Australia, July 18 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on June 17:

1. By Application for Disciplinary Findings and Orders (Application) lodged with the Tribunal on 11 September 2024 the Council of The Law Society of NSW as applicant seeks findings and orders against the respondent - Lillian Duren; a person admitted to the legal profession in New South Wales in July 1999 and who has held a practising certificate issued by the applicant Council in each practising year from 2 August 1999 to 15 September 2022.

2. The Council seeks in its Application a finding that the respondent is guilty of professional misconduct on the basis of each of five grounds of complaint set out in the Application. It seeks orders for the respondent to be reprimanded, for her not to apply for a practising certificate until she undertakes and completes ethics and trust account courses (discussed in more detail below), and to restrict the respondent from applying from a practising certificate that would authorise her to be a principal of a law practice until she has held two practising certificates for two separate practising certificate years that authorise her to engage in supervised legal practice only.

3. By Ground 1 of the Application the Council contends that the respondent caused, without reasonable excuse, deficiencies in accounts held by her law practice being the trust account and statutory deposit account. From December 2008 to 15 September 2022 the respondent was the principal of Zedonga Enterprises Pty Ltd trading as LD Lawyers (Law Practice).

4. The applicant pleads that each of the trust account and the statutory deposit account was an account maintained by the Law Practice that held trust money and was a trust account within the meaning of section 128 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) (Uniform Law).

5. It says that on 29 June and 4 July 2022 the respondent caused withdrawals of $8,000 (29 June) and $4,400 and $4,500 (4 July) to be made from the statutory deposit account; that, by reason of those transactions, there was a deficiency in the statutory deposit account of $8,900, and that such deficiency was caused by the respondent.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/19776d653bf48dc2d20d898f)

Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.