An Australian lawyer at Corrs Chambers Westgarth has been fined AUD20,000 by a tribunal after being found to have padded his time-sheets. In a separate matter a paralegal at the firm has been found guilty of fraudulently withdrawing over AUD1.3 million from Macquarie Bank by using clients' names. 

In the first matter, Luke James McDonald had been a partner in planning and environment law at Corrs in Brisbane when he went through an 18 month period of massively overcharging on his time sheets. Between 2012 and 2013 he filed over 900 false time sheets overcharging 23 clients to the tune of a whopping AUD515,000.

McDonald has now been hauled before the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal. The tribunal was told that McDonald added the time to look better at the firm, since he felt the increased billing hours would help his career. Justice TIm Carmody slammed the former Corrs partner describing his actions as "disgraceful, dishonourable and disreputable". However, given the offence, he may have got off reasonably lightly as he wasn't struck off the legal rolls or banned from practising, but instead was just slapped with a AUD20,000 fine. 

A spokesman for Corrs told RollOnFriday that "Corrs ensured that the Queensland Legal Services Commission was notified and that all affected clients were informed and repaid in full, with interest. Corrs also commissioned an independent investigation which found that the conduct was isolated and that the firm’s processes at the time were appropriate".  He added that it "was completely at odds with Corrs’ standards and values and we took the matter very seriously".  

 

If once is unfortunate, then twice must be careless, as  a paralegal who worked at Corrs has just been found guilty of fleecing more than AUD1.3 million from Macquarie Bank whilst she was at the firm. Between 2013 and 2015 Danika Louise Lena made large withdrawals from the bank using clients' names while providing her own personal bank account details. Lena arranged for the transactions to be unwittingly signed off by the firm's partners. She then spent huge sums of the stolen money on designer clothes, department stores and travel. 

 

 There must be something in the water at Corrs 


Judge Sweeney at the New South Wales District Court sentenced Lena to a maximum of four years in jail. 

A spokesman for Corrs, being kept busy by errant staff, told RollOnFriday "as soon as Corrs became aware of the fraudulent activity, we immediately notified the NSW Police and the Law Society of NSW, dismissed Ms Lena and took all necessary steps to ensure no client or other party was disadvantaged by her actions".

 

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Comments

Anonymous 04 May 18 10:20

Isn't padding time just as fraudulent as stealing from a client account? Both defraud the client.

Anonymous 04 May 18 11:24

All of big law is geared towards this this type of invitation to fraud so it is hardly surprising. Pad your hours and don't get caught is the only real path to promotion, or even keeping your job.

Anonymous 04 May 18 17:47

Partner: I am shocked- shocked- to find that bill padding is going on in here!
Payroll: [hands Partner money] Your winnings, sir.
Partner: Oh, thank you very much.

Anonymous 12 June 18 19:41

Can't count the times I was told at my old firm that my hours for a case "looked light". Can only imagine this is because a serious number of people are recording more time than they actually spend, because I'm just recording the actual time. Quite worrying.