legal Services Commissioner has pleaded guilty to two counts of professional misconduct in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The Legal Services Commissioner charged sole practitioner Ms Sue Macgregor with professional misconduct after she made a misleading statement to the Commissioner when responding to a former client’s complaint. In her statement Ms Macgregor suggested she was ‘in constant contact’ with the other side in a legal transaction when she was not.
The Commissioner also charged Ms Macgregor with a second count of professional misconduct for failing to use her best endeavours to enable her client to comply with a court order and for failing to communicate effectively with her client.
Ms Macgregor pleaded guilty to the two charges in VCAT, admitting to the errors she had made and explaining why they had occurred.
While Member Wentworth of VCAT acknowledged that there was no suggestion that the solicitor has acted with dishonesty, in her decision she noted:
‘In this case, one statement in one letter has been found to be misleading. That is enough for the conduct to constitute professional misconduct.’
Member Wentworth also noted that this was the first disciplinary complaint Ms Macgregor had received in 31 years of practice, and that the solicitor had an extensive history of providing pro bono legal and volunteer work to community legal centres and community charities. It was however, appropriate under the circumstances to make a finding of guilt on both charges.
Mrs Macgregor was reprimanded and ordered to pay the Commissioner’s costs of $17,595.