Tracey Anne SMITH

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

Tracey Anne Smith, a sole practitioner and accredited succession law specialist, faced twelve charges arising from having clients appoint her as executor/attorney, entering void cost agreements with her own firm, manufacturing invoices, dishonestly charging grossly excessive fees paid from trust accounts, and improper trust account transfers. The Tribunal found professional misconduct on eleven charges (involving serious dishonesty on most) and unsatisfactory professional conduct on one. Despite significant cooperation and mitigation, the Tribunal recommended she be struck from the Queensland and NSW rolls and ordered to pay standard costs.

Duties found breached:

• No improper use of client money
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Serious dishonesty in discharge of professional duty
• Conduct carried out over approximately three years (from 2012), not an isolated act
• Substantial amounts involved (over $41,360 dishonestly obtained plus attempts)
• Manufacturing false invoices to give air of legitimacy
• Charging grossly excessive fees (one exceeding reasonable amount by more than 90%)
• Successful claims made on Fidelity Fund

Mitigating factors:

• Self-notification/self-reporting of some conduct to the Commissioner
• Voluntarily handed in practising certificate
• Continued to provide information and cooperated throughout investigation
• Cooperated with QLS and appointed receivers
• Agreed to orders to enable new lawyers to take over estate files
• Cooperated with disciplinary prosecution, settled agreed statement of facts, agreed to final orders
• Accepted responsibility and apologised to victims and profession
• Lost practice, home, faces criminal charges and loss of good name