An ex-Addleshaw Goddard Managing Associate has been suspended from practice for three months.

Corporate lawyer Marc Cropper worked in Addleshaw's London office for five years before returning to his native New Zealand in 2013 to join Auckland firm Simpson Grierson. However Cropper came a cropper in July 2015 when he was caught in a police drug sting. Cropper pleaded guilty to possession of between 2.5g and 4.5g of methamphetamines, enough for around 200 hits (dosage confirmed by RollOnFriday directors).

The Auckland District Court convicted Cropper in May 2016. The presiding judge said that Cropper was a "high flying, high achieving, high ranking lawyer" who had a "fall from grace" and handed down a nine-months supervision order and fine, upheld on appeal.

"High flying, high achieving, high ranking." Mostly high.
 

Cropper has now been hauled before the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal where he has admitted that his criminal conviction brought the profession into disrepute. The tribunal has suspended Cropper for three months, and slapped him with a costs order. He has also provided written undertakings to the Law Society to undertake a two-year period of drug testing should he be granted a practising certificate in the future.
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