Published on 4 May 2018

The New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal has ordered that Timothy Upton Slack be struck off the roll of barristers and solicitors.

He admitted a charge that, having been convicted of an offence punishable by imprisonment, that conviction reflected on his fitness to practice, and/or tended to bring the legal profession into disrepute.

The charge was brought by the New Zealand Law Society’s National Standards Committee.

Mr Slack was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland on 26 September 2017 to 10 months’ home detention after he had pleaded guilty on 22 August 2017 to one representative charge of obtaining by deception (section 240 of the Crimes Act 1961).

He was one of four men charged in a serious fraud relating to an Auckland development project. The charges related to making false statements in order to obtain a credit facility from a bank to allow a company to develop an apartment hotel.

“Following offending of this magnitude, it is almost inevitable that a practitioner will be struck off the roll,” New Zealand Law Society President Kathryn Beck says.

“Mr Slack’s actions have let the whole legal profession down. There is no place in practice for a lawyer who has been party to such a serious level of deception.”

Mr Slack did not oppose his striking-off. He is also required to pay total costs of $1,810 to the Law Society.