Peter Nicholas Arthur ROWLANDS

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

Peter Rowlands, admitted 1991 and bankrupt in 2008 (ceasing to be an Australian legal practitioner), faced twelve charges across two discipline applications (2006 and 2009). Charges involved competence/diligence failures, seven failures to respond to Law Society/Commissioner communications, and one misleading statement. The Tribunal found professional misconduct on most charges and unprofessional conduct on two earlier charges, and expressly found charge five involved dishonest and deceitful conduct. Finding him not a fit and proper person, the Tribunal ordered his name removed from the local roll, costs on the Supreme Court standard basis, and compensation of $7,500 to Ms Cashin and $6,922.50 to Mr and Mrs Byers.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No conflict between current clients
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Attempted to cover up his failure and put his own interests ahead of former clients
• Dishonest and deceitful conduct in charge five
• Conduct spanned nine years and was not isolated
• Repeated failure to comply with six separate investigations
• No remorse or recognition of seriousness
• Failure to acknowledge or respond to disciplinary proceedings