BENJAMIN SHAWN MORTON

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

Benjamin Shawn Morton, a junior practitioner, admitted to neglect, unprofessional conduct and unsatisfactory conduct relating to a client's District Court action that was struck out for want of prosecution, and to failing to respond to a LPCC inquiry. The parties reached a resolution accepted by the WA State Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal reprimanded him and imposed fines totalling $17,000 plus $10,000 costs. No dishonesty was found; the misleading-conduct allegations (VR 8 and VR 9) were not pressed and dismissed.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No taking unfair advantage
• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Seriousness of neglect over about 12 months
• Failure to advise client to seek independent legal advice regarding potential recourse against the firm, which practitioner appreciated the difficulties of

Mitigating factors:

• Practitioner was very junior and relatively inexperienced at material times
• Lack of supervision and mentoring from senior practitioners
• Reliance on managing partner and colleague Mr Archer
• Steps taken to rehabilitate reputation; positive references and testimonials
• Firm seeking quality assurance approval and now focused on commercial rather than litigation work
• Admissions of conduct

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_fine_amount=17000", "unverified_costs_amount=10000"]