Decision record
Cairns, Stephen William
Allegation / charges
In relation to matter 072025 - Breached Rule 37(a) and (b) of the NSW Barristers' Rules - he held an honest belief that he had reasonable grounds for alleging fraud in proceedings, he was in error in holding that belief and had he carefully considered the evidence available, he would have appreciated that it was not capable of supporting an allegation of fraud. — Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The barrister was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct for breaching Rule 37(a) and (b) of the NSW Barristers' Rules by alleging fraud in proceedings without reasonable grounds. The tribunal accepted he honestly but mistakenly believed he had reasonable grounds; had he carefully considered the available evidence, he would have appreciated it could not support a fraud allegation. No dishonesty was found.
Duties found breached:
Mitigating factors:
- Held an honest belief that he had reasonable grounds for alleging fraud
- Error in holding that belief rather than deliberate misconduct
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
Other decisions involving this respondent
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Documents
Source: https://portal.olsc.nsw.gov.au/dasearchbn/daresultdetail/?id=462d510a-b733-eb11-bf74-000d3ad1941e