Carlton H. Campbell

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

The Complainant retained the Attorney in 1996 to obtain a registered certificate of title for a parcel of land, paying him a total of $17,500 toward an agreed $20,000 fee. The Attorney never applied for the title, preventing completion of the land sale and leaving $100,000 of the purchase price outstanding. He repeatedly failed to respond to notices or attend hearings. The panel found professional misconduct in breach of Canons IV(r) and IV(s) and ordered the Attorney to return the Will, compensate the Complainant J$100,000 plus 10% interest from September 1997, pay J$15,000 costs to the Complainant and J$20,000 costs to the Council. No express finding of dishonesty was made.

Duties found breached:

• No improper communication with the court
• No taking unfair advantage
• No conflict between current clients

Aggravating factors:

• Failure to act for some ten years
• Repeated failure to respond to notices and attend hearings
• Failure to return the Will

Mitigating factors:

• The Attorney returned the original documents (conveyance and Agreement) to the Complainant, enabling her to seek assistance from another attorney

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_costs_amount=35000"]