Decision record
Raymond Clough
Allegation / charges
Suspended, Fined - Disciplinary Committee decision delivered July 26, 2019. | Guilty of Professional Misconduct - Disciplinary Committee decision May 11, 2019. | Formal Order July 26, 2019 View PDF DECISION OF THE DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL LEGAL …
Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision
The General Legal Council Disciplinary Committee found attorney Raymond Clough guilty of inexcusable and/or deplorable negligence for permitting an unqualified law student, Donovan Rodriques, to hold himself out as an attorney under his supervision and thereby deceive the public. The Panel expressly held that this conduct was 'by itself dishonest' and that the attorney's initial denial and later recanting supported an inference of dishonesty, placing the case within the exceptional category described in Bolton v Law Society. While the complainant sought a striking off, the Panel imposed a one-year suspension commencing 1 September 2019, and ordered costs of JMD $850,000 to the General Legal Council (of which JMD $400,000 was to go to the complainant).
Duties found breached:
Aggravating factors:
- Allowing an unqualified person to deceive the public, harming the reputation of the profession
- Initial denial of knowledge of the law student and later recanting, indicating an element of dishonesty
- Conduct that could have exposed the attorney to aiding and abetting a criminal offence under section 8 of the Legal Profession Act
- Character witness evidence was largely unhelpful and could not speak to the attorney's integrity
Mitigating factors:
- No calculable financial loss to the complainant
- Prior comparable negligence cases resulted only in fines
- Plea in mitigation considered such that striking off was found inappropriate
Duties engaged
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