Decision record
Berwick, John Patrick
Allegation / charges
Professional Misconduct: Practitioner received two payments of trust money from his (then) client in June and July 2012 in contravention of section 252 LPA 2004 by depositing those monies into a mortgage account before completing the work for which moneys had been paid in advance and issuing a bill Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct: (i) Failed to advise the client of deficiencies in the pleadings (ii) Failed to make himself available for conferences, failed to provide submissions and failed to appear at the hearing; (iii) Delayed in paying an order for costs he was ordered to pay personally; (iv) Delayed in providing an itemised bill to the client despite numerous requests for same; (v) Claimed in an itemised bill an entitlement to be paid on the basis of time-based charging in circumstances where he had not a record of the work performed; and (vi) Claimed an entitlement to be paid for 44.75 hours of work in one day — Professional Misconduct and Unsatisfactory Professional Conduct
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The practitioner was found to have engaged in professional misconduct for receiving two payments of trust money in June and July 2012 contrary to section 252 LPA 2004 by depositing them into a mortgage account before completing the work and issuing a bill. He was also found to have engaged in unsatisfactory professional conduct across six matters, including failing to advise on pleading deficiencies, failing to attend the hearing, delaying costs payment and provision of an itemised bill, and improperly claiming time-based charging (including 44.75 hours in one day). No express finding of dishonesty and no sanction details are contained in the provided text.
Duties found breached:
- No improper communication with the court
- Advise on alternatives, settlement and outcome
- Fair, reasonable and lawful fees
- Prompt accounting and return of money
⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["extracted_from_register_summary"]
Duties engaged
Documents
Source: https://portal.olsc.nsw.gov.au/dasearchbn/daresultdetail/?id=4f2d510a-b733-eb11-bf74-000d3ad1941e