Attorney gets second chance, a decade after helping himself to client's cash

An attorney who was struck off after taking almost R60,000 from a deceased estate has been re-enrolled a decade later.

Molise Chabane had reformed to the extent that he deserved a second chance, Judge Phillip Loubser said in a Free State high court judgment last week.

After being struck off the roll of the then-law society in June 2009, Chabane and a colleague started a close corporation offering legal services, as a result of which he was found guilty of contempt of court in 2011.

He was given a six-month jail sentence, suspended for three years, in the Free State high court in 2012, and was also found guilty of unprofessional conduct at a law society disciplinary hearing.

Then Chabane was tried in Welkom regional court for theft of R58,600 from the deceased estate, but found not guilty.

Loubser said the attorney had suffered severe financial loss. “Because he became unemployed for a period of time, [he] and his wife lost everything they had owned, including their vehicles and their home,” he said.

“After all those tribulations ... the situation of [Chabane] gradually took a turn for the better. In 2013, he was appointed a part-time lecturer in legal subjects at the Welkom campus of the Central University of Technology, a position which he still holds today.

“Affidavits filed by two co-lecturers ... bear witness to the fact that [Chabane] has excelled in this position and that it had earned him the respect of the community in general.”

Loubser said the pastor at Chabane’s church also held him in high regard. “The reverend points out that [Chabane] has never denied that his past conduct was unethical, but he concludes that [he] has learned his lesson the hard way.”

A clinical psychologist who examined Chabane told the judge he had “learned from his professional transgressions and that he did indicate strong feelings of remorse regarding his conduct”.

Loubser said Chabane had made repayment agreements with the Attorneys Fidelity Fund, which paid out R244,000 in costs and claims as a result of his transgressions. “Since then, he has been repaying the fund in monthly instalments without default.”

In his application to be readmitted as an attorney, Chabane expressed remorse and said he was “of genuine, complete and permanent reformation”.

He said his misconduct happened during his early years of practice when he was naive and immature. Opening a new legal business after being struck off had been a misjudgement and the result of frustration at being unable to support his family.

Granting Chabane’s application to be re-enrolled with the Legal Practice Council, Loubser said: “[He] has paid his dues, and he has reformed to such an extent that he now deserves a second chance.”