A recent case involving Wellington lawyer Chris Tennet and his employee Brian Hunter offers a sobering case study in what can go wrong when supervision falls short—even with the best intentions.
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The Open Justice project reported in The Herald that Brian Hunter, a man with over 180 prior convictions—including impersonating lawyers and even a pilot—managed to defraud the Ministry of Justice of more than $330,000 in legal aid payments while working at Tennet’s firm, Justice Chambers.
The fraud continued undetected from 2016 until 2022, ending only when Tennet discovered financial discrepancies during his own separate disciplinary proceedings.
Hunter’s scheme was elegantly simple yet devastating in its execution. As the firm’s administrator responsible for legal aid applications, he submitted inflated or fictitious quotes for psychological and cultural reports, paid by Tennet to accounts controlled by Hunter.
Hunter then paid the legitimate service providers with lower fees and pocketed the difference – a third of a million dollars.
Of 124 invoices submitted to legal aid over six years, only six were paid directly to legitimate providers. The rest flowed through Hunter’s personal accounts, with Tennet apparently none the wiser.
Professional Obligation or Professional Oversight?
The Standards Committee of the New Zealand Law Society characterized Tennet as being “asleep at the wheel,” particularly given that he knowingly hired someone with an extensive fraud history.
What’s even more surprising is that Hunter wasn’t even on payroll. He had unfettered access to client information, firm finances, and computer systems while essentially volunteering his services—a red flag that appears to have been overlooked.
Tennet’s position is one many of us might sympathize with: “I was personally convinced enough that his previous frauds were explicable and he had changed his life… I genuinely thought he’d changed.”
His defense centers on the fact that the firm’s internal accounts appeared balanced—invoices matched estimates, and he saw no discrepancies that would trigger suspicion. Hunter had carefully positioned himself as the sole point of contact with certain providers and had mastered document forgery.
Hunter died in 2023 before facing consequences for his actions. However, the disciplinary proceedings against Tennet continue, focusing on his failure to implement adequate supervision and risk management procedures.
While Tennet’s lawyer acknowledges his client “should have anticipated that Hunter would game the system,” he emphasizes that Tennet promptly reported the fraud upon discovery—action that might otherwise have left the scheme undetected.
