A North West attorney has been removed from the roll of legal practitioners after a High Court found she mishandled client trust funds, practised without the required certification, and failed to maintain basic accounting records.
The South African Legal Practice Council (LPC) brought the application against Mmathari Mary Phogojane (“Ms Phogojane”) before the North West Division of the High Court in Mahikeng. The court ordered that Phogojane’s name be struck from the roll and that a curator be appointed to administer her trust accounts.
Ms Phogojane was admitted as an attorney in 2013 and practised as a sole practitioner in Klerksdorp. The court heard that she had accumulated membership fee arrears of R23,476 covering 2018 to 2023, failed to submit mandatory audit reports for multiple financial years, and consequently practised without a valid Fidelity Fund Certificate, which is a statutory requirement designed to protect the public against financial losses caused by practitioners.
Two client complaints formed the heart of the case. In the first, a client paid R327,469 to Ms Phogojane’s firm for assistance with a deceased estate. Ms Phogojane claimed an unqualified colleague had defrauded both her and the client, but the court found her explanation riddled with inconsistencies and a conspicuous absence of supporting documentation. In the second, a client paid R47,698 for divorce proceedings that were never executed, with Ms Phogojane becoming unresponsive to both the client and the LPC.
Ms Phogojane challenged the application on procedural grounds, arguing she had been denied a formal disciplinary hearing before the matter was brought to court. The court rejected this argument. It affirmed that under section 44 of the Legal Practice Act, the High Court’s inherent power to discipline practitioners remains intact regardless of whether internal LPC processes have been concluded.
On the question of sanction, Ms Phogojane sought suspension rather than removal. She cited personal and financial hardship and the fact that criminal fraud proceedings against her had not resulted in a conviction. The court was unmoved. Citing the Supreme Court of Appeal’s finding in Summerley v Law Society of the Northern Provinces, it held that where dishonesty is involved, striking from the roll is the appropriate remedy. Suspension is reserved for negligence or where genuine rehabilitation is plausible.
Ms Phogojane was ordered to surrender her enrolment certificate, barred from operating her trust accounts, and directed to pay the LPC’s legal costs on the punitive attorney-and-client scale.
You can read the full LPC v Phogojane judgement here.
Written by Theo Tembo
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