David Alan McHenry

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

David Alan McHenry faced 30 charges arising from complaints by former clients and a court investigation, involving gross failures to progress client matters, dishonest misrepresentations that he had commenced and won proceedings, and forgery of documents including purported court orders, grants of probate and bank/barrister emails. The Tribunal found the conduct amounted to professional misconduct (except charges 5 and 6 re Thornley, being unsatisfactory professional conduct), made express findings of dishonesty, and recommended his name be removed from the local roll. He was ordered to pay the applicant's costs on the standard basis; the application was adjourned for determination of compensation claims. His practising certificate had already been cancelled in March 2017 and an injunction restraining legal practice issued in December 2017.

Duties found breached:

• No taking unfair advantage
• Act only on proper, lawful instructions
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material
• Competence
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Extensive and repeated dishonesty over many years across numerous clients
• Fabrication of sham court documents, forged orders, grants of probate and bank/barrister emails
• Elaborate hoaxes perpetrated on vulnerable clients (e.g. 71-year-old client, minor client)
• Emotional harm caused to clients
• Multiple clients affected (30 charges)

Mitigating factors:

• No prior disciplinary history
• Did not contest or challenge the evidence
• Admitted facts via statement of agreed facts (for some charges)