MARTIN LEE SEGLER

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

WA State Administrative Tribunal found legal practitioner Martin Lee Segler guilty of three counts of unsatisfactory professional conduct and three counts of professional misconduct, including knowingly and intentionally (and therefore dishonestly) misleading a magistrate that a client had a criminal record. In the supplementary penalty decision the Tribunal rejected the LPCC's application to recommend striking off, finding him not unfit to practise. It suspended his practising certificate for two months (misleading the court) and one month (neglect of client NC), served concurrently from 14 December 2010, reprimanded him for the threatening letter, imposed fines totalling $7,500, and ordered costs of $8,000.

Duties found breached:

• Not mislead the court
• Proper basis for allegations
• No improper communication with the court
• Costs and fee transparency to client

Aggravating factors:

• Significant prior disciplinary history including earlier suspensions, reprimand and fines (2001, 2003, 2009 matters)
• Elements of repetition, particularly a similar earlier finding regarding a threatening letter
• Misleading the court to advance his own interests; practitioner of 30 years' standing
• Failure to discontinue proceedings over many months despite repeated requests; conduct led to default judgment against second client's interests

Mitigating factors:

• Practitioner expressed unreserved contrition and demonstrated insight, understanding and remorse in his penalty submissions
• Genuine fear for his safety arising from grossly abusive and threatening voicemail messages by the first client (who was later convicted) provided context to the misleading-the-court conduct
• The s 230(1) breach was initially only a technical breach as the client had agreed to counsel's fee
• Practitioner's poor health, loss of livelihood and closure of his practice