A SOLICITOR was struck off by the High Court yesterday over an “elaborate charade” in which he took up to 50 per cent of clients’ settlement monies, on top of normal fees, and lodged them in his own credit union account.
Michael J Murphy (59), formerly practising as MJ Murphy and Co, Lower Salthill, Galway, tried to “ride roughshod” over regulations governing his profession, a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) heard last September.
The tribunal found he also misled the Revenue by excluding €459,000 from his income related to solicitor/client fees.
A Law Society investigation found he also marked some of these settlement authorisations as “copyrighted” in the name of MJ Murphy and Co.
Yesterday, the president of the High Court, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, approved the tribunal findings and ordered that Mr Murphy be struck off the roll of solicitors.
In an affidavit from Law Society solicitor David Irwin, the court was told last September the SDT found Mr Murphy guilty of 90 counts of misconduct including improperly deducting a total of about €105,000 – between 9 and 50 per cent of the settlement monies – from 15 clients.
He was also found guilty of improperly deducting client fees ranging from between 14 and 47 per cent of total settlements in another 16 cases.
He also failed to provide the society with information allowing it to verify 16 lodgements totalling just over €138,000 made to his credit union account between July 2002 and November 2004.
The High Court heard previously Mr Murphy had been involved in an “elaborate charade” to misappropriate client funds but when the allegations were put to him he said it was difficult to explain why he had done it.
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal was told he sold his practice and his home to refund clients but, on a number of occasions since December, the society had to threaten him with imprisonment to make him reveal details of other properties he owned, including an apartment in Paris.
Mr Irwin said, apart from the improper deductions, Mr Murphy had also misapplied the actual legal costs incurred in the cases by also lodging them to his credit union account.
In the largest deduction case, where he took half of €30,000 awarded to a client, he had also received another €7,978 from lawyers for the other side which he failed to lodge into his client account as required under regulations. Instead, he put that money into the credit union account and did the same in other cases.
Mr Irwin said Mr Murphy had untruthfully stated during the investigation into his affairs that normal costs monies were cashed and never lodged to any account. He also failed to provide documentation to enable amounts credited to his client account to be verified.
An application by counsel for Mr Murphy to adjourn the matter to allow him reopen issues with the Law Society was rejected by Mr Justice Kearns who said the matter could not “drag on” any longer.