SALLY MARJORIE VANDERFEEN

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

Ms Sally Marjorie Vanderfeen, a family law solicitor, was found by the WA State Administrative Tribunal to have engaged in professional misconduct between December 2004 and January 2005 by filing consent orders in the Family Court for transfer of a property to her client without disclosing to the Court or a third party purchaser the third party's claim, recklessly/intentionally misleading the Court about the urgency of the orders, and acting to defeat/complicate the third party's specific performance claim. Allegations of misleading the Complaints Committee (complaint f) were not made out. The Tribunal made no express finding of dishonesty. On penalty, the Tribunal declined to recommend striking off, finding the conduct a serious aberration rather than proof of unfitness, and given her role as a Family Court Registrar (where suspension would have no effect) imposed a fine of AUD 20,000 plus costs of AUD 18,412.70.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• No improper communication with the court
• No conflict between current clients
• Handle inadvertently received material

Aggravating factors:

• Misleading the Family Court, undermining the administration of justice
• Formed an intention to defeat/complicate the third party's claim to the property
• Failure to respond to the third party's solicitors' repeated communications
• Continued denial of the motivation found by the Tribunal (limited insight)

Mitigating factors:

• Otherwise impeccable and long professional career (admitted 1982) with no prior disciplinary history
• Strong character references from judges, magistrates, registrars and senior practitioners
• Conduct found to be a single aberration out of character, motivated by misguided desire to protect client's interests
• Acknowledged her conduct was a serious error of judgment and was wrong
• Considerable time elapsed (nearly seven years) since the conduct
• Retained the personal confidence of colleagues and judges