JOHN WESLEY BUTLER

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

The State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia found solicitor John Wesley Butler guilty of professional misconduct for causing his firm to receive payment of legal fees (over AUD 95,000) by debiting the elderly client MT's credit card in circumstances where he had at least a real doubt as to her capacity to understand the firm's costs agreements, invoices and her rights in relation to them. A psychiatrist (Dr Ryan) had opined MT lacked capacity to understand complex legal/financial matters including the costs agreement, and the firm had temporarily ceased billing and applied to the Tribunal for administration orders. The Tribunal rejected as not credible the practitioner's evidence that he never turned his mind to MT's capacity to understand the costs agreements/invoices. It found reasonably competent practitioners would understand they must not take payment where they knew or had real doubt about a client's capacity to understand the fee basis, invoice and rights. The conduct amounted to a substantial and consistent failure to reach a reasonable standard of competence and diligence (s 403(1)(a) LP Act and second limb of Kyle). No dishonesty was found and the conduct was not held to be disgraceful or dishonourable. This was a liability-only decision; penalty and costs were deferred to a separate hearing.

Duties found breached:

• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• Pay instructed practitioners and agents

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct occurred repeatedly over an extended period
• Capacity concerns had been raised by an appropriately qualified psychiatrist (Dr Ryan) and other members of the firm, of which the practitioner was aware
• Practitioner, as the most experienced practitioner and principal of the firm, had considered the billing implications and was party to earlier decisions to cease acting and cease billing, which were then superseded by recommencement of billing
• Conduct directed at a highly vulnerable elderly client (89 years old)
• Practitioner personally benefited from resuming billing

Mitigating factors:

• The firm did in fact carry out the work billed and there was no allegation of overcharging or over-servicing
• Single course of conduct in relation to a single client
• Novelty of the issue - no established statutory rule, conduct rule or judicial authority setting out the relevant standard
• Conduct not found to be disgraceful or dishonourable (first limb of Kyle not made out)