MANRAJ SINGH KHOSA

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

The State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia found legal practitioner Manraj Singh Khosa guilty of professional misconduct on three grounds. Ground 1 concerned failure to pay junior counsel's fees, preferential payment of his own firm's invoices from client trust funds, and a knowingly false/misleading email to counsel. Ground 2 concerned dishonestly misrepresenting Angove Law's solvency to the Legal Practice Board and falsely stating in statutory forms that the new firm (LoN) was not taking over Angove Law, all to avoid liability for counsel's fees. Ground 3 concerned repeated failures over years, without reasonable excuse, to respond to the regulator's requests and summonses, including obstruction of an investigator. The Tribunal made express findings of dishonesty on Grounds 1 and 2. The practitioner did not participate in the substantive hearing. At the penalty stage, the Tribunal found him currently and indefinitely (if not permanently) unfit to practise, citing dishonesty, duration of misconduct, prior disciplinary history, and lack of insight or remorse. It ordered a report and recommendation to the full bench of the Supreme Court that his name be removed from the roll (strike off), and ordered him to pay the applicant's costs fixed at $197,053.05.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• No improper communication with the court
• No taking unfair advantage
• Fair, reasonable and lawful fees
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Deliberate dishonesty going to the heart of a practitioner's duty
• Conduct spanned a lengthy period (2013, 2015, 2016, 2018)
• Dishonest conduct aimed at obtaining personal advantage by avoiding counsel's fees
• Conduct occurred soon after imposition of a prior suspension for dishonest conduct
• Prior disciplinary history including a suspension for knowingly breaching a personal undertaking (not honest conduct)
• No insight or remorse; blamed others and sought to relitigate matters
• Failure to attend the substantive hearing without reasonable excuse
• Obstruction of the regulator's investigator

Mitigating factors:

• Preferential payments to own firm were modest relative to the total outstanding to counsel
• Preferential payments made in circumstances of considerable financial hardship for both the practitioner and the firm