ANDREW PAUL SKERRITT

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

Andrew Paul Skerritt, a legal practitioner, admitted professional misconduct for sending a letter to the State Administrative Tribunal which he knew was misleading regarding a scheduling conflict between a District Court trial and a SAT hearing. The Tribunal expressly found he acted dishonestly by knowingly misleading the tribunal. The Committee sought his removal from the Roll, but the Tribunal declined, principally because his mental illness formed part of the context (though not the cause) of the misconduct, together with strong character references and his admission. The Tribunal imposed a six-month suspension (1 December 2012 to 31 May 2013), a requirement to undergo prescribed medical treatment and psychological counselling, a condition requiring a psychiatrist's report to the Legal Practice Board by 7 June 2013, and ordered payment of costs of $4,784.50.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Letter was misleading in multiple respects
• Gratuitous nature of the misconduct (adjournment likely would have been granted anyway)
• Failure to correct the deception to the Tribunal
• Continued lack of insight, contrition and remorse

Mitigating factors:

• Mental illness (PTSD, Recurrent Episodic Depression and Anxiety) formed part of the context and circumstances, though not the cause
• Nine strong character references from practitioners
• Admission of the allegation and acceptance that conduct constituted professional misconduct
• Single event of misleading conduct
• Relative inexperience (four years' legal practice)