A Canberra lawyer has been barred from practice after he was jailed over a dodgy deal which saw a client's mother and the Legal Aid Commission charged for the same services.
In the end Stephen Stubbs, 64, agreed not to fight the bid to remove him from the register, after a battle which has stretched back more than seven years.
The ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal had recommended he be removed from the register several times.
Complaints against Stubbs included false representations to the Law Society about a personal relationship with a client, consenting to set aside a restraining order in the ACT Supreme Court, against the instructions of a client and attempting to deter a witness in disciplinary proceedings against him.
The Tribunal noted "the defendant's conduct demonstrated dishonesty and a serious lack of integrity and that his attempt to cover up and or minimise the seriousness of his conduct when dealing with the Law Society was 'preposterous'."
"The conduct disclosed fundamental flaws in the defendant's character of 'dishonesty, disloyalty and a manifold contempt for his ethical duties to the Society, his clients and the administration of justice," it noted on another occasion.
Stubbs has 'no insight, no remorse'
In March an ACT Supreme Court judge labelled him "thoroughly dishonest" before sentencing him to three years and one month for 14 counts of dishonestly obtaining property by deception.
He'd taken $25,600 from a client's mother and $4,000 from Legal Aid, telling each he didn't have funds from the other.
Stubbs appealed the conviction, but his legal career is now formally over after the Supreme Court ruled he was not a fit and proper person to practice law.
In its ruling the court noted the long list of complaints.
"These proceedings were necessitated by the defendant's misconduct on numerous occasions," the judgement said.
"The defendant has repeatedly demonstrated serious dishonesty and a fundamental lack of integrity in his dealings with courts, clients, the Law Society and a third party.
"He has not demonstrated insight, remorse or contrition in any of the numerous proceedings before the tribunal or this court."
The court has also ordered Stubbs to pay the costs of the Law Society.
