Donovan O. Foote

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

Attorney Don O Foote appealed the General Legal Council Disciplinary Committee's finding of professional misconduct and its order striking him from the roll. His client, Ms Russell, had received an out-of-court settlement of $23,000,000 negotiated by Foote, but he represented to her that the settlement was only $16,000,000, paid her two-thirds of that lesser figure, and accounted only for $16,000,000 even when ordered to account. The true $23,000,000 release and discharge was disclosed by the defendant's attorneys. The Committee found breaches of Canon VII(b)(ii) (failure to account) and Canon I(b) (discrediting the profession), and expressly found his conduct dishonest, being a scheme calculated to deceive and defraud his client. He was struck off, ordered to pay J$2,333,333.33 restitution and J$100,000 costs. The Court of Appeal rejected all grounds (jurisdiction, bias, prejudgment, descent into the arena, no-case submission, weight of evidence, the JP's evidence, contractual defence, client's mental state, and excessive sanction), holding the case against him was proven beyond reasonable doubt and the strike-off was appropriate given proven dishonesty. Appeal dismissed with 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 $23,000,000 settlement
• Accounted only for $16,000,000 when he had received $23,000,000 on the client's behalf
• Used the confidentiality/non-disclosure clause dishonestly to avoid disclosing the true settlement figure
• Wrote deliberately misleading letters (e.g. 30 November 2012) conveying that the matter had just been settled when it had been settled/discontinued months earlier
• Relied on a patently false defence that the client had signed two release and discharge documents for different amounts
• Failed to file an affidavit in response to the client's supplemental affidavit and gave no evidence at the hearing
• Only refunded the greater part of the withheld $7,000,000 after the client engaged attorneys to compel repayment