The Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal has publicly reprimanded and suspended for five years New Zealand-born lawyer Ivan John Poole in a decision delivered on 19 December 2019.

Mr Poole was admitted in New Zealand in 1966 and in Queensland in 1980. At all material times he was an Australian lawyer as defined by section 5(1) of the Legal Profession Act 2007.

Mr Poole was charged with four breaches on the Australian Solicitors Conduct Rules 2012.

He admitted the allegations which related to his in dealings with an elderly client (ABC) of another practitioner. This included removing the ABC from hospital without authorisation and against medical advice, arranging the revocation of a power of attorney and procuring another practitioner to attend upon the ABC in hospital to obtain a new will.

Mr Poole failed to inform the other practitioner of a Tribunal order as to ABC’s lack of capacity, capacity issues or background to the matter. He was also charged with communicating with another solicitor’s client without the consent of the other practitioner in circumstances that were not urgent.

The new will inserted Mr Poole as a beneficiary of an estate that was conservatively valued at $50 million. The new provisions meant that Mr Poole would receive 16% of that.

The Legal Services Commission said Mr Poole’s conduct with ABC was “disgraceful by the standards of the profession”.