A LAUNCESTON man has been struck off the roll of legal practitioners because a judge determined he engaged in professional misconduct after he was found guilty of stealing from his former employer.
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The Legal Profession Board of Tasmania applied to the Supreme Court to have Adrian John Hall, 40, removed from the roll of practitioners.
Justice Stephen Estcourt, in a decision published on Friday, ordered the removal of Hall's name from the roll after a hearing in Hobart on Thursday.
He said Hall "must be found to be presently, permanently unfit to practise" and was "not a fit and proper person to remain on the roll".
Justice Estcourt said it was unnecessary for him to make findings in relation to allegations put to Hall in cross-examination that he had acted dishonestly, as recently as February 2015, in relation to an application made by him for a commercial loan.
"Ultimately, the rationale for striking a practitioner from the roll is not the punishment of the individual but the protection of the public and the need to uphold the standards of the legal profession," he said.
Law Society of Tasmania president Matthew Verney commended the Legal Profession Board's work and said the courts and the community expected lawyers to be of the highest standard and character.
In a separate Supreme Court decision in Hobart on Thursday, Justice Helen Wood determined that Hall's 12-month good behaviour bond without conviction, imposed in the Hobart Magistrates Court in July 2014, for six family violence order breaches was "not manifestly inadequate".
On November 27 last year, a Launceston jury found Hall guilty of four counts of stealing from Launceston law firm Grant Tucker Barrister and Solicitor. Hall's practising certificate was suspended the next day.
On December 17, Justice Estcourt found that the four crimes amounted to $2600 stolen and imposed a four-month suspended sentence and 210-hour community work order upon Hall.
He also determined that Hall's narcissistic personality disorder, featuring "a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, sense of entitlement and need for admiration", reduced his moral culpability.