Barrett Anthony WHERRY

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

Solicitor Barrett Anthony Wherry was convicted in 2007 of forging a document with intent to defraud, having forged a trust account authority purportedly signed by his client and used it to mislead her new solicitors and the Law Society, after making trust account withdrawals without authority in breach of s 8 Trust Accounts Act. The Legal Practice Tribunal found professional misconduct with express dishonesty and recommended his name be removed from the local roll. He was ordered to pay the Commissioner's costs; no order was made for the complainant's costs as none relevant to the proceedings were shown.

Duties found breached:

• Honesty
• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Forged a document and continued to urge its genuineness even after challenged
• Used forgery to mislead new solicitors and the Law Society
• Failed to appear or place any material before the Tribunal to provide confidence the public could be protected

Mitigating factors:

• Demonstrated genuine remorse by pleading guilty in the Magistrates Court
• Not shown he was not entitled to the fees withdrawn