DGW Law Corporation

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

DGW Law Corporation, a now-dissolved Victoria law firm, entered a Rule 3-7.1 consent agreement approved July 8, 2025, admitting professional misconduct for numerous trust accounting failures between 2020 and 2022, including inadequate staff supervision, improper deposits of trust funds into the general account, non-compliant EFT withdrawals by non-lawyer staff, improper withdrawals creating trust shortages of at least $141,359.91, deficient books and records, missing reconciliations, and an inaccurate trust report. Trust shortages were later eliminated and no client suffered loss. The firm agreed to pay a $50,000 fine. No dishonesty was found.

Duties found breached:

• No improper use of client money
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• Self-report to the regulator
• Report serious misconduct of others

Mitigating factors:

• No prior professional conduct record
• Early admissions of misconduct
• Remedial steps taken to bring accounting practices into compliance
• Hired external accounting firm to re-create records and assisted Law Society
• Deficiencies compounded by post-COVID remote work and accounting software change
• No client suffered financial loss