Where a solicitor's professional misconduct is contributed to by psychiatric illness such as bipolar disorder, the illness may explain loss of judgment but does not negate appreciation of wrongdoing and does not preclude a finding of professional misconduct. The Court's protective function requires removal from the roll absent full assurance that the misconduct was attributable to the illness and will not recur; the onus is effectively on the practitioner to appear and establish a basis for a lesser regime such as supervised practice with medical monitoring.
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