Georgette May Scott

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

Georgette Scott, a sole practitioner attorney, had carriage of sale of the complainant's apartment. She received the proceeds of sale (approximately $2 million) but failed to pay them over to the complainant, instead paying the funds into her general account where they were used to pay her debts. She issued a cheque that was dishonoured and, despite a subsequent agreement and partial repayment, still owed the complainant $750,000. The attorney claimed mental illness/breakdown and abuse by her father as mitigation, but the panel found no credible evidence connecting any mental illness to her conduct in 2004-2005. The panel found she acted dishonestly in using the client's funds, and found breaches of Canons VII(b)(ii) and I(b). She was struck off the roll, ordered to make restitution of $750,000 with 12% interest, and pay $50,000 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Uphold public trust in the profession
• No conflict between current clients
• Accounting records, reconciliation and reports
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Attorney used proceeds of sale entrusted to her for her own use or benefit of others
• Dishonest use of client's funds
• Failure to account for $750,000.00 to date
• Issued a cheque that was dishonoured
• Similar problems admitted with funds belonging to other clients
• Failure to maintain proper books of account

Mitigating factors:

• Complainant expressed sympathy and requested leniency
• Attorney made partial restitution (1.3 million dollars including interest)
• Attorney admitted responsibility for hurting the complainant
• Attorney claimed to be committed to full restitution and to seeking psychiatric treatment
• Attorney appointed Senior Counsel as consultant to supervise the firm's operation