Publish date | 12 July 2019 |
Issue Number | 4738 |
Diary | Legalbrief Today |
Yet another lawyer stands to see her career go down the drain for embezzling Road Accident Fund (RAF) money, says a report in The Star. Itumeleng Elizabeth Tlalang, a Pretoria-based attorney, has been struck off the roll by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria). Acting Judge CI Moosa ruled in favour of an application brought by the Legal Practice Council, which wanted Tlalang disbarred as an attorney for misappropriating RAF funds that were in her trust account. She was said to be in the wrong for allowing a lawyer suspended from the profession to practise under her law firm, Tlalang Attorneys, in 2016. The lawyer, Mashilo Cyril Ernest Bopape, was suspended from the roll in 2013. The RAF smelt a rat when he settled several third party claims with the fund in the name of Tlalang Attorneys. The RAF funds she was accused of misappropriating amounted to R1.7m. The RAF deposited the money into her trust account in 2015, erroneously, after she represented an accident victim.