Sheehan, Marshall
Allegation / charges
1. Transferring costs without authority<BR/>2. Failure to render accounts<BR/>3. Making unlawful/unauthorised drawings from trust funds<BR/>4. Wilfully breaching section 61 of the Legal Profession Act, 1987 - handling of trust moneys<BR/>5. Preferring his own interests to those of his clients<BR/>6. Deliberately charging grossly excessive amounts of costs<BR/>7. Attempting to mislead the Law Society<BR/>8. Failing to account for the balance of monies held in the trust account<BR/>9. Attempting to mislead a client<BR/>10. Misleading or attempting to mislead another legal practitioner<BR/>11. Misleading or attempting to mislead the Law Institute of Victoria<BR/> — Professional Misconduct
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The practitioner was found to have engaged in professional misconduct comprising multiple charges including unauthorised transfer of costs, failure to render accounts, unlawful drawings from trust funds, breach of section 61 of the Legal Profession Act 1987, preferring his own interests over clients, deliberately charging grossly excessive costs, and multiple attempts to mislead the Law Society, a client, another practitioner and the Law Institute of Victoria. While the conduct involved deliberate overcharging and attempts to mislead, the text does not contain an express finding of dishonesty, nor does it state the sanction imposed or any costs orders.
Duties found breached:
- Not mislead the court
- Avoid wasting the court's time
- No improper communication with the court
- Not mislead third parties or opponents
- Act in the client's best interests
- No conflict between current clients
- No improper use of client money
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
- Not mislead the court
- Avoid wasting the court's time
- No improper communication with the court
- Not mislead third parties or opponents
- Act in the client's best interests
- Fair, reasonable and lawful fees
- No conflict between current clients
- No improper use of client money
- Prompt accounting and return of money
Other decisions involving this respondent
Matched by respondent name — may include a different person with the same name.
Documents
No documents recorded.
Source: https://portal.olsc.nsw.gov.au/dasearchbn/daresultdetail?id=b35ba7df-b633-eb11-bf74-000d3ad1941e