CORRIN LINDSAY CAINE

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The State Administrative Tribunal of WA found former legal practitioner Corrin Lindsay Caine guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct on two of five grounds arising from litigation between 1995 and 2004 concerning a unit trust. The Tribunal found he continued to act as counsel after his client (Mrs Powers) gave evidence he knew to be false without seeking her consent to correct it, thereby permitting the court to be misled; and that he wrote a letter improperly suggesting a witness confer with others to make their evidence consistent. The Tribunal expressly found no dishonesty or wrongful intent (para 132) and treated the misleading-court conduct as an error of judgment. Other grounds (counsel-as-witness, misleading the Complaints Committee, false witness statement) were not made out. In the supplementary decision the practitioner was reprimanded, fined AUD 4,000 on each ground (AUD 8,000 total) and ordered to pay AUD 10,000 costs, all within 28 days; suspension was considered but not imposed given his retirement and clean record.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No tampering with or coaching witnesses

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct went to the heart of the administration of justice
• Practitioner showed little acknowledgement or insight into why his conduct fell short of proper standards

Mitigating factors:

• No prior disciplinary record over a long career (admitted 1967)
• Retired from legal practice, reducing need for public protection
• Isolated single incidents rather than a sustained course of misconduct
• First ground characterised as an error of judgment rather than deliberate deception; practitioner believed the false evidence would be corrected
• Practitioner conceded the wording of the letter was inappropriate and that the prudent course would have been to seek instructions to correct the evidence

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_fine_amount=8000", "review_dishonesty_finding_cue_present"]