Should have been struck off long ago

Stuff reports:

A lawyer struck off for smuggling contraband to a convicted murderer had previously been censured for billing her dead ex-partner’s estate for work she did for him for free.

Disgraced lawyer Davina Murray was struck off as a lawyer in February after she pleaded guilty to smuggling contraband to convicted murderer and rapist Liam Reid. 

The  Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal released reasons for its decision Wednesday and said Murray had previously had three adverse findings in her short, five-year legal career.

So four strikes in total!

In her first offence, she directly received fees from a client and then failed to obtain an order as instructed.

In what the Tribunal called a “very serious” matter, she acted for a man she was intimately involved with while he was involved in a domestic-related dispute. 

Further, after she broke up with the man she “communicated directly with her former partner’s wife and disclosed confidential information to her against her client/former partner’s interests”.

After the man committed suicide, Murray billed his estate for $67,500 despite “numerous emails and details of communications in which Ms Murray had made it plain that she was providing legal services to her then partner at no cost”.

Very lucky to not have been struck off then.

The tribunal said it was “strongly of the view that Ms Murray is not a fit and proper person to continue in legal practice”. 

“The entire picture presented by her offending, her subsequent conduct and her previous disciplinary history is of a practitioner with little or no understanding of her ethical obligations to clients, her profession or the institutions of justice.”

I’d say no, rather than little.