{"id":469829,"date":"2026-06-10T07:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/469829\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T07:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T07:50:09","slug":"lawyers-and-conveyancers-disciplinary-tribunal-penalises-legal-secretary-for-stealing-1-3m-of-client-money-to-buy-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/469829\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal penalises legal secretary for stealing $1.3m of client money to buy house"},"content":{"rendered":"

The woman was prosecuted for the theft and sentenced to 12 months\u2019 home detention last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, in April this year, she came before the disciplinary tribunal having accepted her \u201cserious misconduct\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her identity is permanently suppressed to protect the reputation of her former Auckland employer.<\/p>\n

The decision said that at the time of the theft, the woman had been working at the law firm for just under a year.<\/p>\n

She had also been living with her partner at his family\u2019s home for some time, and they were under pressure to move out and buy their own.<\/p>\n

Her partner knew she had money from investing in the digital currency Bitcoin \u201csome years earlier\u201d, the decision said.<\/p>\n

When the couple agreed to buy a house, she tried to free up her Bitcoin funds<\/a> but found it difficult, and she feared she had been scammed.<\/p>\n

Feeling \u201cunder pressure\u201d, the decision said, she kept her financial struggles secret from everyone, including her partner, and wired $170,000 of client money to one of her own accounts.<\/p>\n

She used that money to pay the deposit on her new home<\/a>, and as the settlement approached, she transferred a further $1,206,000 to her account.<\/p>\n

The legal secretary believed she would pay it back with her Bitcoin before anyone noticed it was gone.<\/p>\n

She immediately felt guilty and remorseful for her actions but kept her secret until February of last year, the decision stated.<\/p>\n

The guilt had become too much, and she became so distressed at the \u201cline she had crossed\u201d that she disappeared for a weekend.<\/p>\n

Her concerned partner contacted the woman\u2019s employer in search of her, and this drew attention to her situation.<\/p>\n

When she was confronted by partners at the firm, she did not admit to taking the money, instead focusing on confessing her relationship woes.<\/p>\n

But the next day, in a meeting with her bosses, she admitted stealing the money and was dismissed.<\/p>\n

Paid back \u2018every cent\u2019<\/p>\n

At the tribunal hearing in April, Saunders said his client had paid back \u201cevery cent\u201d she stole as well as the firm\u2019s insurance and legal fees.<\/p>\n

However, Saunders said the woman wished to keep the source of that money private.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been in this situation before, when people discover she has money; pressure comes on,\u201d Saunders said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that pressure that she\u2019s trying to avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was discussed whether she should be barred from working in law again or allowed to seek the tribunal\u2019s permission for similar work.<\/p>\n

Saunders argued for the latter.<\/p>\n

The woman accepted the breach of trust and emotional impact her misconduct had on the firm, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n

However, Saunders said, the woman was already facing the long-term consequences of her dishonesty, including struggling to get insurance for her car.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery morning she wakes up, it is part of her life,\u201d Saunders said.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t forgiven herself and didn\u2019t expect anyone else to forgive her either, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a capacity for a more merciful approach in this instance?\u201d he asked the tribunal.<\/p>\n

The decision said that \u201cto her credit\u201d the woman had fronted up and admitted her wrongdoing almost straight away.<\/p>\n

The tribunal was satisfied with how \u201cout of character\u201d the misconduct was, taking into account that the woman had already been punished in court.<\/p>\n

Instead of barring her from working as a legal employee in the future, it ruled that if she wished to do so, she would need the written consent of the tribunal.<\/p>\n

She was ordered to pay $5433 to the Law Council Standards Committee and $4108 of tribunal costs.<\/p>\n

Ella Scott-Fleming has been a journalist for three years and previously worked at the Otago Daily Times, Gore Ensign and Metro magazine. She has an interest in court and general reporting. She\u2019s currently based in Auckland, covering justice-related stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The woman was prosecuted for the theft and sentenced to 12 months\u2019 home detention last year. Then, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[32952,95,3167,52369,230004,101557,2082,42,10053,21142,6712,300,43,1118,52060,3045,4744,61,40,38,41,39,6847],"class_list":["post-469829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-13m","tag-and","tag-buy","tag-client","tag-conveyancers","tag-disciplinary","tag-for","tag-headlines","tag-house","tag-lawyers","tag-legal","tag-money","tag-news","tag-of","tag-penalises","tag-secretary","tag-stealing","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tribunal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}