Colin CHADWICK

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

Employed solicitor Colin Chadwick created two letters without authority purporting to be from his employer MacDonnells Law, containing false representations about his salary and probationary status, intending to use them to support a personal finance application. Although the letters were never used and he was suffering from an untreated medical condition at the time, the Tribunal found the conduct dishonest and guilty of two counts of professional misconduct. He was publicly reprimanded and subjected to medical treatment/monitoring conditions for 5 years, external audit, risk management plan and mentoring requirements, and ordered to pay $2,500 costs.

Duties found breached:

• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Conduct was dishonest
• Two separate occasions of creating false documents
• Documents intended to advantage him financially
• Two-year unexplained delay in providing medical report; fellow director unaware of proceedings; no references provided

Mitigating factors:

• Cooperated via agreed statement of facts
• No previous disciplinary findings
• Suffering from untreated medical condition at the time
• Subsequently obtained treatment and removed himself from practice for rehabilitation
• No further complaints since
• Documents were never actually used
• Apologised and expressed awareness of need to manage condition