Raphael Bishop

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

The Complainant entrusted, through her mother, a fatal accident claim arising from her father's death to attorney Raphael Bishop some 22 years prior. After her mother's death in 1999, the Complainant could not obtain any information from Mr. Bishop about the claim's progress. He told her the insurance company had not paid out anything. Mr. Bishop never responded to the complaint or attended any hearing. The Panel inferred Mr. Bishop had undertaken to pursue the claim and found he breached Canon IV(r) by failing to deal with the client's business with due expedition and failing to provide any information. He was fined $150,000 (with $100,000 to the Complainant and $50,000 retained by the GLC) plus $30,000 costs, and an investigation into his books and records was ordered at his expense.

Duties found breached:

• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Failed to respond to the complaint
• Failed to attend the hearing or previous mention dates
• Provided no information at all to the Complainant or the Panel