Donovan O. Foote

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

Mr Don O Foote, a senior attorney, negotiated a $23,000,000 settlement for his client Ms Russell but represented to her that the settlement was only $16,000,000, paying her two-thirds of that lesser sum and retaining the $7,000,000 difference. He produced two release and discharge documents in different amounts, relied on a confidentiality clause to avoid disclosing the true figure, and only accounted for $16,000,000 even when ordered to account by the GLC. The Disciplinary Committee found him guilty of breaching Canons VII(b)(ii) and I(b), expressly found his conduct dishonest (a scheme calculated to deceive and fraudulently deprive the client), and struck him off, ordering restitution of J$2,333,333.33 and costs of J$100,000. The Court of Appeal rejected all grounds (jurisdiction, bias, prejudgment, descent into the arena, no-case submission, credibility/evidence, mental state, excessive sanction) and dismissed the appeal, affirming the orders with appeal costs to the GLC.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No improper use of client money

Aggravating factors:

• Contrived a scheme calculated to deceive the client and fraudulently deprive her of the full benefit of her settlement
• Created two release and discharge documents in different amounts ($16M and $23M) for the same settlement
• Used a confidentiality/non-disclosure clause to deliberately conceal the true settlement figure
• Deliberately misleading letter conveying the matter was just settled when it had been settled and discontinued months earlier
• Only accounted for $16M despite receiving a $23M settlement; never accounted for the $7M balance
• Had to be forced via attorneys (GTS) to repay $5,322,172.50 of retained funds