Decision record

Howard A. Lettman

JurisdictionJamaica

BodyGeneral Legal Council — Disciplinary Committee (GLC)

Professionattorney

Case number254 of 2005

DateDecember 13, 2008

OutcomeFined

Allegation / charges

Fined | Disciplinary Committee decision delivered December 13, 2008. View PDF DECISION of THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE of THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCILCOMPLAINT NO. 254/2005 In the Matter of FREDERICK CHAMBERS and HOWARD LETTMAN, an Attorney-at-Law. AND In the Matter of …

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

SanctionFine

FineJMD 200,000

CostsJMD 20,000

Dishonesty foundNo

The Attorney, Howard Lettman, was retained in July 1998 to complete the sale and transfer of a 1/4 acre portion of land, obtain a separate title, and return the parent title. Nearly ten years later he had done none of this, failed to return the certificate of title, and gave no explanation or progress updates. The Committee, proceeding in the Attorney's absence after proper service, found the complaint proved beyond reasonable doubt and found him guilty of professional misconduct in breach of Canons I(b), IV(r) and IV(s). He was fined J$200,000 (payable to the Complainant), ordered to deliver the documents by January 2009 failing which he would be suspended for 3 months, and ordered to pay J$20,000 costs. No express finding of dishonesty was made.

Duties found breached:

Aggravating factors:

Retained since July 1998 with no work completed nearly 10 years later
No explanation offered for the delay
Failed to return the title despite repeated verbal and written requests
Failed to keep client informed of progress

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_suspension_months=3"]

Duties engaged

Other decisions involving this respondent

116 of 2015 2020-02-15 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct, Struck off
57 of 2008 2020-01-25 · GLC · Jamaica · Struck off, Restitution ordered
212 of 2017 2019-11-23 · GLC · Jamaica · Struck off
57 of 2008 2019-11-23 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct
215 of 2017 2019-11-13 · GLC · Jamaica · Struck off, Restitution Ordered
215 of 2017 2019-07-20 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct
16 of 2016 2019-06-22 · GLC · Jamaica · Suspended until Restitution Complete
212 of 2017 2019-06-01 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct
16 of 2016 2019-05-25 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct
124 of 2015 2019-03-09 · GLC · Jamaica · Guilty of Professional Misconduct

Matched by respondent name — may include a different person with the same name.

Documents

📄 Decision / judgment 108 KB (archived)

Source: https://www.generallegalcouncil.org/judgement/howard-a-lettman-complaint-no-254-of-2005/