SINGAPORE: A former high-flying lawyer who aspired to represent her country at the Paralympics has been slapped with a $10,000 fine for professional misconduct.
Brooke Pugh was a director of the law firm Condon Charles Lawyers together with her husband since 2010 and specialised in family law.
But on Monday Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal judicial member Justice Paul Freeburn ordered she be reprimanded for her tardiness in answering questions in the legal watchdog’s probe into her handling of $300,000 she held on trust for a client.
She only replied after the fifth reminder, the decision states.
“Public confidence in the legal profession depends significantly upon the premise that practitioners will co-operate fully in the investigative phase of the disciplinary process,” Justice Freeburn wrote in his decision.
“Legal practitioners have a statutory obligation to assist a regulator who is conducting an investigation,” he stated.
Ms Pugh submitted to the tribunal that she accepted that she could have responded to requests from the Legal Services Commissioner in 2024 but did not.
She explained she was suffering from mental health issues at the time.
“The medical reports do not go so far as to suggest that she was unable to communicate to her profession’s regulator,” Justice Freeburn said in relation to post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety she suffered when she was permanently disabled in a car accident.
Ms Pugh admitted that the alleged conduct amounted to professional misconduct.
Justice Freeburn stated that her email to the Legal Services Commissioner in December 2024 telling them she was set to stop practising law and to sell her law practice “rather suggests at least one reason for her delayed response” to the LSC probe “was an attempt to resolve the problems before responding to the LSC”.
“Certainly, Ms Pugh does not explicitly say in her email that she has been unable to respond because of the state of her physical and mental health,” Justice Freeburn wrote.
In 2024 Ms Pugh was selected for the Equestrian Australia squad for Para Dressage and was hoping to represent Australia at the LA Para Olympics in 2028, the decision states.
She has been a lawyer for at least 25 years and had managed a family law team of two solicitors, but from 2020 limited her work to Legal Aid funded mediations via the Toowoomba Family Law Centre.
At the time of the LSC probe, Ms Pugh was winding down her legal practice.
Her annual billings had slumped to just $21,717 for the 2024-25 financial year, down from a peak of $225,864 in the 2020-21 financial year.
In December last year the Queensland Law Society appointed receivers for NP Legal Pty Ltd, trading as Condon Charles Lawyers.