A lawyer is accused of misconduct for making more than half a million dollars in unauthorised transfers from a family trust and his late parents’ bank accounts.
However, the lawyer, who has interim name suppression, denied that the payments had been “self-serving”.
In a Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal hearing this week, he said they were primarily made to retain a “family property”, for which he is the sole director and shareholder.
They were also to reimburse expenses he incurred in the upkeep of that property and his ongoing care of his elderly parents.
He faces an allegation of misconduct, brought by the Standards Committee, on behalf of the New Zealand Law Society.
Committee prosecutor Sam McMullan said the transactions from the family trust and from his mother and parents’ accounts were for the lawyer’s own benefit and in breach of his obligations as a fiduciary.
He was a trustee and beneficiary of the family trust, with his sister the other beneficiary.
To prove the charge, the committee needed to show that the lawyer’s conduct reached a level where, at the time that he engaged in it, he was not a fit and proper person to be a lawyer.
It is not alleged that he was not entitled to access the money from the trust, as the trust deed did allow for such transactions.
However, he needed to have sought proper authority from the other trustee.
He also accepted that with the settlement of the estate, there hadn’t been any actual loss to the other beneficiaries.
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