Richard A. Williams

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

Mrs. Emma Christie retained Attorney Richard Williams in 1988 to obtain a registered title for land at 25 Grove Road, Linstead. She paid him a total of $5,440.00 in fees and costs, but over nine years he failed to do the work, giving repeated excuses. Williams largely failed to attend the hearings. The panel found him guilty of misconduct in a professional respect, in breach of Canons IV(r) and IV(s) for failing to act with due expedition and acting with inexcusable and deplorable negligence. It ordered restitution of $5,400.00 with 6% interest from 1 May 1995, a fine of $40,000.00 payable to the complainant to enable her to obtain the title, and costs of $750.00.

Duties found breached:

• Overriding duty to the court
• No conflict between current clients
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Failed to deliver service over approximately nine years
• Gave the client repeated false excuses
• Failed to attend or participate in the disciplinary hearings