Lawyer disbarred for using $60,000 client money

A Canberra lawyer has been disbarred for professional misconduct.

A Canberra lawyer has been banned from practising law after he was found to have misused client money.

Mark Andrew Slater told the ACT Law Society in April last year that he had misused trust funds when he had been the principal solicitor of Mark Slater Family Law, and been given a trust account to hold money on behalf of clients.

After an investigation, it was found that Slater had paid himself around $63,286.50 in advance of work undertaken for the client or in excess of work completed, the Canberra Times reported.

Slater did not contest court hearings after the matter was referred to the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal had his name removed from the roll of legal practitioners. He was ordered to pay the Law Society’s costs.

The matter was then required to be heard at the Supreme Court, which said the removal would act as a warning to practitioners in a judgment published yesterday.

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