A Brighton solicitor who caused a deficiency in a trust account and failed to fully comply with the directions of a trust account inspector has been disqualified from legal practice until 2015.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Mr Lewis Spaulding, formerly of the law firms De Kever Spaulding Legal, and Brighton Legal, guilty on five counts of professional misconduct after the charges were brought against him by the Legal Services Commissioner.
The charges arose after the Commissioner received a complaint from a client and requested the Law Institute of Victoria send an inspector to review the firm’s trust account. The inspector identified that Mr Spaulding had caused a deficiency in his firm’s trust account by placing funds paid by the client into the office account instead of the trust account.
The inspector directed Mr Spaulding to restore deficiencies in the trust account, address other issues and provide written confirmation that the directions had been followed. Mr Spaulding sought and was granted an extension of time to comply with the directions, however he failed to provide the written confirmation required to the inspector, leading to the first charge of professional misconduct being laid by the Commissioner.
The Commissioner also charged Mr Spaulding with two counts of professional misconduct for failing to provide clients with bills and failing to follow client instructions, and two further counts arising from his failure to provide a full written explanation to the Commissioner of his conduct.
Mr Spaulding pleaded guilty to all five charges and withdrew an appeal he had lodged against the Law Institute after the Institute refused to renew his 2013 practising certificate.
Judge Jenkins of VCAT found:
‘[the] circumstances in combination represent a most serious dereliction of duty by a legal practitioner, both in respect of his breach of statutory obligations towards his clients, and the proper maintenance of trust accounts as well as a serious breach of professional ethical behaviour.’
VCAT ordered that Mr Spaulding be prohibited from applying for a practising certificate before 1 July 2015, and declared him to be a disqualified person until the same date. Further, VCAT ordered that after this date Mr Spaulding was to be restricted to applying for an employee practising certificate and was to undergo supervised legal practice for a period of 18 months.
Mr Spaulding was also ordered to undertake additional professional development training in practice management and trust accounting within the first 12 months of gaining a new practising certificate and to pay the Commissioner’s costs, and the costs of the Law Institute.
For further information, download the VCAT decision.