Decision record
Georgia Chin Hua LIM
Allegation / charges
Guilty of professional misconduct on 1 charge.
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
Ms Lim, a 27-year-old solicitor, admitted knowingly swearing a false affidavit in Sydney court proceedings, falsely attributing a missed filing to an administrative error. QCAT found this amounted to professional misconduct - a serious breach of ethical standards and failure in her duty of candour and integrity to the court. Considering her cooperation, remorse, prior good record and personal/work pressures, but noting the seriousness exceeded comparable cases, she was publicly reprimanded, fined $7,000 and ordered to pay $1,500 costs, both within 90 days. Supervision was considered but deemed unnecessary.
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Conduct was serious, more serious than in comparable cases (Ramsden, Sorban, Hackett)
- She not only prepared and swore a false affidavit but sought to rely on it as a legitimate document in court proceedings
Mitigating factors:
- Young lawyer aged 27 with no prior disciplinary history
- Cooperated with investigation and admitted conduct at an early stage
- Genuine remorse, contrition and insight (supported by psychiatric report)
- Personal and work pressures (heavy workload, family problems, partner's unemployment) contributed
- Lost her job and forfeited wages after misconduct came to light
- Not found unfit to practise
Duties engaged
Documents
Source: https://www.lsc.qld.gov.au/queensland-discipline-register