The woman, Jackie Dimitrovski, of Sans Souci, 48, was sentenced to nine months' jail, with a non-parole period of six months.

She was sentenced in Downing Centre Local Court on February 3.

Within an hour of the magistrate Clare Farnan handing down the sentence the woman was released on bail, with an appeal to be lodged at the District Court on February 29.

The mother-of-two had been an accounts clerk with law firm Jones Day between July 2010 and July 2011.

Her barrister John Peluso said that Mrs Dimitrovski did not have a luxury lifestyle with expensive cars, and instead was a good mother and wife.

He said that Mrs Dimitrovski had already been humiliated publicly by earlier media reports of the case. She pleaded guilty to six charges of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.

Ms Farnan said that Mrs Dimitrovski had been in a position of trust when she had altered the cheques to go into a different account.

There was $60,000 in her husband's account which had been reclaimed as the balance owing to the law firm, she said.

The court heard that the total amount of $503,635 had been repaid with the help of loans from her family, and it would take Mrs Dimitrovski and her husband 20 years to repay them, Mr Peluso said.

The amounts on the cheques that Mrs Dimitrovski had altered to place into a business account belonging to her husband had ranged from $44,125 to $132,478 during the period between January and April 2011.

The court heard that Mrs Dimitrovski had also faced court in 2002 for credit card fraud, for which she had received a bond.

Court documents showed that she had obtained cards by altering her name, address and her date of birth.