A lawyer who falsified his academic transcript in order to obtain a job has pleaded guilty to six charges of professional misconduct in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The lawyer, granted the pseudonym of PFM by VCAT due to considerations for his current mental health, was brought to the attention of the Legal Services Commissioner through a complaint made by his former employer. Following a lengthy investigation, the Commissioner brought six charges of professional misconduct against PFM relating to supplying recruitment agencies with forged academic transcripts, providing false information on a CV, making false representations about his employment status and making a false statutory declaration to the Law Institute of Victoria.
During the Tribunal hearing, Senior Member Smithers of VCAT noted that PFM had provided false and misleading information to the investigators, causing the investigation to be significantly drawn out. He also described the conduct about which PFM was charged as comprising ‘systematic dishonesty, rather than a momentary or aberrant lapse’.
In his defence, PFM presented psychiatric reports as evidence that he was suffering from a major depressive disorder, and that this had affected him in his wrongdoing. Assessing the evidence, Senior Member Smithers found that there was no causal link between PFM’s illness and his lack of candour to VCAT. Further, he found PFM was ‘not a fit and proper person, and that it is likely he is unfit to practise permanently, or at least, for the indefinite future, because he is not a person of honesty’.
VCAT found “…in order for penalty to be mitigated due to mental illness, there must be cogent and compelling evidence of the requisite relationship between the mental condition and the offending conduct. Here, the evidence falls well short of that.” On the evidence presented, the Tribunal found that “PFM’s mental health status did not have any effect relevant to the determination of penalty…” of five of the charges, and only marginally at best about the sixth.
He was ordered by the Tribunal not to be employed by or consult for a law firm without the approval of the Legal Services Board, that he may not be granted a practising certificate before 27 May 2020, and was ordered to pay the Commissioner’s costs fixed at $25,000. The VCAT decision is available on the AustLII website.
VCAT also referred PFM to the Supreme Court for his name to be struck from the roll of practitioners, and in July 2014 His Honour Judge Elliott ordered the removal of PFM’s name.
In his reasons, Justice Elliott said:
‘It is abundantly clear that, by reason of the nature and severity of the charges proved, the length of time over which the offending conduct occurred, the lack of genuine remorse (at least, for an extended period of time) and the current mental state of PFM, it is appropriate that his name be removed from the roll of practitioners.’
The issue of PFM’s pseudonym returned to the Supreme Court in August 2014 where His Honour Judge Elliott ordered that the pseudonym would continue to remain in effect until 27 May 2016.