Lawyer guilty of $185,000 rip off

An Auckland lawyer was this morning found guilty of ripping off a deceased estate with excessive and exorbitant fees.

David James Watt charged $185,000 to administer a modest $350,000 estate. The main asset was a house in Piha, west Auckland.

Auckland District Court Judge Roderick Joyce, QC, found the solicitor guilty of converting money belonging to the late Leonard Hoare's estate to a use not authorised by the trust with intent to defraud.

Outside the court one of Mr Hoare's five sons, Greg Hall said it had been a long eight-year wait for justice for the family.

"He is a defiant scoundrel and it is quite obvious from very early on he was up to his game under the guise of a solicitor," Mr Hall said.

"Now he has to take his medicine. We have had to."

The crown told the judge at Watt's trial late last year that there was simply no justification for the magnitude of fees charged.

Defence counsel, Paul Davison, QC, portrayed Watt as painstaking and meticulous in his dealings with the estate, especially as Mr Hoare's sons were constantly challenging him.

But Judge Joyce, who heard the case without a jury, did not accept Watt's defence.

He said at one point in his 78-page decision: "As regards these and later bills, on all too many occasions Mr Watt was recording time well beyond what he actually spent.

"Even his 'turn over every issue and item, time after time' approach cannot possibly have matched the astonishing amounts of time so often recorded."

Elsewhere Judge Joyce observed: "Mr Watt simply could not resist such conscious fabrications as would make for more and more fees; this when all the while laying out around him the appearance of justification".

Many of Watt's notes and minutes were "self-serving concoctions known by Mr Watt to be just that".

He also accused Watt of having a selective memory and of having no answer to some questions.

Of the $185,000 total, $30,000 was for advice from other lawyers and the judge said that Watt was entitled to seek legal advice on estate matters.

But he added: "I cannot overlook that virtually every time he got such assistance he made an absurd meal of it by supposedly, and it often seemed endlessly, mulling over and dissecting it.

"And time and again this man who claimed that he was intent upon following the advice he got, went every which way to avoid it."

The judge said that Watt consciously created a picture of recorded activities that was intended to point to a high level of conscientiousness -- something that was belied by the stark facts.

Watt was given bail until his sentencing on March 17.

Judge Joyce said that Watt would have to "re-organise his life" and deal with issues resulting from the verdict.

The judge ordered reparation and victim impact reports to be prepared.

- NZPA