Dunedin lawyer Anja Klinkert has been suspended from practising law after a ''one-off'' incident almost eight years ago.
The suspension, for six months from August 23, comes after she admitted to New Zealand's legal disciplinary body she had been convicted of an imprisonable offence.
The conviction, for dishonestly using a document for financial gain, ''reflected on her fitness to practise at the time'' and ''tended to bring her profession into disrepute'', the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal found after a hearing in Dunedin last month.
The conviction related to a document and invoice Ms Klinkert supplied to Work and Income New Zealand in support of an application for a residential care subsidy.
Ms Klinkert completed it on behalf of the grandfather of a child she helped raise.
The document was sent to Winz in an attempt to falsely show the child's grandparents' level of assets was below the statutory threshold for eligibility.
When contacted by the Otago Daily Times yesterday, Ms Klinkert said she could not comment on the findings of the tribunal because she had not seen them.
But when asked if she intended on returning to practise law when the suspension lapsed in February, she said ''definitely''.
New Zealand Law Society national prosecutions manager Mark Treleaven said the tribunal took the dishonest use of a document by a lawyer very seriously.
However, the offence took place in 2006 and was a ''one-off instance in an otherwise blemish-free 18 years of practice''.
Ms Klinkert was convicted of the offence in March 2013 and fined $750.
New Zealand Law Society Otago branch's standards committee, which investigated Ms Klinkert after a complaint was made by the father of the child she helped raise, submitted that Ms Klinkert should be struck off.
Tribunal chairman retired district court judge Bernard Kendall said, in his recently released findings, suspension was the appropriate sanction ''given the gravity of the conduct''.
''Almost eight years had passed between the conduct the subject of the charge and the disciplinary hearing,'' Judge Kendall said.
''The practitioner has had, in the eight intervening years, a clean record in the provision of regulated services.''
Ms Klinkert had 18 years of practice with no other complaints made against her, he said.
Ms Klinkert had claimed it was a mistake. However, the tribunal ''rejected the practitioner's mistake contention'', Judge Kendall said.
Ms Klinkert was also ordered to pay $9000 to the Law Society and tribunal costs of $6021.
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