Cohen v Legal Practitioners Admissions Board [2008] QCA 63

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND CITATION: Cohen v Legal Practitioners Admissions Board [2008] QCA 63 PARTIES: PHILIP LAWRENCE COHEN (applicant) v LEGAL PRACTITIONERS ADMISSIONS BOARD (respondent) FILE NO/S: SC No 10336 of 2007 DIVISION: Court of Appeal PROCEEDING: Application for Admission ORIGINATING COURT: Legal Practitioners Admission Board DELIVERED ON: 17 March 2008 DELIVERED AT: Brisbane HEARING DATE: 17 March 2008 JUDGES: de Jersey CJ, Mackenzie AJA and Chesterman J Judgment of the Court. ORDER: Application refused CATCHWORDS: QUALIFICATIONS AND ADMISSION – QUEENSLAND – GENERAL MATTERS – where the applicant was a director of a company which offered courses that did not have the required ASIC accreditation – where the applicant’s company engaged in misleading conduct – where the applicant let the company be deregistered without ensuring an ordered payment was paid to the students – where the applicant demonstrated an unacceptable attitude towards his company directorship – whether the applicant is suitably fit for admission as a legal practitioner. COUNSEL: J G Crowley QC for the applicant M Timmins for the respondent SOLICITORS: CJ Hartley-Holl Solicitors for the applicant Legal Practitioners Admissions Board for the respondent [1] THE COURT: The court refused the application on 17 March 2008, and said reasons would be published. These are those reasons. -- 1 of 3 -- 2 [2] The Board opposed the application because it was not satisfied of the applicant’s fitness. A range of matters arose, including his criminal history, his bankruptcy, his driving history and his company’s failure to lodge BAS statements. But it was his company College of Financial Studies Pty Ltd and his attitude to company directorships which principally founded his present difficulty. [3] We have read the transcript of the uncompleted examination of the applicant before the Victorian Board of Examiners. He chose not to pursue his Victorian application after searching questioning finished part-heard on 24 October 2007. Although he says this is because he relocated to Queensland, he may have sensed as significant an at least sceptical attitude in the Board. [4] The material shows the applicant did not accept the authority of the finding of the Consumer Trade and Tenancy Tribunal that his company had been guilty of misleading conduct. He was evasive and equivocal when questioned about this before the Board. He could not answer the Board’s fundamental concern, that the subject course offered by the College appeared not to be registered (attracting ASIC accreditation). [5] Significantly, in his affidavit filed 27 November 2007, the applicant denied his company engaged in misleading conduct. Notwithstanding what he has claimed subsequently, his fundamental position in approaching this court was to reject the finding of the Tribunal, and notwithstanding that an appeal to the New South Wales Supreme Court failed. There is some retreat in paras 34 and 35 of his most recent affidavit, filed 29 February 2008, but that comes very late. [6] The applicant let the company be deregistered without ensuring payment of the $9,000 ordered to be paid to the three students. He recently paid them $1,000 each, inferentially to help his application here. When challenged about the former matter before the Board, he replied, discreditably, that “(the) students can always pay to have the company re-registered”. [7] The other serious matter emerging from the Board’s hearing is the applicant’s unacceptable attitude to his company directorships. For what he called “nominal” directorships, he denied any responsibility, even in one case where he was sole director and secretary for three years until 8 January 2006. [8] It is no answer to say that reflected attitudes then generally held. Especially as a registered tax agent, the applicant should have known better. Also, as in the case of that particular company, we are not necessarily concerned with times long ago. [9] At his mature age especially, his attitudes to these matters are a matter for considerable concern, when this court comes to assess his suitability for admission as a legal practitioner. Consistently with those attitudes, his disclosure was not initially comprehensive, leading to the Board’s not being satisfied as recently as 22 January 2008 that he had made full and frank disclosures of all suitability matters. -- 2 of 3 -- 3 [10] Mr Crowley QC submitted the public would be protected, should the applicant err, by intervention by the Legal Services Commission. Our approach should not assume the possibility of infraction. [11] We appreciate the gravity of refusing an application for admission, but the court’s obligation to protect consumers of legal services transcends the personal interest of an applicant in cases like these. [12] We were not for these reasons satisfied of the applicant’s fitness for practice, and that is why the application was refused. -- 3 of 3 --