A woman’s lawyerly ambitions ended with a seat in wrong section of the courtroom yesterday as, sitting in the defendant’s chair, she was sentenced to nine months in jail for forging her qualifications to enter law school and get a job in the profession.
Earlier this month, the woman, surnamed Cheung, admitted to altering her GPA and university transcript in order to get into a postgraduate law programme at the University of Hong Kong (HKU).
She later bought a fake HKU certificate online after she failed to pass the exams needed to gain the postgraduate qualification.
The 29-year-old worked briefly as an intern lawyer at a Hong Kong law firm, but was found out after she filed an application to be a trainee solicitor.
She pleaded guilty to five crimes: using a false instrument, using a copy of a false instrument, obtaining services by deception, obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception, and making a false statutory declaration.
In a mitigating statement at the District Court yesterday afternoon, the defense lawyer urged the judge to consider handing down a social service order instead of jail time, adding that Cheung was young and that the probation officer’s report was positive.
But according to HK01, judge Amanda Jane Woodcock was not swayed, saying that the defendant was 24-years-old at the time she first committed the crimes, not a teenager who doesn’t know the difference between right and wrong.
Handing down the sentence, the judge acknowledged that Cheung’s father suffered from depression before she was born and had not worked for many years, meaning she became the main breadwinner after her mother retired.
Local media previously reported that Cheung worked as a financial consultant at an investment company and earned HK$38,000 (US$4,900)
Woodcock added that Cheung did have good grades in her studies and that she set out sincerely to pursue a job as a lawyer to please her parents.
However, she said that Cheung started suffering from depression during her law studies and, after encountering some difficulties, was unable to accept the reality that she couldn’t become a lawyer, she added.
Apple Daily reported that in her remarks, Woodcock said around 460 people compete for 80 places at HKU’s PCCL postgraduate law programme, and that Cheung’s deception and dishonesty deprived another more qualified student of pursuing their law career, and that she could have put a law firm at risk.
She went on to say that a social service order was not sufficient enough to reflect the seriousness of the case, therefore a prison sentence was appropriate.
Woodcock said she would give Cheung a reduced sentence after acknowledging that the defendant pleaded guilty. She said that the defendant would require psychiatric treatment while in jail given that Cheung suffered from depression while studying law.
Editor’s note: Cheung’s full name has been redacted from the article.
