A lawyer, who wanted to be partially paid in DJ lessons, attempted to sue his client when they didn’t pay for an under-the-table job he tried to hide from his employer.

Jason Yang even altered invoices for $6000 which were purportedly from his firm to hide the fact he was doing work for a client whom he’d met at a night club, effectively keeping it off the books.

When the client failed to pay, Yang took him to the Disputes Tribunal where a suspicious referee noticed oddities in the documentation and contacted his employer.

Now, Yang has been suspended from practice for a year after the Lawyers and Conveyancers Disciplinary Tribunal found him guilty of misconduct and ordered him to pay $36,000 in legal costs.

“We regard Mr Yang’s misconduct as significant. It demonstrates a devious, extended course of action,” the tribunal said in a recently released decision.

“Our first concern must be for the protection of the public. This case exposes serious character flaws in Mr Yang.”

According to the summary of facts outlined in the tribunal’s decision, Yang met his client who was DJ-ing at a nightclub in Auckland. The DJ asked Yang if he could help him get his driver’s licence back in court.

Yang then represented the DJ in several court appearances over nearly seven months but never told the legal firm he was employed at.

Lawyers wanting to practise on their own – as a barrister sole – require a separate licence issued by the New Zealand Law Society which Yang did not possess at the time.

Instead of telling his firm, Yang kept his client off the books and sent the DJ invoices totalling $6165 for the work he’d done defending him.

However, Yang had doctored these invoices to make them appear to have come from his firm.

Jason Yang has been suspended from practising as a lawyer for 12 months. Photo / NZLS

Text messages between Yang and a director of a debt collection agency were produced to the tribunal at a hearing into Yang’s conduct earlier this year.

“Done 6k worth of legal work for a guy…Guy hasn’t paid and it’s been 4 months,” Yang’s messages to the other man read.

“Just have to consider that if he goes to law society there could be issues,” the director responded.

Yang then lodged a claim to the Disputes Tribunal, which hears claims up to $30,000, for payment of the invoice as well as $2000 for injury to his feelings.

In his first bid to the tribunal, he made the claim that his client had agreed to partially pay him in weekly DJ lessons, though Yang later denied this.

In its liability ruling from earlier this year the tribunal headed the background to Yang’s conduct as being “under the radar”.

“We have found Mr Yang took planned steps to pass off the invoice he had created as evidence of a debt he was entitled to collect for his own benefit,” its ruling reads.

“He was a party to materially altering documents to advance that plan. His stratagem breached his employer’s trust. His action in suing a client, without knowledge of his employer, put the reputation of the firm at risk.”

The tribunal said Yang presented himself to the tribunal as if he had the licence to practise on his own account and only changed tack when the referee discovered the truth and phoned his employer.

In its ruling the tribunal did note that no one suffered any financial loss as a result of Yang’s actions, though this was in part due to the referee’s inquiries.

In making the order to suspend Yang from practising as a lawyer for 12 months the tribunal also ordered he pay $36,000 in legal costs.

As a direct consequence of his misconduct Yang lost his job at the firm and if he returns to law after his suspension will need permission from the tribunal if he wants to practise as a barrister sole in future.

Yang didn’t want to comment on the decision.

Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.