A young lawyer who repeatedly swindled client fees after less than a year in the profession has been struck off.
The Auckland Standards Committee has found Mehal Kejriwal engaged in "blatant dishonesty" by fraudulently altering invoices to obtain funds for her own benefit.
The three instances of fraudulent conduct happened five years ago when Kejriwal was 25.
But they only came to light in 2020 long after she had left New Zealand and returned to Australia, where she had spent her early years.
A recently released Tribunal decision delivered following a June 28 hearing in Auckland, where Kejriwal appeared via audiovisual link from Sydney, said she has not practised law since moving back across the ditch.
Kejriwal was admitted as a lawyer in 2016 after graduating from the University of Otago with a double degree in law and arts.
Early in 2017 she started work at a suburban Auckland law firm unnamed in the committee's decision.
On November 24 and December 6 of that year she twice changed a fee invoice purportedly issued by her employer to include her bank details instead of the firm's.
In her third instance of dishonesty, beginning December 22, Kejriwal forged an invoice using the letterhead of another firm. The invoice related to a transaction relating to a distribution of funds from an estate totalling $129,025.
"Instead of paying the funds into the trust account of the law firm whose letterhead had been forged, they were redirected into the bank account number provided at the foot of the falsified invoice, namely the account belonging to the practitioner's friend," the decision said.
Five days later her friend deposited $129,700 into Kejriwal's bank account. About two weeks after that Kejriwal sent just under $129,000 to the client's account.
That fraud only came to light when her former employers in Auckland attempted to make a further payment to the client in March 2020 but discovered from the firm whose name was on the false letterhead that they had no client of that name.
"The means by which Ms Kejriwal concealed her actions in relation to the estate distribution invoice meant that a significant sum of client money (almost $130,000) was placed at risk for a period of over two weeks, travelling as it did between two personal bank accounts rather than being held in a lawyer's trust account as would be expected," the decision said.
Her explanation for the offending was that at the time, she was suffering from a problem, issue or condition which remains redacted in the decision.
Kejriwal sought and was granted suppression of all private medical information discussed at the hearing but was unsuccessful in her bid for ongoing name suppression.
She also claimed to have been struggling financially - despite her accounts showing a balance of about $94,000 during the time of her offending.
The total amount gained as a result of what the committee described as "the three fraudulent acts" was $2665.
The fraud involving the forged letterhead and mishandling of funds from the estate was reported to the Law Society in April 2020 and the Committee contacted her the following month.
"Within a week the practitioner had replied to the Standards Committee stating her shock, and feelings of guilt and remorse. She offered her full co-operation in the investigation and tendered her apologies," the decision said.
In her response to the committee, she claimed the incident was a one-off.
"This was a first-time, one-off, spontaneous offence that will never be repeated, as I have truly learnt my lessons and understood the seriousness of the offence. It was a moment of weakness given my [redacted] factors and personal life at the time."
Further investigations uncovered the two offences involving the falsified invoices.
Kejriwal admitted this additional offending and said she must have "blocked her memory" of the two other matters, the decision said.
She has repaid the $700 and has promised to repay the remaining $1965.
At the time the decision was delivered, the committee said she had yet to repay that amount, despite saying she had more than $40,000 in savings.
"The non-repayment of the amounts owed to her former employer does raise real concerns as to her level of insight and therefore propensity for rehabilitation," the decision said.
It also raised concerns about another aggravating factor, namely her initial claim the offending was a one-off.
"The lying to the Standards Committee occurred long after the offending, namely in late 2020. Again, this does not augur well for prospects of rehabilitation."
The committee ordered her to be struck off the roll of barristers and solicitors.
She was also ordered to pay about $4100 to the Law Society for the Tribunal costs, and to repay the outstanding amount owed to her former employer.