Striking off … Workers comp solicitor bites the dust over bogus claim for legal funding … Claim for hearing-aids that were never part of the compensation consent orders made by the WCC … Defenestrated solicitor still plying the trade in court … Secretary knows nothing … Jennifer Cooke reports from NCAT
By falsifying an application for professional fees in support of a customer’s workers compensation claim and then continuing to blame his staff, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found last week that he lacked the requisite indications of remorse, contrition or insight to continue to practice.
The blame continued even after Livers was found guilty of professional misconduct at the stage one hearings in March and April last year and said he had accepted the tribunal’s finding earlier this year through his counsel, Clive Evatt (RIP).
The Workers Compensation Independent Review Office received a phone call this morning (Monday, Sept. 10) from Livers’ secretary, Effie, asking about payment of an invoice she sent on September 7.
She was told that WIRO was waiting on instructions whether the invoice could or should be paid to a firm whose principal has been struck off.
Effie said that Livers is at court and she wanted to know more about the reference to “striking off”.
Livers was told on Thursday (Sept. 6) that NCAT’s decision was coming down the next day, yet to went to Sutherland Court apparently aware of the order.
He goes above and beyond the call of duty – continuing to appear for his customers in court after he has been jettisoned from the roll.
He also blamed Effie for his troubles, while Clive Evatt (RIP) who appeared for him before the tribunal said Livers was not available for cross-examination because he didn’t know his whereabouts.
The Law Society has appointed Rick Flynn as manager to the practice. However, Justinian received on Tuesday morning (Sept. 11) an anonymous promotional message through our “blow the whistle” system:
“Peter Livers was admitted in 1974 and is the principal of Slattery Thompson in the St George-Sutherland region. Peter offers expertise in AVO and wills and estates matters, as well as family, criminal, employment and discrimination law. Peter has been a member of the Pro Bono Scheme since it was established in 1992 and is known for his willingness to provide assistance at short notice. In the last year Peter has taken referrals in employment, wills and estates and immigration law, achieving excellent results for applicants.”
Is Livers still seeking customers?
In August last year the tribunal found that Livers had deliberately misled the Workers Compensation Independent Review Office by falsifying answers in an application for legal funding and doctoring supporting documents for a workers’ compensation claim lodged in 2014.
The claim was to cover hearing aids worth $5,322.35 for Mr Zouhair Souaid, a cleaner of 23 years standing, which had not been part of the workers compensation consent orders made in 2013 for industrial deafness.
Livers had acted for Souaid in his original 2012 impairment claim.
In a later legal funding application in 2014 for the hearing aid expenses claim, Livers was found to have attempted to mislead WIRO by altering the 2012 date to 2014 on an audiogram and on his client’s statement.
The 2014 application also contained omissions and/or false assertions, including that Souaid had made no prior claims for industrial deafness.
WIRO lodged a complaint in 2015, leading to action by the Legal Services Commissioner.
Following a hearing in February this year on an appropriate disciplinary order, the Legal Services Commissioner, John McKenzie, pointed out that despite Livers saying he had accepted the tribunal’s stage one findings, “in fact he did not accept them”.
This was because Livers “continued to implicate at least one of his two secretaries in his pursuit of an innocent explanation for the alteration of the date on the audiogram”.
“[He] continued to propose a variety of explanations and excuses for the alteration of that date [and] now asserted that only a forensic examination could determine whether or not the date had been altered to read ‘2014 rather than 2012’.”
The issue was how the alteration had occurred, McKenzie submitted in writing, and relied on precedents for Livers’ removal from the roll that included the very case that saw Livers’ lawyer rusticated in 1967, Re Evatt; Ex parte NSW Bar Association (1967) 67 SR (NSW) 236.
The tribunal gave “little weight” to Livers’ apology in Clive Evatt’s concluding submission – that he “expressed his repentance and regret for his gross carelessness and recklessness and failure to supervise his staff and the documents they have prepared”.
Nor did it intend any disrespect to either barrister Kim Morrisey or solicitor James Jordan who attested to Livers’ honesty and reliability, by giving “only limited weight” to their “mistaken” character assessments. The tribunal stated:
“We have concluded that the practitioner’s experience and service to the profession [which included much pro bono work] do not ameliorate the seriousness of his conduct and do not persuade us that he is not likely to be unfit to practice for the indefinite future.”
Livers, the sole principal of Slattery Thompson for the past 29 years, must also pay the costs of the LSC.