A lawyer who acted for a widow involved in an estate dispute took money from the estate to pay his own fee.
The lawyer, whose name was withheld, was charged with three counts of professional misconduct by the Auckland Standards Committee of the Law Society.
The charges were heard before the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal earlier this year.
In a decision made public this week the tribunal said two charges of professional misconduct were not established. However, the charge related to the lawyer taking money from the estate amounted to unsatisfactory conduct.
The lawyer was acting for a widow, not named in the published decision, whose husband died in 2003. The husband left a small estate behind made up of a house that the widow would be a life tenant in until she died, and a term deposit of $45,000 in an account in his name.