Decision record

Donald R. Bernard

JurisdictionJamaica

BodyGeneral Legal Council — Disciplinary Committee (GLC)

Professionattorney

Case number224 of 1997

DateJune 07, 2001

OutcomeFined

Allegation / charges

Fined | Disciplinary Committee decision delivered June 07, 2001. View PDF REASONS AND ORDER OF THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL LEGAL COUNCIL COMPLAINT 224 of 1997 BETWEEN FRANCIS THATCHER & CO (MICHAEL ANTHONY FRANZ NEHAMMER COMPLAINANTS AND DONALD BERNARD RESPONDENT/ATTORNEY …

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

SanctionFine

FineJMD 650,000

Dishonesty foundNo

A UK firm of solicitors complained that the Attorney, retained in 1990-91 to conclude the sale of estate property in Kingston, stopped responding from July 1993 and failed to complete the sale or account for any proceeds over nearly 10 years. Proceeding on uncontested affidavit evidence (the Attorney did not appear), the Panel found breaches of Canons IV(r), IV(s) and VII(b). No express finding of dishonesty was made. As the Attorney had already been struck off in unrelated proceedings on 15 January 2000, the Panel imposed a fine of $650,000.00, directing $550,000.00 to the estate and $100,000.00 to the General Legal Council.

Duties found breached:

Aggravating factors:

Failure to complete the sale or provide status information for almost 10 years
Ceased responding to the Complainant's correspondence entirely from 1993
Failed to appear at the hearing

Duties engaged

Other decisions involving this respondent

45 of 2000 2003-02-22 · GLC · Jamaica · Struck off
210 of 1998 2001-07-19 · GLC · Jamaica · Restitution Ordered
9 of 1999 2000-05-03 · GLC · Jamaica · Repayment Ordered
33 of 1999 2000-01-15 · GLC · Jamaica · Struck off

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

Documents

📄 Decision / judgment 57 KB (archived)

Source: https://www.generallegalcouncil.org/judgement/donald-r-bernard-complaint-no-224-of-1997/