‘Bizarro’: The lawyer got it right to forge court documents

This is the question that everyone seemed to be asking in a small court in a higher corner of the Auckland district court this week, while a disciplinary court tried to describe Benjamin Wong’s “bizarre” behavior.

It is a question that Wong cannot answer because he says he does not remember to forge the minute of a judge, the signing of a court registrar and another lawyer, as well as invoices, submissions of adversary consultants and district cases and the higher court, which are used to identify a case before the courts.

“I suppose” we are open-mouthed, “said the vice president of disciplinary lawyers and carriers, said John Adams.

“There must be something that makes a person do something. And our problem is that we don’t know what it is.”

Wong, however, admitted the accusations against him who took his suspension of practicing right earlier this year until a complete investigation could be conducted.

On Wednesday, the court met to decide whether Wong should be expelled from the bar or if it should be suspended for a long time.

Most of the audience sought to unzip why Wong undertook such a prolonged and elaborated mistake.

“If he doesn’t know why he did it, we can’t know either. That’s worrying,” said Adams.

Even Wong’s lawyer Sara Cameron admitted that it was “extremely strange behavior.”

“It’s hard to conceive an explanation that would make sense,” she said.

“There was no benefit to him, and seems inevitable for him to be discovered.”

‘… a little joke with the judicial system’

Wong tied his client for a year about the progress of his case, creating fake documents to justify the filing expenses and fees he was charging.

“There is no date yet, but I sent to court a follow-up this morning about it. I hope it is just a delay in office,” Wong told the customer by email in July 2022, after asking how the issues were progressing.

Then, in August, Wong told his client by telephone that the subjects were under case management in the Supreme Court and then gave him copies of registration allegedly filed by opposite lawyers, as well as the file numbers he supposedly manufactured.

“I will look at this a little more today, because it has been a joke with the judicial system. I will come in soon,” Wong told the client in February 2023, a year after taking the case.

Later, the same month, after persistent unanswered questions from his client, Wong referred him a minute allegedly written by Judge Raymond Marshall stating: “I make orders to grant license to interrupt the procedures.”

Both the district and the Supreme Court confirmed that Wong had not filed a lawsuit to either court.

The lawyer of the New Zealand Law Society Committee, Paul Collins, said it was a “reasonably sophisticated falsification.”

“The elaborate mistake suffered as much effort as the real work would have taken,” he said.

“This is probably the case of disappointment of more serious clients than the court has seen in its existence.”

Collins said it was extraordinary how much effort had been made in mistake, especially when it was not clear exactly what Wong had to earn from it.

“The only explanation for what happened to this is some kind of phobia to get involved with the courts,” Collins said, admitting that he was forced to speculate about it because Wong had not given a reason.

As for Wong’s allegation that he didn’t remember, Collins said that was worrying in itself that a practicing lawyer had blank spaces of memory so severe that he did not remember to register sent, but in general his explanation was not credible.

Since the hearing was to determine the penalty, Wong did not position himself or due proof, so the question of why he made his mistake was not answered.

The court asked Wong’s lawyer what his plan was if he were discovered.

“I think he didn’t have one,” said Cameron.

“If he had a plan or not, he would be discovered.

“It really had an ending for him, which is where he is today.”

This finally culminated in Wong being overthrown, which means he can no longer practice as a lawyer.

“This does not mean that Wong cannot do something productive in the future … but not as a lawyer.”

– Jeremy Wilkinson, open justice reporter